Kiefer is a constant in Mndsgn’s live trio, has shared the stage with Moses Sumney and Terrace Martin, and has lent production talents to the likes of Kaytranada and Anderson .Paak. He began playing piano as a child and producing beats at around age twelve, moving from San Diego to L.A. to study under renowned jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell at UCLA’s Jazz Studies program. There, he started thinking about the synergy between the jazz piano he studied and the beats he created outside of school. While his peers were performing over live instrumentation, Kiefer produced electronic beats free from sampled melodies or drum breaks. He released his debut album Kickinit Alone on Leaving Records last year, earning a Best Jazz Album nomination from A2IM.



Whereas Kiefer describes Kickinit Alone as “90% focused on all types of sadness”, Happysad is more complex. He says it’s “my emotional journal of the last year. I struggle emotionally a lot, and yet I feel pretty damn good much of the time. This album is focused on both joy and sadness, and how they are always intertwined.” The track titles are deliberately left open to interpretation; opening on a confident, blissful note, then segueing into a more dynamic mood before entering a deeper, darker and more ethereal place.



Inspirations for Happysad and Kiefer’s music in general include jazz titans Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans, as well as label mates Karriem Riggins and Knxwledge. “I've loved the sense of responsibility that comes with being a jazz musician,” he says, “The responsibility to study and understand its history, to respect the discipline of an instrument, and to dedicate your career to positively changing the direction of the music.”

"... ASPHALTO pode muito bem ser um dos álbuns mais preciosos que ouviremos este ano, até porque estas canções, conforme nos é explicado, nunca mais irão ser interpretadas ao vivo; o computador que as continha foi roubado. É, portanto, um álbum raro, e não só em termos de sonoridade, ocupando um 9/10 na escala da idiossincracia. Se os bongos em "GLITCH" ou o techno de "OUTRA" não forem mais que motivo para espancar o filho da puta que gamou o laptop ao Ricardo Domingues, nada será." Paulo André Cecílio



"Asphalto is the current project of Portuguese artist Ricardo Domingues, also known as Bor. His debut under the new moniker Asphalto is released by the Porto based label Favela - who previously released the pleasantly meandering acid jam FRST under his XTRMNTR_VKTR alias and the Death From Above 1979-like Bota Gel by Desgräce (with Nuno Oliveira). Favela is a cottage industry label whose discography spans the familiar DIY gamut from free improv to lo-fi techno (see respectively Má Arte by Pedro Sousa & Gabriel Ferrandini and Somebody Cares Sometimes by Drvg Cvltvre). Asphalto however attempts something that - as far as I am aware - has never been tried before: an experimental big beat record. ..."

Daniel Neofetou, The Wire

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This guitar album unites the musical worlds of "Black Hill" and my other project, "Silent Island".

Please check out the special "MERCH" items before you purchase the digital album on its own!

My other musical projects can be found via these links:

(postrock)

(atmospheric black metal)

(instrumental doom/black metal)

(ambient/postrock)

(guitar-ambient)