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Crisp albums must have at least 60% positive critic reviews.
Spoiled albums have less than 60% positive critic reviews.
Listener Crisp albums have 3/5 or more stars.
Listener Spoiled albums have less then 3/5 stars.
Austin was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. He has been surrounded by music his entire life. John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” was playing in the car as his parents drove him home from the hospital after his birth. Although he dabbled with musicianship most of his life (he taught himself to play guitar and experimented with electronic music), Austin didn’t take musicianship seriously until relatively late. He began to teach himself to play the piano at age 16 after discovering a Youtube video of Hiromi Uehara’s trio performing her song “Old Castle, by a River, in the middle of a Forest.” Watching that video inspired Austin to take up jazz composition and the piano. He quickly found that he had a gift.
Austin began to transcribe pieces of music he enjoyed from video games, movies, and pop music.
Since then, he has written dozens of pieces for solo piano and jazz combo.
At age 18, he began performing with a local community college in Plano Texas, where he quickly learned how to play with other musicians. Building a repertoire of standards and having hours of practice with a band under his belt began to prepare him for the recording process of his debut album The Abyss.
The Abyss was recorded at Noise Umbrella studios in Frisco, Texas, just days before Austin moved to Brooklyn.
Austin’s compositions take inspiration from electronic music, video game soundtracks, and modern jazz fusion. His influences are too numerous to name but include Hiromi, Tigran Hamasyan, KNOWER, Adam Neely, Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Alfredo Rodriguez,
Kneebody, and Mammal Hands.
http://austinross.nyc/about/