Travis Orbin T


he greatest session drummers of yesteryear would dart from one


legendary L.A. or New York studio to the next, where they’d crank out smash hits that the world would be singing along to a few short weeks later. Today’s busiest recording drummers are more likely to be found in their own tricked-out home studios, experimenting with unheard sounds and challenging themselves—and listeners—with increasingly demanding feats of limb independence. Since the late 2000s Travis Orbin has


tracked sessions with a remarkable roster of boundary-pushing acts, including Periphery and Sky Eats Airplane (both as a member), Simbelmynë and the Countdown Starts Now (2011), Us & Them and Of Legends (2012), Ruemora, the Gabriel Construct, and Its Teeth (2013), Robar and Cyclamen (2014), and, in 2015, Amidst the Withering, 55 Cancri, Coat of


This is the modern drum world: flawless, continually bar-raising performances, captured on video for posterity and dissection.


Arms, and Cartoon Theory. A couple years ago Orbin joined Darkest Hour and recorded the veteran metalcore band’s 2014 self-titled album. But he still finds time to cut solo tracks in his home studio, most recently producing the EPs Projects and Silly String. And for the benefit of the “Orbinator” faithful, Travis captures every performance on video for free online distribution. “When I was coming up, practicing and


honing my craft, if you’d told me that there were videos of Dennis Chambers and Virgil Donati online for free, I would have been all over it,” Orbin says. For this generation’s drumming upstarts, Silly String’s accompa- nying seventeen-minute performance video provides the same level of excite- ment. Opener “Lollygag” taps Frank Zappa with Dream Theater keyboards; “From Riches to Rags” traces maddening odd meters over zigzagging melodies; “Hold


20 Modern Drummer January 2016


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