background info...

musician, composer, author, sound engineer

Sunset Cottage Studios is a single owner creative publishing company. It was started in 2019 when flipping the focus from performing to recording. The thought was to have a small studio to share with bandmates for practices and have a spot for taking on a few students. Spent most of that first year learning how to record and publish my music. I have now completed three efforts, which can be streamed from Spotify, or available for purchase online at Amazon or Apple music sites:

Inside The Echoes	Wayfinder	Simply Soup

My distributor provides some great reporting, and do especially like the world map demographics! It shows locations 'world wide' where folks have streamed my offerings. Of course this endeavor was never about making money, given streaming revenues are fractions of a penny. However, it has been incredibly rewarding (and somewhat unexpected) to find folks in many different countries around the world, listening to my music. That was sort of the plan, but was honestly was thinking more locally than globally. It is forever and wonderfully humbling indeed. Really looking forward to working on my next album to share with all.

Recently have decided on the title track for my 4th solo album. It will be the same as the title my new eBook (what?!). Yes, 'Calling All Stars' will be the album name, and also the title of my new lyric poetry book (see below). Anyway, hoping to kick off recording of the album this December, which is basically now. Winter time does make it easier to stay indoors and focus on writing and recording projects.  Do hope to have most of the tracks down by late February and begin mixing by early March of 2024.

  lyric poetry eBook...

a collection of songs 

Some big news! I have just recently completed an eBook of my lyric poetry, which is online and available on Apple Books. Know it's been a long time coming, and my thanks to all for your consistent encouragement.  While there may be a few pieces missing, I am very proud of this effort. The book 'Calling All Stars' contains a couple of essays along with song selections from overt 20 years of writing. It additionally goes into more detail about the developed impressionistic framework, early influences, and my creative process.  As for the cover art, many 'Gorge Locals' may recognize this picture taken from The Griffin House.  There have been many amazingly fun evenings of sharing song and laughter there, so this shot is perfect. It is a reminder of just how fortunate and blessed we are to be living in the Columbia River Gorge.

While the project was started back in 2020, for many reasons it did not gain consistent attention until earlier this year (2023). If this collection is well received, then another eBook might happen given there are many more works to choose from. The book's title is from a song recently written, which shares hopes for a more connected future, and holds a place for coming changes in life. There are a few songs published in this book which are not quite yet available for listening. Working to remedy that very soon. Now as far as reading the lyric poetry (vs. playing and singing the actual song), it has brought a wildly new understanding of meter and rhythm. Overall this has been a memorable and fun exercise, finding new ways to learn and grow.   

Mark LaBranche Daly

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Do understand just how lucky I am, and having the amazing support from my family and friends has been a blessing. Can say without a shadow of doubt that I would not have gotten here without each of you and all the love received.

Also, so fortunate to have shared time with many incredible musicians throughout my years and especially here in the Pacific Northwest and the Columbia River Gorge. You all know who you are, and I am forever grateful.

Of course would be totally remiss not to further extend my humbled thanks to all the folks across the planet (um, that would be you) who have supported me on this journey. It's been so fun to create and share these offerings. Know these songs will resonate within and around you, as our pieces of this puzzle (yours and mine) dance together. Be safe and stay healthy...

from the cottage...

Yes 'Simply Soup' is out on Spotify for your streaming interests, and available for purchase on Apple and Amazon music sites. It's a collection of songs written mostly over the last two years. Some of the more recently inspired songs include 'Among The Trees', 'Soliloquy Run', 'Stick A Fork In Me', 'By Design', 'Almost Home', and 'Lisboa Amor'. All of these arrangements were created over the last fifteen or so months and my good friend Amber Nelson sings on 'Fight For Peace'. Do so appreciate her making the time to help out on this track. It's been such a long two years for so many, and developing these songs certainly made the tragic planet happenings a little bit easier to digest. Sending on my the deepest thanks to my partner, my family, and to all my brothers and sisters who have my back. I'm so grateful to have you in my life, and I love you all very much.

Simply Soup is my third 'solo' album, and while I could have released it earlier, decided to take some time off to compose new ideas. It joins my last two releases which can also be found on Spotify 'Inside The Echoes' and 'Wayfinder'.

My Sincere Thanks go out to Joey Waronker (courtesy of The Loop Loft) who continues to 'nail-it' on all these efforts. Of course these are my arrangements of his pre-recorded 'slices', but I can say without a doubt that his playing continues to inspired me to strive harder to get the mixes 'just right'. His work has allowed me to discover new arrangements for all these tracks that otherwise would never have been found.

Guess I could just hear where things needed to go. His session cuts definitely found a home here at Sunset Cottage Studios. Really quite astounding that these type of options exist. Plus (OMG) he has played with my current 'goto' list of musicians that I carve out time for listening. These are the folks that are in my soul (REM, Tim Finn, Beck, Paul McCartney, Lenard Cohen, The Doobie Bros, etc.,...I mean whoa!).

videos for review.....

Below are a couple of acoustic renditions of the songs I've written. These were posted to a music group, and hope to keep adding new videos. Enjoy!

Don't Go Alone - Once I wrote this song way back at the beginning of 2019, knew it was just a matter of time before some crazy billionaire would blow through huge capital to 'go to space' for five minutes. It would seem that folks with enormous wealth are making some very poor decisions. Sure totally understand that it's their money, but maybe we look resolve ongoing conflicts here on earth first? We need to stop warring people! Plus climate change is underway and we are not making big enough investments in clean and renewable energy sources. Unclear if we ever will mature enough to allow us to safeguard this planet and all of it's living inhabitants for future generations. There's only one big ball of blue, and no other place to go.

One Way In- This song shares a sad story of a North American native tribe that relied on salmon and their annual migration that was cut off by the Grand Coulee Dam project. Attended a presentation by Peter Marbach on the origins of the amazing Columbia River, and his travels to the headwaters in Canada. During the presentation Peter conveyed how one tribe (and others) had no idea what happened. His subsequent book, Healing The Big River, provides wonderful insights and outstanding photography.

Wayfinder- Here's the title track of my latest album. It was inspired by an article that described the ancient art of wayfinding navigation developed and used by Polynesian voyagers for thousands of years. The lyrics call for the 'wayfinder' in all of us. Innately we all do know that change has to happen. We all share the responsibility to plot a course to support efforts already underway to help reverse the negative effects of climate change on our planet. All living creatures here on earth are in serious danger and they need us to be the wayfinders to the future.

Together We Stand- This song goes out to everyone who knows that we need to stand together to implement change. We can lift our voices as one and bring about changes that are needed on many levels, and do it peacefully. The message here is that people from every nation, regardless of boarders, have a shared common bond and responsibility to protect and nurture our planet.

Don't Jump Off The Tractor-A very fun video created for our great friends Tracy and Pattie W, for whom the song was written. The edict of 'there's a song in there' came shortly after a dance party, and needed to be further developed. Hope you like it and do apologize for the 'wind' noise throughout. This was my first video using my iPhone and it was a one time shoot/deal.

Back on-line...

Sunset Cottage Studios is presently 'back on-line' and ready to assist on your personal music project. If you would like to record and publish your own music to push out to friends and/or family, certainly would welcome the opportunity to work with you. The best way to get started would be to drop a note via the contact form below. Send info on your project and then we can begin to map out options for moving forward. All my recent music projects are a good examples of what can be accomplished. Everything was recorded, mixed, and mastered right here at the cottage. We provide the following services, as well as optional instruction:

get in touch...

If time permits, please provide some feedback on my site or the music. I'm always open to hear how things might be improved upon, knowing they most likely need to be. Thank you and all the best! (btw, spam is spam...)