www.sooterkin.com This site was recommended through the grapevine as the new site for longtime local musician E--- C--------, who has recently reidentified himself as "Sooterkin." As with many small and "arty" sites, it definitely appears to be a work in progress, but with some nice content initially.
The web site opens with a fairly typical "spash" page, giving a list of nifty icons for navigating the site, and defining what a sooterkin is. This is a good thing, as I had no idea, and was too lazy to look it up beforehand. Content is grouped in several sections, with music, photography, and written word being the focus. This contrasts with their previous site, www.c------------.com, which was primarily a business site with a small section promoting music.
The music section (labeled "sounds") promises that a substantial amount of new material is in work, but provides few tidbits in the form of rough mixes of new music. Some of the material here is lifted directly from the old site, to the extent that files are linked directly from it. Hopefully sooterkin will live up to their promise, and provide new material soon.
The photography section (labeled "visions") is the high point of the site, with several digitally manipulated images from the US and Europe, as well as several portraits. At first look no explanetory comments are provided, so the intent would appear to be to allow the pictures to speak for themselves. However, some information is embedded in the site, which will appear in some browsers if you mouse over the pictures.
The words section begins with what seems to be an unrelated discussion of the history of man, but the point seems to be that man's recent progress allows people time to create web sites like this one, among other things. There's an additional section on Chinese fortune cookies, and some additional content on giving limited "context" on Sooterkin, though it is rather cryptic and not particularly enlightening.
The site also includes a fairly typical list of equipment (under tools, oddly enough) and the usual links page. Overall, the site is nicely organized, and clean looking, though perhaps a little low-tech. Everything is static, and there is no contact information or any way to provide feedback on the site. Presumably the point of the site is to promote the artist and his work, though it is not clear to what end. Three stars.
- Ewald Stone, Fort Wayne Startlegram