"Phlogiston Phloat" [mp3 removed]
Have been fooling around with Reaktor effects plug-ins and softsynths. (Reaktor is like Max/MSP in that you can design your own synths but I've done very little of that--the pre-built ones alone are like working complex puzzles, at least if you want to understand how they function and make songs that are intuitively "yours.") In this song the drums have been treated with the Cyan and Fusion Reflections plugs, which fattened up a standard 808 loop in different ways. Through computer speakers you can't hear the bass at all but at normal volume with a decent home stereo the drums dominate. The pretty chord pad is a preset from the Akkord synth. The lead synth riffs are non-Reaktor softsynths so this isn't a total product endorsement. Am talking about mostly "formal" issues here because it's harder to nail the content, even if I wanted to--it's mostly about conflicting moods. Phlogiston was the element that everybody thought caused fires before the discovery of oxygen and its combustible properties. At the rate we're going these creationist f*cks will have us all believing in it again.