Am pleased, and yet, humbled, to announce a new LP on Bandcamp: Critical Weekend Work.
10 songs, mostly previously-unpublished.
Experiments with field recordings begun on the 40 Yards from the Machine release continue: recordings from the transit system and my kitchen, and spoken words. Extensive use of the "Household Kit" of samples described here, at varying speeds and grains, is made throughout.
This is my sixth release in 2014. Your support in the form of buying the LP or songs would be very encouraging, but all the material can be streamed.
June 2014
Critical Weekend Work LP - Liner Notes
Notes for the Critical Weekend Work LP on Bandcamp. These are mostly tech jottings so I remember what I did. Any thoughts, questions, etc on the music itself are welcome at the email address on this about page.
1. Grove Street 01:05
A basic melody done with the modular synth (specifically the Doepfer A-111-5 mini-synth) is augmented with a field recording from, er, public transit, drums from Steinberg's "Groove Agent" (yeah baby yeah), and some overtracking to make the harmony at the very end.
2. Skiffle Capacity 02:16
A variant of the "Grove Street" melody, with added parts played on various synth and/or sampler modules (Doepfer mini-synth, WMD Gamma Wave Source, SID Guts, Doepfer A-112) using the Elektron Octatrack as a MIDI controller. For all that, this wasn't working for me until I added the bassline, dubbed in with NI's Massive softsynth. The middle section is the Octatrack arpeggiator ringing changes on the basic synth lines. This sounds fairly spontaneous and hyperactive but was assembled a few pain-in-the-a** bars at a time. There is a second bassline done with Linplug's Element P percussion synth that peeks out at the ending.
3. The Persistence of Marimba 02:50
Yet another variant of the "Grove Street"/"Skiffle Capacity" tunes. Some of the same instrumentation as "Skiffle Capacity," with added percussion from the Household Kit samples (see previous LP) with heavy chorus and delay. The "marimba" is NI Massive.
4. Kitchen Drone 03:04
Shameless banging around on the Household Kit samples (finger snaps, pan lid, rice shaker, chair thump) using the Octatrack sequencer's MIDI out, converted to CV/gate and triggering the samples in the Qu-Bit Nebulae granular sampler module. The heavy "rave" chords at the end are NI Massive.
5. Cloud Tenders 01:40
An assortment of beats made with the Octatrack as a MIDI controller and two sampler modules (ADDAC wav player and Doepfer A-112) playing Household kit sounds. The sampler outputs were recorded straight (as simultaneously recorded mono files) and then a second group was created running those same beats through Steinberg's Step Filter effect (the "wah" sound at the beginning). After quite a bit of moving all these beats around in Cubase, pads and bass were added from Absynth (the very pretty "Nausicaa" patch) and NI Massive. Lastly, drums: patterns I wrote for the "vinyl kit" in Battery.
6. Grave Wobble 01:56
A tune from three years ago, reworked and tightened up, with some added parts. The wobbly bass patch is a softsynth called the MiniTera that was a freebie with some gear I bought, even longer back. The drums are a "synthesized kit" playing in Linplug's RMV software beatbox. The ascending whine during the "drum break" is the Qu-Bit Nebulae run through a hardware filter module, with a long LFO sweep.
7. Cloud Tenders 2 01:52
Similar process to Cloud Tenders, different pads (mostly NI Massive), with increasing amount of MIDI echo and arpeggiation effects within Cubase.
8. Stabs and Slabs 01:50
This was all done in the Octatrack, first laying down Household Kit beats, then adding piano and synth samples. The "rave-y" melodies are done note by note, adjusting the pitch and/or sample rate of each keyboard "stab."
9. Baby Boom/Critical Weekend Work 00:55
A three channel sound art piece, made with vocal samples loaded into the Qu-Bit Nebulae and messed with (speed, grain, start time, grain size, etc.) The middle channel is the same LFO-swept recording used in "Grave Wobble." The vocals in that channel are inaudible, it's just stuttering of a very small chunk of the words "baby boom."
10. Skiffle Capacity Reprise 01:09
The final appearance of the "Grove Street"/"Skiffle Capacity"/"Persistence of Marimba" tracks. The ethereal-sounding intro is NI Massive played with Steinberg MIDI echo and/or arpeggiation effects.
heavy ornament (pair)
modified version of a deleted drawing from my Computers Club Drawing Society page
around the web
Idaho Transfer [YouTube] (hat tip Network Awesome)
An obscure 1973 film directed by Peter Fonda, with a script by Thomas Mathiessen (whoever that may be), gives us low-key, post-apocalyptic science fiction, filmed on a minuscule budget, beautifully shot and scored. I was hooked by the serious amateurishness, or amateurish seriousness, of the young, unknown cast and its response to a looming "eco-crisis" as vague and threatening as the one we still face, and watched straight to the end. Seeing it in the what-is-this-i've-never-heard-of-it way is recommended: some astute IMDb commenters can help unravel the film's mysteries afterward.
The actors with long period hair mostly never made any movies after this, except for Keith Carradine, who appears in a small role. The film's end-of-the-'60s nostalgic hallucination of childless young people "having a beautiful time," or trying to, after the worst has happened, has dated, but in interesting ways. Especially knowing this generation, in reality, would become Reagan-era bourgeoisie, driving gas-guzzlers and competing to get their brats into threshold schools (or whatever they were called). :{
At the other end of the generational periscope lies "Pancake Spring," a short story by Miracle Jones (hat tip orlandobloom). I like fiction where authors who I suspect are younger than me make fun of phones and corporate social media. If hating that shite is not just a case of age maladaption, maybe there is something actually wrong with our cultural direction. ("Download the app" is the new "go to something-something dotcom" but only if you accept what Jerry Seinfeld jokingly calls the "hard rectangle in your pocket" as your universal center. I don't, and neither does Mandy in this story.) Ranting aside, check out this well-written tale with its very funny take on un-funny things such as torture ("French Modern") and promoted tweets.
