Now that the new studio PC is up and running I'm devoting some time to work that was interrupted by the change-over. This includes completing a new e.p. of various experiments that don't fit with the theme of the new Manitou album, and videos for some of the pieces from Atmospheres Part I.
A Night In The Big Room was inspired by the building you see in the video footage. I shot this sometime around 2007 on a VHS-C camcorder. For the story behind the sound collage, see this post.
A lot has been going on at Manitou Productions behind the scenes, including a major upgrade to the studio. Unfortunately, the time spent wrangling hardware and software has eaten into time that should have been spent creatively. I've also taken on some consultancy work, but more about that later. This post is to celebrate the release of Disco Antenna's new single: Superstitious.
Way back in 2010, when Jimmy sent me a demo called There To Remind Me, and Disco Antenna was effectively born, I was inspired to write a song of my own for the project. The working title was Escape Pod - because it had a spacey feel to it. This was quickly abandoned in favour of Disco From The Stars. Jimmy then laid down some improvised vocals: the essence of which you can hear on this track. As years passed and Disco From The Stars evolved, becoming more ambitious and sprouting a chorus along the way, much of the original feel of the demo eroded away. With the release of Side A out of the way, I turned my attention to Disco From The Stars with the intention of finishing it off for the follow-up. We both loved how it had come to sound, but also lamented the loss of the parts that had made the demo special. What to do?
Side A had familiarized us with the concept of creating extended disco 'epics' as well as the concept of songs that blend into one another to form a larger whole, or 'suite'. Thus, it became obvious to give Superstitious its own distinct place within the larger framework of Disco From The Stars. Elements of that original demo were brought back in and polished up to compliment the new production, half-baked ideas were cooked to perfection, and the best bits of Jimmy's vocal improvs were re-jigued to evoke the spirit of the demo while still creating something new and exciting.
The full 17-minute version of Disco From The Stars is still incomplete, but the section consisting of Superstitious is done and dusted, so it didn't take much to lift it out and master it for single release. As we did with There To Remind Me, it's released under a Creative Commons By-Attribution license: you may download and share it as you see fit. You may also use it in non-commercial podcasts or video productions as long as Disco Antenna are credited for their hard work. Here, then, are the pertinent links and embeds:
High quality download via Bandcamp. Streaming Audio (SoundCloud):
For some time now I've wanted to produce an album of ambient sound collages. Atmospheres Part Iis the first step towards that goal. The soundscapes presented here are built from my ever-growing collection of field recordings, spiced up with minimal synthesizer sequences, circuit-bent sounds, and the occasional home-built instrument.
It's released under a Creative Commons license. The music may be used in non-commercial productions royalty free, on the condition that I'm credited.
Audio:
As usual, here is some track-by-track commentary:
1. Night Of The Cacti - In 2010 I was fortunate to visit a correspondent of mine, Jay Ellington Lee, at his home on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona. Sadly, Jay passed away the following year. Among other things he was a composer for film, radio, and television, had a hand in designing the E-Mu modular synthesizer, and was an all-round creative boffin. I shall forever be grateful for his friendship, and the opportunity to see some of the Sonora Desert. This soundscape is based on recordings I made at his home, and is an attempt to capture my impressions of the desert, which is more alive than one might first imagine.
One evening Jay dug out some LED light boxes, which led to the both of us venturing out into the night to light and photograph cacti. Despite only having a digital point-and-shoot camera with me on the trip, I was pleased with the eerie and surreal results. I had those photographs in mind when I set about recording this track.
Video:
2. Down In The Data Mines - 'Data mining' seems to be the gold rush of the new millenium, with companies like G**gle and FaceB**k collecting and storing data left, right, and centre. This track looks at the concept from the point of view of the virtual robots whizzing around the ethernet, doing the actual 'digging'. A lot of circuit-bent sounds, and a fridge, went into this one.
3. A Night In The Big Room -A restless night in an old asphalt testing lab in the industrial zone, marked by strange sounds and waking dreams, was the inspiration. Recordings from the actual location were used, along with some stand-ins and a few tape experiments to exaggerate the experience.
Video:
4. Landwhales - A synthesizer sequence made with MS-20 Mini and the SQ-1 sequencer, rejected from an early version of 'Cacti', became the basis for this track. 5. Well Of Souls - The bulk of this track consists of sounds made by a faulty toilet flusher valve. It also features an out-of-tune piano a kind lady by the name of Cleo allowed me to sample. Incidentally, her wheezing dog makes an appearance on 'Landwhales.'
I spent a couple of days this week editing the backlog of train recordings I captured over the course of the year. This inspired me to do something creative with them, so I called upon the Korg Monotribe to create a sequence (recorded live) to accompany a particularly striking recording made from beside the train tracks in August. Everything came together quickly over two recording sessions, and here is the result: Trans Earache Express (a nod to Kraftwerk, in case you're wondering!).
Audio:
Other instruments used on this track include Korg MS-20 Mini, Roland HS-60, Freebird VST, and Shortcircuit sampler.
ADAM Audio are running a competition until the end of the month, the details of which can be found here. They've asked participants to create a 30-second piece of music to match one of five provided images, including the one above, titled 'moon,' which has served as the basis for my entry, 'Nightrunner.'
To me, the image speaks of a journey. I could've interpreted it any number of ways, but as I'm in an electro mood at present, I decided to go with an 80's-inspired synthesizer piece, creating literal references to visual cues along the way: travel, clouds, the awe-inspiring image of the moon, the twinkling of stars.
Instruments called upon for this project, recorded in an evening, mixed in another, were Novation K-Station, Korg MS-20 Mini, Tal U-No-LX, Orchestra Silver, a few staple drum machine samples, and a field recording.
I don't expect to win the competition with this by any means. But as an exercise in creating music based on an image, it was a lot of fun.When time allows I intend to work it into a full-length track.
An experiment to test some new hardware and software has yielded this cheerful little ditty about bacteria. I plan on releasing it as part of a three-track e.p. in the near future. I'd like to point out that it will not be on the forthcoming The Manitou album - that is an entirely different affair and will be far more accessible!
Featured gizmos include the Korg SQ-1 sequencer controlling the MS-20 (wobbly 'bassline,' panned left, and pink noise 'footsteps', panned center), the iVCS3 soft synth (bubbly swamp noises, panned center) Korg Monotribe (space drum-thing sequence, panned right), and Curtis for iPad granular synthesizer (Pterodactyl sounds). Some samples from an old educational film and a varied selection of my personal field recordings round it out. If you listen carefully you can hear one of the pebble-drop sounds I recorded at the City Pit, as described in this post.
You may wonder why things have been a little quiet around here of late. Aside from the obvious distractions of work and life, I've been hard at work on pre-production for a one-off audio drama project called The Culgorney Devil And Its Pursuer (based on my short story of the same name). The script dates back to 2011, but some unforeseen events saw that I never finished it. It seemed like the right time to revisit it, so I cleaned it up and submitted it to Brokensea Audio Productions, who will be handling the distribution. Assuming all goes to plan, it will go live as part of their Halloween season.
In the interim I've been gathering sound effects and working on ideas for incidental music. It's now reached the casting stage, and I expect to have all the lines in by the end of July. Hopefully the music will also be close to ready by then.
