Abductio Ad Absurdum

5:30am: Hunh.
In some somewhat whimsical surfing, I came across a song by Philip K Nixon called "444."

Now, it's been a few years since I had any direct contact and/or interaction with Wes Unruh, so I've no idea if this particular piece by PKN has anything to do with me (I'm leaning towards "I doubt it"); however, it has given me a pretty good idea for a composition to be working on, heh-heh-heh (sample this, sample that, next thing you know, I've got some tracks!).

6:00am: Lo-Fi Drone

Find more music like this on nd laboratories

3:57am: LAB Report
Well, I've been picking up on how to better work with the Kaoss Pad and recording with GarageBand. After working on a piece for a few days, and realizing that I had seventeen tracks each called "No Effects," I figured I've got to get a little better at organizing my work. This was also coupled with the fact that if I wanted to redo a track, I'd have to spend some time trying to find the samples I had used by listening to the track, then opening a bunch of different KP3 files in its Editor software to see if the same sound was on them. Well, not anymore!

I've taken to writing down notes about what samples I'm using, what they are saved as, and which effects I'm using on a given sample set. As well, I've begun naming my tracks--rather simply, really: "Track 1," "Track 2," "Beats 1," Beats 1a," for some examples. This greatly aides in both the note taking and organization.

So, if I've recorded a track too short, and looping it isn't working--or whatever else might come up--I can merely look at what track it is, cross reference with my notes, and voila I can easily reproduce the original sound again for a re-recording! Now, for some, such organization might seem, like, "Duh!" But for me I guess it's all part of learning how to do this wacky audio work.

I also have the feeling that naming tracks will help with A-B testing as well. Instead of listening to a mix on a cd and thinking, "screeching wobbly sound needs to be deeper in the mix," and then having to go through a bunch of "No Effects" tracks to discover which sound that was, hopefully I'll simply have the association of the sound with the track name, and can think, "Track 3 needs to be deeper in the mix." Ah, gotta' love efficiency!

Anyway, I had to scrap the piece that I mentioned above: it was full of clicks and pops from trying to make loops of the sounds I was working with, not noticing these subtle clicks, and then resampling and reworking with the same loops really brought the subtle clicking out. Also, I was making the initial loops with a very low monitoring volume, so I missed these initial clicks, but once I heard them in the resampled/reprocessed tracks, I went back, turned up the volume a bit on the original loop strings, and, yeah, clicks between every re-looping. What a mess! Sadly, the piece was beyond salvaging. That's OK though, 'cause I got started on a new piece that has a similar feel to that one, but, I think, is coming along better (thanks to what I learned from its failure, heh).

Well, with my newly adopted note taking/labeling process, I don't have to worry about loops anymore. I can simply record a length of sound, and if I need to redo it--like I mention above--hell, it's no problem.

A further thing I've realized--which I am going to have to start doing 'cause there were a few times tonight where I could have benefitted from such a habit--is that it's also a good idea to make notes of certain samples/processing that sound cool, but don't quite fit into the current composition. There was a couple instances earlier where I found a sound that was really neat/interesting/cool/what-have-you, but it didn't quite fit into the project I was working on. Since I didn't want to mess up my project, I just kinda' moved on. So, for future reference, I'll have to begin making "margin" type notes: like "File Untitled 6a, sample bank A & D, rvb.3 (4,7)--cool dark industrial beat," or something like that. That way I can come back to discoveries instead of losing them to the current work flow. I imagine that's what some of these people do as well: build up a library of sounds and samples as they go, and then revisit them later on. I think it'll go a long way to keeping a steady flow of production anyway.

12:35am: Experimoan
= 'Experimental' + 'drone', which, I think, might be the best way to describe the latest sounds from nd:



This One was really fun to put together. It's only seven tracks comprised of six elements, and on five of the tracks, I played the KP3 "live," which is to say, there was much manual manipulation on the go as I recorded the tracks. ( please, continue... )

Here's the streaming audio:


Find more music like this on nd laboratories


And, in closing, let me mock Pepsi's latest ad campaign (by transposing it with Coca-Cola's slogan):

Enjoy It Forward.

3:34am:




This One is made by exclusive use of the Korg Kaoss Pad 3 ( ... )

For those of you who'd prefer a streaming audio version, here it is:

Find more music like this on nd laboratories


I was somewhat tempted to have this set on autoplay, but I don't like it when Other folks do that on my f-page, so I didn't do it to you either: that's simply poor netiquette is all.

Have an enjoyable day!

5:19am: I ♥ My Kaoss Pad
Man, this thing is da shizzle!

I can totally see why Chris Carter uses this as part of his road gear for TG shows. I can get the craziest sounds out of it, and I've only begun playing with it! I feel that any aspiring or practicing industrial/experimental musician can certainly put One (or two even!) of these babies to good use. I mean, wow, there're so many effects to process and reprocess sound--it's freakin' unbelievable.

So yeah, more than satisfied with this acquisition, and I've only had it for three freakin' days. And, yeah, I'm glad I didn't cheap out and merely get the mini one 'cause it can only do one sample at a time, and I'm already wishing I could do, like, four more (or eight, or sixteen...). Serious fun, that's for sure.

I got whatever bug(s) worked out, so now I can save my settings and samples via the Editor. This is good because if I've got some good sounds--like I created earlier tonight--but don't have the wherewithal to spend a bunch of time tracking them into GB, then I can merely save my work, and track it all down at a later date.

Speaking of which, the night before last I spent most of the evening (er, your earlier hours of the morning) laying down seventeen tracks of KP3 insanity to GB 'cause I had some neat-O sound going and couldn't save the sources at that time. So yeah, I spent some time doing some arranging this morning, and I think I've got a pretty nice composition coming along. It needs some good listening-to-mix time via the Rubicons, but I think I've got the arrangement dialed to my satisfaction via my headphones. It's fairly rough right now--there're several spots that are going to need some treatment qua automation points re: volume--'cause there're some pops here and there where tracks abruptly end and/or begin. The lesson for me here is two-fold: record tracks from the KP3 a fair bit longer than I'll likely need them, and use the Level slider for smoother ins and outs.

Overall, I've really got to praise this unit for ease of use: read the manual, tinker around a bit, and it's pretty straight forward to get going with this box. Like I mentioned previously, the initial learning curve is rapid, and from there it's merely a matter of dedication, experimentation, and imagination.

4:45am: The New Toy
Well, this Kaoss Pad 3 is pretty freakin' fun. It's 4:45 in the a-dot-m-dot, and I've been playing around with it since I got home about twelve hours ago. OK, there was a bit of a break for dinner and a nap, but otherwise, it's been pretty much all about the KP3.

I think it's working out much like I thought it would, which means it's gonna' be a pretty fabulous addition to my setup. The learning curve to get going on the machine is fairly rapid; however, I also think that the initial stages of getting to know the box and its functions is a kinda' "tip of the iceberg" thing. I get the feeling it is designed for ease of use, but I also sense a depth of possibilities here that are likely only limited by skill and imagination. And I do think it takes a bit of skill to operate the KP3. I mean, in watching some of the Youtube videos, it was clear that some people could use the KP3 better than Others, but this is also the kinda' cool thing, which reflects what I've been getting at: those who seemed to have lesser skill could still make stuff that sounded alright, but those that seemed to have more honed skill were making stuff that sounded really good. So I think it's kinda' like that: it'll make many happy with their output, and those who dedicate more time and effort to it will likely be rewarded.

One thing is for sure, it's really gonna' make me sharpen up my timing.

My experiences so far went from getting it all hooked up and not having any sound going through it/coming out of it, to getting the sound into and out of it, to not being able to sample from external sources, to learning how to sample from external sources, to not being able to sample itself, to learning how to sample/resample from itself, to building some simple multi-sample compositions.

I'm really happy with the hands on/tactile aspects of its use. There're buttons to push, knobs to twiddle, a slider to, well, slide, and, best of all, the touchpad! This is the hands on effects manipulation that I've been longing for and, up 'till now, been missing from my rig.

I tested it out with Garageband as well, and I think these two are going to get along like two peas in a pod. It's really easy to program the BPM (beats per minute) in both GB and the KP3, and then set up a 16, 8, 4, 2, or 1 beat sound wave in GB (these are the five lengths of sound that the KP3 can sample), and play it through the Firebox into the KP3 for exact beat matching samples. From there it's also pretty simple to record the output of the KP3 back into GB after I've done pretty much whatever I want to the original sample. I mean, there're 128 different programs in the KP3, and 112 of them can be used to manipulate any given sample across an 8 x 8 grid of variance. The other 16 programs are 6 different drum presets, and 10 synth presets--each also manipulable across the 8 x 8 touchpad, and these can also be sampled and messed with, heh.

My only problem with it thus far is I haven't been able to get the USB connection between it and the software for it on the Mini to work properly. However, I think the solution is that the KP3 needs to use an SD card in order for it to interact with the KP3 editor (the software). So I guess I'll need to get one of them there cards.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the purchase, and look forward to extended use and hella' sound abuse!

4:38am: Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy!
Wheeeee! I'm all excited 'cause tomorrow (which really means "later today"--but it's "tomorrow" to me 'cause it's after I have a sleep, lol) I'm gonna' go up to Long & McQuade and pick up that KP3 unit. Wheeeee! I'm so, so, so looking forward to using this new toy. Aside from general fiddling around and getting to know it, I've already got a pretty good idea about my first project for it, hee-hee-hee.

WHEEEEEEE!

6:39am: Tequila Review and Other Stuff
OK, so I'm trying out some 30-30 tequila. It's pretty good considering the cost. It's a 100% pure agave, and at the store we sell it at 50 cents less than Sauza, which is my preferred blended tequila (about 50 or so percent agave and then mixed with corn alcohol). I'd buy this before buying Sauza any day of the week (and fuck Jose Cuerevo--totally sucks).

It sure tastes like 100% agave--no carmel additive taste like many other cheaper blends will have (especially Olmeca Gold, gawd what absolute crap)--but it is a little on the "burn" side.

The colouring is a little lighter than other "reposado" tequilas I've tried (Herradura and Dos Lunas), which suggests that it hasn't been "rested" quite as long as the other two products I mention. This probably goes some way to accounting for the bit of burn: I imagine that a longer period of resting in oak casks would increase smoothness.

I'd rate this as a perfectly good budget tequila--especially if you're making any mixed drinks. For sipping it's decent--like I said, I'd buy it before any blended tequila--but it can't quite compare to the more pricey and probably longer aged tequilas: I'd buy Herradura before this if I could afford it on a frequent basis.

Other Stuff

I'm pretty set on getting a Korg Kaoss pad, and will probably pick one up this weekend. I'm gonna' get the KP3, which is the more complex version of the one I posted a Youtube video about a few days ago.

It seems very likely to give me a hands on "twiddling the knobs" feature across many possibilities of effects, and with the ability to deal with more than one sample at a time. This way I won't have to dick around with a bunch of software programs in order to vary the parameters and sound of a given sample (re: my workaround regarding the inability to vary the parameters of an effect in Garageband), or set of samples, and I can use it as a bit of instrument in itself. It'll be simply a matter of setting it up properly in the audio loop, and then FREAKIN' OUT from there. And yeah, I've got it figured out as to the best positioning in the audio chain (thanks to the fine folks at Studio Central forums), heh.

I'm pretty excited about the purchase--a bit like a kid on X-mas eve. I think it's really gonna' exponentially expand my possible repertoire of mad noise making ability: you've been warned, heh. :)

5:01am: Want This


Or maybe it's big brother, the KP3.

Further investigation required.

6:58am: It's a Small Net After All?
Hmm. So I'm transferring irr. app. (ext.)'s album Cosmic Superimposition from the CD into iTunes, and I'm Googling the search string "cosmic superimposition irr." in order to get the album art to add to the file.

So imagine my surprise when I flip to the second page of results and find some of my own artwork. I was like, "Hey, that looks alot like my cover art," and then I looked at the address--it was my cover art, lol! And then I noticed the other two results flanking said cover art, heh.

I mean, I'm not really sure why those turned up with that search string, but hey, it's kinda' neat that they do.

3:14am: It Finally Happened
Yep. Four months and a handful of days after all the free TV I was getting from Telus should have run out, they finally got around to cutting me down to what I've been paying for.

My initial reaction?

Meh.

I mean, it was nice while it lasted, but I'm not sure if I really care now that all those extra channels are gone. Might miss the movie channels, maybe, but *shrug*.

I don't really watch a lot of TV anyway--mostly basketball games, and I still got TSN, TSN 2, The Score, and The NBA/Raptor Channel. OF course, basketball is almost done, so...

8:24am: Superchunk Lyrics
And I've seen things that you've never seen.
I've been seein' them for years.
Let me whisper in your ear.

5:22am: Binaural Self Experimentation
Holy, I feel really buzzed right now. Kind of a combination of a deep feeling relaxation with a charged perceptive/alert state. It's really like I've taken some kind of drug--not sure which might be the equivalent though. I've gotta' start keeping detailed notes of what sort of frequencies I'm using, and descriptions of the states they put me in.

Right now I sort of feel like there's a diagonal line (or perhaps "plane" is more apt) running through my head at about 15 degrees or so, sloping upwards from left to right, and the buzz sort of runs along and emanates from that line. Although, there sort of also seems to be a subtle throbbing peak in the frontal left side of my head as well--maybe situated at 30 degrees or so (note that I'm using a line plane through my ears, level with the bottom of my eyes--with 0,0,0 of the x,y,z axes situated on the bridge of my nose--as a base for these reference points). I think the left side of the brain feels more relaxed, and the right side feels more alert and charged. Let me see if I can do a bit of backtracking and figure out the frequencies.

The first frequency I made was a middle A, which is 220 Hz, left pan. I made a couple Others as well, but had them muted for this experience, and was running a fifth frequency at 215 Hz right pan, as well as a fourth track with a frequency of...damnit, what was it?--the third (muted) was a G at 196 Hz, so I think the fourth was--oh yeah!--I made it an A flat, which is 207.66 Hz!

This chart rules, btw.

OK, so both the fourth and fifth tracks were right pan, and their difference was about 8 Hz, which corresponds to Alpha waves, or relaxation; however, their beating is artificial in the sense that it is generated by having the two tracks play in the same side--a true binaural beat occurs as an artifact of the brain, and not an artifact of the sounds themselves, which this beating was. Hmm, I'm gonna' speculate that it probably still has some effect on the brain, but maybe not the same as a true binaural beat.

The true binaural beats were generated between the interplay of the 220 Hz wave in the left ear, and the two right ear tracks at 207.66 Hz & 215 Hz respectively. So the difference between the 1 & 4 is 12.44 HZ, and the difference between 1 & 5 is a mere 5 Hz. This would correspond to the grey area between relaxed and active brain states in the former difference, and the low end of meditative brain states in the latter difference (on the threshold of moving into Delta waves, the waves associated with sleep and unconsciousness).

OK, neato, I got that figured out! But, Note to Self--take notes as you go, it'll save all this "reverse-engineering" type nonsense, and save you time (and probably frustration when things get a little more complicated).

So yeah, while I was running those waves on a loop in Audacity I loaded up Garageband and played around with some different software voices. I ended up settling on a voice called "Circuit Dialogue," and went off on a tear using the Oxygen controller--especially with the pitch bend and modulation wheels. I was holding down a couple notes as a steady sort of background (a lower C and a bit higher up A), and then adjusting the pitch and modulation with the wheels. The modulation wheel would really mess the software voice up--it sounded really cool. And then I would also hit other keys here and there at different durations while also manipulating the analogue wheels. It was kinda' far out, really.

Hrmm, not sure how long I played with this for--probably about ten minutes, but it's hard to say. So, an Other thing to make more careful note of.

And yeah, my head still feels buzzed. I might have to try to reproduce this again later and get it captured and recorded, 'cause seriously, it sounded pretty cool, but never minding that, it really had a neat effect on my head! It really is like some kind of very pleasant drug. It'd be interesting to see if any One else got similar effects from it.

Forget the Beastie Boys: this is the sound of science, heh (or, really, the science of sound). :)

Man, I wanna' get back at it--take another hit, lol. But I can't get too worked up 'cause it's almost time fer bed, heh. Although, maybe I could mess with some small difference frequencies, which would correspond to meditation and sleep...

5:51am: Creation, Self-Experimentation, and Yes, Sound
When posting, there ought to be a "Drinking" option box along with "Location" and "Music."

I'm drinking screwdrivers.

Anyway, I started working on a project that's been on the back burner of me brain for a little while now--since I was reading up on binaural beats awhile back and also giving Coil's Time Machines an initial listening. Originally I was thinking about doing a daydream/nightmare sorta' dualistic set of two compositions using binaural beats as the primary driving sound. However, the last couple nights this has resurfaced as working on a set of five compositions called "Nighttime," which intends to take the listener from an alert state to One of sleepiness (with, hopefully, some fun mental states in between--ah, the dreaming!). Yeah, that's right, I want to put listeners to sleep: clearly I'm not aiming for a "smash hit," heh.

So, I got to actually beginning work on this because I was working on an intro piece to another composition I'm working on, and it got a little out of hand, and turned into it's own thing. And this thing is, itself, a derivative of what I mentioned a few posts ago where I thought I might need to make several GB projects for yet a different work...

Well, I guess what I'm getting at here is how "creating" kinda' goes in circles and spirals. Like, I'm pretty sure that none of us mere mortals create ex nihilo--there is nothing entirely original; rather, we all create out of our experiences of the works of Others, or at least Other works. Like, the project I've been working on these last couple nights is a derivative of some of the work of Coil, some of the work that people have done on binaural beats, and a derivative of a derivative of my own stuff, which in turn is derivative of at least the inspiration of SPK and Merzbow.

It's like, hey, Einstein didn't simply come up with E = mc^2 outta' freakin' nowhere, for example. And Picasso wasn't the first person to pick up a paintbrush. Both stood on the backs of Other giants who had come before them: they each took from the relevant creations of Others, and re-contextualized those works--put what they'd experienced of the perspectives of Others into a further different perspective. And we can all do that.

Anyway, this "Nighttime" project is gonna' be laborious fer sure. I can tell already from the bit of self-experimentation I was working on tonight. I mean, I'm still working out the logistics of how to record stuff: it seems that sine waves are the best to use for binaural beats, and while I have a program called "resonance" which is all about creating binaural soundscapes, I'm thinking it might be best to use Audacity which can generate sine wave tones. I've been playing around with both, and I think Audacity is more effective.

Like tonight I was messing around with a 440 Hz sine wave, a 457 Hz sine wave, and a 447 Hz sine wave. I was playing with the decibel level and also the panning of each wave, and really, after messing around for about fifteen minutes or so of continuous exposure to these frequencies and their manipulations, my head certainly felt like it'd been tinkered with. I mean, at first it was only the 440 Hz and 457 Hz waves, which didn't have much effect as the frequency difference entrains towards an "alert"state, which, I assume, I was already in. However, once I added the 447 Hz wave, and began playing with it, I definitely felt a change in my brain--the right side of my head felt very fuzzy for sure--the 447 Hz wave, in its manipulations, bounced between a 7 Hz and 10 Hz difference, which equates to a bounce between "meditative" and "relaxed" brain states (in addition to the background "alert" frequency entrainment)...

The tricks are gonna' revolve around getting appropriate frequencies together to instigate brain state change in the listener, figuring out how to get it all tracked down, and then making it into a structured set of compositions. Never mind that I can already see how the ratio of time spent creating a small portion of sound is going to be quite large compared to the actual sound itself. Like, it might take several hours of initial creation, tweaking, recording, and what not to get a few seconds of sound. At least, that's sorta' how it's looking to me right now. I mean, I was thinking that I might simply be able to do manipulations on the fly, which I can do to some extent, but to get it all precise and structured in a sensibly "musical" way, well, I think that's gonna' take a fair bit of time and effort.

So yeah, got a big project in the works with this One, and will likely continue to work on Other things as I go. Speaking of which, I've got the song for "Funk the News 1" pretty much done, but have yet to take the time to go and collect some news samples (and then, of course, the mixing--gawd, the mixing!), so maybe that'll make an appearance in the near future. As for "Nighttime," well, who knows, it might take months to get it right--or at least to get it to the point where I'm ready to let it go. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview of the (tentative?) artwork for the cover (front n' back):





And yeah, the song titles come together as a poem, and this is to reflect the nature of the (planned) work: it's basically all one composition divided into five subsections, each of which is intended to entrain the brain of the listener into a certain state: 1) alertness, 2) alertness into drowsiness, 3) drowsiness into dreaming/meditating, 4) more dreaming/meditating, and 5) meditating into unconsciousness. At least, that's the plan (oh, so "arsty," eh? Yeah, OK...). I guess binaural beats work best when they start with the brain state a person is already in, and then proceed to lead the person into Other states.

So yeah, maybe I can have this released by the end of summer? I will, I will, I will (oh, did I speak those affirmations aloud?).

Is it June 2nd already? Holy crap, this year is flying by.

7:49am: Twelve Things at the End of the Day
1. Holy, what a scorcher! It was like Mid-July weather out there today. Even still warm into the night, which is so, so nice.

2. Wish I had taken the time to get my bike tires filled with air--they got different valves than can be filled at any old gas station compressor--'cause it would have been a really nice night to go for a ride.

3. Fuckin' Lakers kicked the Nugget's collective ass: a victory by 27 points. So Nuggets are out, and the fuckin' Lakers advance to the finals, probably to meet with the Magic--unless the fix is in and the Cavaliers win the next two games.

4. Erm, "procured' a sweet discography of SPK--another pioneer of industrial music, from Australia of all places (although they pretended to be German, pretty much). So nice to hear "Metal Field" again, plus so much other fantastic stuff! They started recording in '79, and were making "industrial" for a few years until they got a little soft in '83-'84.

5. Placed another order through Boxer Records, so another set of likely very fantastic fucked up music will be coming to my doorstep relatively soon.

6. Drinking that Hefeweizen I mentioned the Other day. Still very good, but somehow not quite the same as the first One. Seems to go OK with sipping tequila on the side, so that's a good thing.

7. Beautiful day + Friday = a steady work night. We had people in and out of the store all night. Not really any lulls or down time to speak of. The night went by pretty fast, but, at the same time, was kinda' draining as well.

8. Apparently I'm getting a raise on the upcoming paycheck, so that's nice. Not sure how much but hoping for an extra buck an hour, but will be alright wid fiddy cent.

9. Been smoking a fair bit less than usual lately, and hope to keep it up. Perhaps even cutting down more. Less than half a pack a day, so that's pretty sweet!

10. Came up with a neat little drum riff tonight--a bit of inspiration from listening to some of that old school SPK I reckon. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

11. It's now my weekend, so that's super sweet! Kari's coming over later, and we've got the next two days worth of time to spend together, so that'll be very nice: we haven't seen One and Other much in the last couple weeks.

12. Kid Koala is playing at this year's Folkfest! I'm so totally stoked to go see his set!

9:24am: 23 Lockdown Lyrics
And the world
closes a blind eye.
And the world
closes a blind eye
On you and me
my friends.
You and me
my friends.
You and me
my friends.
You and me
my friends!

5:31am: Beer Review
So I tried this Hefeweizen from Okanagan Spring Brewery tonight, and it's freakin' delicious!

Now, I'd tried a couple other of their products, and wasn't immediately impressed--they were good, mind, but didn't leave an immediate impression on me (although it could also be that I wasn't paying that much attention at the time, lol). However, this Hefeweizen is really brilliant.

This is an unfiltered wheat beer, so if you like that type of thing, I definitely highly recommend giving this one a go. It's a beautiful flavour of banana and clove--a perfect balance of taste. This is from a smaller "craft" brewery, so it's likely not widely available, but if you see it, it's certainly worth a try.

I'm pretty sure I'll be buying this again.

5:03am: I'm Not Gonna' Join Yer Site...
simply to correct some lyrics, FFS!

I've been listening to The Breeders' Mountain Battles album, and I was curious what the lyrics for "Walk It Off" were, so, of course, I Googled it. Every result I got was the same, and so, they're all incorrect. I mean, they helped me catch a few of the lyrics I coulda' probably picked up with closer listening, but there's one part of the song that every site I looked at reports as:

Hey your mascara (?) in my mouth
Let's go work it out!

And this is wrong, wrong, WRONG!

It's really hard to hear that first line, but I'm pretty sure it's "Hey your mess got in my mouth," and the second line is--fairly clearly--"let's not work it out."

In watching some of the Youtube videos, there was one where Kim Deal gives her head a little shake as she sings the line--she doesn't want to work it out, I mean, in the song she's "trying to get rid of the friends that I've got."

So yeah, I thought maybe I'd try to put these alternative lyrics (what i think to be the right ones--or better than "masacara" FFS) out there, and tried to correct them on one of the lyrics sites. Well, I can't do that without signing up, and you know what? Fuck that.

Anyway, this is One of my favourites on the album--this, and "No Way". Overall, it's a good album, but I don't like the spanish song, "Regalame Esta Noche," on it very much--doesn't really fit into the rest of the album, imho.

5:56am: It Never Gets Old
It doesn't seem to matter how many times I see it, but watching a squirrel run along the power lines is totally cool, and makes me smile.

5:30am: Tonight's Playlist
Yeah, was bored again tonight, so I did a 90's grunge/indie/post-punk rock set on Blip.fm. I don't have the feature enabled where Blip will post what I play to my LJ, 'cause, well, frankly I think that's kinda' ridiculous and would make a cluttered mess of my LJ friends' F-pages. But here was the play list:

Polvo--Can I Ride
Mudhoney--Pokin' Around
Superchunk--Slack Motherfucker
Alice Donut--Egg
Olive Lawn--Hate
Nirvana--Negative Creep
Cows--Terrifique
Supersuckers--Creepy Jackalope Eye
NOFX--Please Play This Song on the Radio
Polvo--Mexican Radio
Chokebore--Coat
Mudhoney--Hate the Police
Cop Shoot Cop--Any Day Now
New Bomb Turks--Out of My Mind
Les Thugs--Strike

Would make a good mix tape, or so I reckon.

Anyway, picked up two new listeners, got three props, and one reply. So I think the thing about Blip.fm is persistence: ya' gotta' lay down a bunch of songs in a row in order to get the void to notice ya'. Playing a couple songs and calling it quits doesn't seem to stir the void much. :)

Well, happy Monday!

6:50am: The Secret (Revealed)!
Draw on your experiences of the creations of Others, but be true to the One's creations you really want to experience.

5:45am: Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow
Well, was kinda' bored, so went for a little tear on Blip.fm tonight. I'd joined a month or so ago, but visit rarely. I was gonna' work on some of my own stuff, but I guess I was in the mood for Other's music, heh.

Anyway, my typical experience with Blip has been: I play some songs and that's pretty much that. Like nscafe n' I were talkin' about awhile back, playing at Blip is much like shouting into the void. But tonight I picked up 4 props, 2 new listeners, and got 2 replies. Much different than previous stints at playing pretend DJ.

Anyway, yeah, so...

er...

ah...

EAT THE CHICKEN!

6:10am: Argh, Blarg, Blah.
I've been working on this, er, "song" tonight--it's the one that I was working on when I came up with the synth/sequencer riff for c-squared--and it's turning out to be quite a mother (I use the word 'song' in quotes there because it's really not gonna' have much of a melody or anything--nothing you'll be able to hum in the shower that's for sure: "Merzbow"-esque might be the best way to describe it, heh). It's a "mother" because it's freakin' nut bag, and, as it stands, the computer is already having a hard time keeping up, and it's no where near done.

I mean, I made quite a bit of headway on how it's going to be sculpted tonight, which is great as it was sorta' merely more in the state of being an idea and a drum track with a couple of effects loops I'd made, but yeah, it's turning out to be rather complicated. I think what I'm gonna' have to end up doing is making a few different Garageband projects for it, switching some of those into mp3 files, and then merging all the parts for a final product. I think this is gonna' be the only way that the processor is gonna' be able to handle the information load.

I'm also getting the sense that this composition might make use of the Audio Hijack recording the GB project while I manipulate some of the effects cues in order that I can "twiddle the knobs" a bit. It certainly seems like this might be the case--in my head--so it'll be neat to try that out and see how well it works.

Now, none of the above is the "Argh, Blarg, Blah," of the title. I'm actually pretty excited about this, and am looking forward to seeing how well the process will work. What's got me going "argh, blarg, blah," is I've come down with a bit of a cold. Well, I've sort of felt it coming and going to some extent for the last week or so, but it's kinda' hit me harder today. So there's been lots of sniffling, sneezing, and blowing of the nose. It's also made me a little impatient and irritable as well, which is what happens when it becomes difficult for me to focus because, for example, I've got to get up every few minutes to blow my nose, or because my head feels a little thick and pressurized. In other words, my attention span is not in an ideal state to attempt to enact the patience and precision that the project I'm working on requires. It's the seeming inability to get to where I want to be that's got me going "argh, blarg, blah."

Yeah, yeah I know: "aw, muffin."

Oh well, there's always tomorrow, and I do have some pretty clear ideas of what I've got to do to make this new project work: I guess I merely wanted to whine and bitch a bit--much ado, n' all. ;)

6:19am:





This one's a rather pretty synth sorta' number, kinda' a bit of a tribute to Chris Carter. No, not X-Files Chris Carter, but Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle. ( moar )

If you don't want to go through the hassle of downloading the file, but still maybe would like to hear this composition, you can go here and hear it in a streaming audio format. This is my interim solution to presenting these compositions in streaming audio format until I figure out something better. Simply click the play button in the player on the left, "c-squared" is cued up to go.

(I hope you) Enjoy.