Over the last week I’ve spent quite a bit of time working with some new friends–Dutch artist Beer van Geer and Icelandic musician Anton Kaldal (aka Tonik)–on a project of Beer’s. Beer’s been working on a (really cool) Flash project to create visuals using brain waves. Early in the artist residency here in Reykjavik, we talked about applying a similar process to music. Based on your level of meditation (essentially, mental calm), you can control the amount and type of music you hear. I’ve recycled a bit of concept and code from the Song That Never Ends project, but most of this owes to Beer’s application.
Here’s a (pretty long) example track, in which I’ve tried to model what the experience might sound like for a user (based on musical collaboration with Anton and rules determined by Beer and me):
Back to basics on this guy–super simple, pretty riff. It’s a bit reminiscent of stuff on my first album, actually. The good old days of 4 track recording.
I’m not sure what prompted this excursion into heavy drone-land. Maybe it was the 10 minutes of Barn Owl I heard in Rotate This! a few weeks ago. This is probably far too long, given my recent move into shorter, more manageable songs, but it is more true to its roots at its current length.
Something like a cross between Jesu and Hum. In many ways, probably closer to my Ineffable Robot stuff with Simon, than my usual Nests stuff.
While certainly influenced by the better tracks from bands like The XX and Phantogram, I think the pseudo-danciness of this track owes a lot to working down the hall from Beer (Van Geer). There’s a constant, pleasant flow of electronic music from his studio which is probably growing in my subconscious as I type this very post.
I’m ashamed to admit that this experiment starts with a bit of stupidity on my part. It turns out that merely buying the North American > European adapter doesn’t mean that all of your American electronics will work in Iceland. There are also different voltages (North America = 110 volts; Europe = 220 volts). I think I knew this, but since many modern devices, like laptops, are dual-voltage, I didn’t think as much about it as I should have.
So, on first test-run of my ART preamp, I fried it (or, ideally, just blew a fuse). This resulted in a pretty length hike around Reykjavik in search of a suitable replacement–this time a USB-powered preamp. Stuff is generally pretty expensive here, so I had to check a few different places before deciding (not surprisingly) on the Apogee One. After an hour and a half of walking to exchange a faulty input, I finally had a little time to experiment with my very limited toolset: an acoustic guitar, some drum sticks, my laptop, and the One (I also found an old electric guitar at the Residency we’re staying at–but haven’t tested it yet). This is a lot different from being in my basement studio, but sort of a refreshing challenge.
I made this up as I went, and only spent about an hour or two on it, but here’s the first experiment with my current setup:
The packaging looks awesome (major props to VG Kids)–black and metallic gold on semi-opaque dark blue.
Again, big thanks to Joseph Turner and Ryan Groendyk for the art and Jim Roll at Backseat Productions for the mixing/mastering.
Stay tuned for a someday possible release of disc 2, featuring some of my friends singing, playing, and re-mixing tracks.
Also stayed tuned as I exhume the past and attempt to put my previous two albums, A Magic Feather (To Weigh Against My Heart) and The Distance That Keeps You, into some sort of presentable state.
I’ve been working on and off for a while now on a project to create an unending song, compiled on the fly from a selection of 30 second loops of individual instrument tracks: electric guitar, bass, electronic drums, electronic piano/keyboard.
compile a directory of 30 second song parts, separated by instrument
combine this algorithmically to create a full song section (so, guitar, bass, drums, maybe piano, maybe two guitars)
vary some–but not all–parts, to create a sense of continuity and flow
While most of the really tough technical aspects have been ironed out, it still isn’t super effective, probably because it (1) needs a lot more parts, and (2) the algorithm still needs some fine-tuning in terms of the rules it uses to assemble each successive section.
That being said, you should be able to let this play ad infinitum. You just might want leap out a window after about 20 minutes.
Intro and outro tracks by Chris Westhoff and me for the short film Silo. Silo rides the fine line between ghost story and drama, so getting the music just right has been a challenge. Joe is tackling most of music, working the “spookier” side of the movie.
These two songs arose out of a few improvised licks Chris, who plays the lead character Micah, came up with over the course of a few scenes. I added in bass on the intro, and electric guitar, slide guitar, and mandolin on the outro track.
This was one piece in a larger install for Ryan’s solo show at UICA.
This picks up on some the themes from The Veneerists, but with a keener focus on the American mortgage crisis. This piece suggests (to me at least) that the process of home ownership–of initial acquisition, of upgrading, of always moving on and up–is something of a game, with all a game entails. There are specific rules for success, winners and losers, and a blind sort of ambition to achieve success in a moral and financial vacuum.
As in The Veneerists, the starting point here was looped audio gleaned from public domain 1950s films and footage. Slowly, it becomes a sort of game, invoking the sounds of 1980s classics like Megaman. Over time the music becomes a soundtrack; we’ve moved from blithe 1950s family homes to video game point acquisition, to a film in which we’re spectators. These movements intertwine and confound over time, allowing Ryan’s video both room to breathe, as well as room to ask its own questions and posit its own meanings.
This was originally written in triptophonic (is there a proper word for 3 channel?) sound, for three 80s-style mono TVs, each running video, for a total of 10 minutes. Installed in the Crisis show at Detroit Industrial Projects.
Below is a version edited down one screen for a much shorter 2:45. It was accepted into the 2009 OneDotZero festival.
In the Veneerists, Ryan considers the growing use of (graphic) design to sell products, and ultimately, a lifestyle, in post WWII America. The industrial boom prompted by the war resulted in a surplus of goods, which, in order to be moved into consumer hands, required the shift from function and necessity to physical attractiveness and social desirability. In these videos (assembled here into a semi-narrative montage), Ryan presents design as both a filmic element as well as an encroaching, insidious character.
This contrast of blithe 1950s optimism with the darker underbelly of consumerism immediately brought to mind David Lynch films, and in turn, the music of Roy Orbison (since Lynch films were my gateway to Orbison, it’s hard to say whether there’s something genuinely dark about his music or whether I’m mapping Lynch’s noir onto Orbison’s seemingly cheery tunes). The entire (musical) piece is based in a very loose way on Orbison’s “In Dreams.” The original is 10 minutes, in four two and a half minute “movements,” the first being a slightly more faithful reworking of “In Dreams”. From there, it moves into a darker, more modern piece, and then folds in looped audio from the original source footage that Ryan worked from, culminating (of course) in final movement that works with elements of the previous three.
This is probably far more than you really wanted to know.
I think Ryan’s videos are really nuanced and interesting, though, and worth a little jawboning on my part.
