This takes a while to get going, and then when I get into it, I forget and it goes on for ages. Free-form noise blues. I love playing this style. Possibly not enough reverb on the high notes.
Nearly didn't pick up my guitar. Woke up shattered, and felt vague and anxious all day. The title, if not the music, are supposed to reflect this.
This is kind of a combination of faineant and concentration. Just played straight through on guitar, with slow echo between channels. then simple 12-string strumming in the background. A few jarring mistakes, but didn't have time to re-record.
15 days left... the home stretch by my calculations..
Another part in the deadly sins project, I'm afraid. Avarice and Pride this time. I was planning to stretch these out alongside more listener-friendly music, but greed and pride presented themselves to me today. Hopefully, I won't be in throe to anger tomorrow, but if I am, at least I have something cathartic to do with it.
I was watching Amadeus and there's clear elements of pride and greed in that film (ok, it's more about envy, but I've done that one!) and my tape vid was put on the hundred days site, with some overly kind words about my music - I really don't deserve comparisons to Mogwai (Hunted by a Freak is one of my favourite ever tracks, incidentally) so, I was feeling proud.
In terms of pride and greed in the actual track, I used the augmented radio technique that I'm proud of, and I was greedy with the use of 3 separate feedback tones: the aforementioned augmented classical music low-down in the mix, a windy atmospheric drone, and an electronic analog square synth effect. Amazingly, they all work together well!
OK, 2nd part in the deadly sins project is luxuria invidia which means 'lust envy' which I was feeling strongly today ('tho I'm not gonna go into it!)
Another long feedback drone, pulsing, I reckon, with lust and envy. There's obviously a pulsing associated with lust, both physically, and in terms of blood; and I think there can be a rising heat pulse associated with envy too, so this is what I've tried to represent.
This isn't so good for earphone listening as the left and right channels are pretty different.
So my attempt at a video. I've been taking photo's every week of a key-fob of a cassette. The black paint started to come off really quick, and it's nearly all off now. Sped up a recent track (Cavernous) so it fit with the photos merging. So it's just photo's of a disintegrating tape. And then reversed, so it loops over a few minutes.
Another day, another droney-ambient-psych-electroacoustic track.
Title means 'gluttony sloth' and recorded after a busy day and more takeaway (just a coincidence, ok?). Simple notes played with loads of FX to make it electronic-y, the distortion is gradually ramped up so that by the middle its just a wall of ambient electronic feedback, then I fiddle with the controls to make some more weird sounds (like I did with frozen dew) then gradually lower the distortion so you can hear the notes again.
Not happy with the bassline. Was fine when I was playing it, I thought, but listening back it's a bit plodding. Plus, it's played dry - no FX on the bass whatsoever.
Kind of an MV/EE style on this one. Psychedelic free-folk doodlings. Some nice guitar plucking coming in and out of focus.
Discarded gloves, on an empty shelf (save for screwed up rubbish), at Borders closing down sale. Portentous. And appropriate as homage to @grant_me's lost gloves project
Went for a more Emeralds/Sean McCann style for this one. Strings played open, so I could play with the wah (don't have an expression pedal), but didn't make an awful lot of difference.
Anyway, nice, weird echo and reverb and pretty easy listening by my standards.
Some fuzzy noise blues. Similar to stuff I've done in the past, but I really like this style of playing. Bassline on the low E and then free-form playing on the higher strings.
Drenched in reverb and echo, and all the better for it.
Ohh! I didn't know I could embed the tracks like that!
OK, not proper really. I received a spam email and this was the message text:
"syren bike lotto.
cur qualm tardy finny!
tenth anus bunch.
rein inker tug.
echo bike syren work!
guest syren.
delve mover epic bora!
delve pilot clan scoff?
shout scat quag pore!
nexus spill.
calve bunch fled calve?
leap swear nexus.
leap doty dulse corny?
lid kotow pore.
helve widow.
anus sloe.
ilk tacky delve wrap?
scull fled blob col?
lotto zinc mark salon?
scat reedy sudd.
blob sloe mark anus?
helve tug rogue dulse?
quail psalm grass raw!
quail piano."
That was it. There was no other message text. Spam poetry. I joked to a friend ages ago that I was gonna make it onto a song, but I obviously never would. Until now.
Used the chords from 'too dark to swim', excuse my singing, and here we have a beautiful mess named after my fave line:
No music today. I played some stuff and realised alot of the things I've recorded I'll never be able to play again..didn't write anything down, or merely scribbled some notes on scraps!
A friend of mine has just moved to San Francisco so I wrote him some facetious advice for living in the States.
Advice and Information for living in America
The currency is made up of dollars, quarters and yanks. A quarter is a dollar coin cut into a triangle or a 'piece a' pie'. Quarters can be used once every 25 years.
Always drive in the centre of the road. Constantly toot your horn.
Upon seeing a child it is customary to give a friendly clap to the back of their head and shout 'yeehah' in their astonished face.
Like the UK, the USA is split into four countries - America, Alaska, Mexico and New England. Technically, Canada is another, but it's traditional not to count it. The voting restrictions explain Canada's status as the 'silent 5th' country.
Every day is a celebration of some kind. This week look forward to the compulsory fun of 'National Air Day', 'National Emotions Day' and 'National Tues Day'. Happy National Have a Nice Day Day today!
Like all American phone numbers, the emergency number is derived from related words. So convert the letters of EMERGENCY and you get 363743629. Altenatively, simply dial 6463 663 663 (NINE ONE ONE). Because of the additional 4 in the initial sequence the Emergency Services are known as the Plus Fours (7587 36877).
Don't forget to leave a three syllable pause before dialling a Canadian number!
Upon reaching 38 years old it is compulsory to have plastic surgery, false teeth, and a robot arm. This is why all Americans are beautiful. The procedures obviously don't apply to Canadians. They remain beautiful their whole natural lives; and into their afterlives.
The language spoken is ostensibly English, but predominantly they speak in Sarcasm and Irony. America is the only country that truly understands sarcasm and perhaps their greatest feat is in convincing us the exact opposite.
This was never supposed to be about making music. I didn't think I'd be able to write and record tracks in an hour or two, but three-quarters of the way in and this is my (I think) 34th track. I haven't felt much like drawing, painting or writing recently, but I can always find something on the guitar. So track 34:
I didn't even realise this is pretty close to 'faineant' until after I'd recorded it and listened back. It's quite nice and acoustic and ambient, but obviously I've gotta be a bit obtuse so hid some wrong notes in there, and it's quite feedbacky. There's 5 concurrent guitar lines at times, so it can cope with the odd bum note.
Weird thing was I couldn't play this with a metronome, so goes a bit off centre sometimes. Maybe cos the echo was at a different bpm. I used a similar glittery echo to 'all that glitters'.
Does it count as plagiarism if I've plagiarised my own tunes?
Some meandering blues with that lovely echo platter chorus-like effect. This is really long, nearly 12 minutes, didn't realise as I was playing it.
It's meant to be a bridge between solstice and a similar track, so that I can use them all together as an extended piece. It should work ok. It's closer to solstice but never mind, it's different enough. All the solstice tracks are (different instruments and different FX).
The title alludes to feeling shattered and emotionally drained. Went to a funeral, haven't been sleeping properly, lot's of travelling around and work's busy too.
12-string strumming, whistling, and humming on this one.
Played some similar 2 string chords where I could play the open strings too. Works quite well.
Starts off gentle strumming but because of all the FX on there it gets too muffled and jarringly screechy, and I couldn't master it into anything listenable.
I've recorded it tomorrow too and it will sound better. Hmm. Not sure what tense to use when pretending to talk in the past.
bACK.. Ohhh.. Back in my lovely cold flat, and found myself wanting to pick up my guitar. Didn't feel like a chore. hooray!
Lots of ambient echo effects on this one. Tone not dissimilar to that used on Andromeda (which listening back is pretty good), but different enough. And y'know, I only had 40 minutes to record this had to get a lovefilm back in the post and get to bed by midnight.
Where was I? Ok, yeah, this was meant to get more intricate, but I kind of ran out of time and wanted to put some 12-string, and a higher, whats the word, frequency, no, octave line in too. Sounds good anyway.
faineant means 'disinclined to work or exertion' which does not describe me in the slightest one bit. No. It's not like I would just use a random word I like from a novel I'm reading in a hastily made track. Hmm.
Oh also, this amused me on the train. 3 notices all next to each other, and pictures, warning not to drink the water. So I wrote 'drink me' in the spirit of balance. People like balance.
Back at my parents so on my mums spanish guitar. I was showing her chords as her guitar has just been gathering dust for the past 20 years, and she was thinking of playing again.
I can't be bothered with chords though. So started playing in my usual fashion, and found the beginnings of something to work on.
Made a banana and walnut loaf with a friend. I was arguing that it wasn't really creative. just following a recipe, so i was trying to surreptitiously put chili and pepper in, but was hindered.
I don't see it as enough to simply make something, i think there has to be an element of originality
i've never baked a cake before (unless you count chocolate cornflake cakes) so it's something new at least.
Virtually 2/3 the way through. It's a bit of a chore at the moment. I've had little or no inspiration, and feel I've just been churning out barely adequate music.
Well, I like this.
My kettle was sticking it's tongue out at me. My kettle looks like a robo-dog-cat from this angle.
When I was learning to speak I started making up my own nouns. A 'minamin' was an orange or satsuma, 'antibanner' meant umbrella (I still contest this is a better term) and the generic term for a dog or cat was 'dugati'. I was 28 years old.
Ross Noble started a rumour on twitter that kanYe West and Susan Boyle were collaborating on a Simon Cowell-produced remix of God Save The Queen. It was successful as loads of people retweeted it, some believed it, and it was reported on a radio station.
I tried to do a cover. I spent very little time on this, and I'm aware it doesn't look like a cd cover. But fuck it, I did nothing else creative today.
I picked up the guitar knowing I wouldn't find anything to play. But I did. Very quick. One take.
There's two sections. The first half is played one line on 6-string, another on 12-string. Then in the second half part of these lines are looped and more loops are played on top. So it builds up and then... it ends.
I wanted to call it palindromic but there's only minor palindromic aspects (reverse echo and finishes with the same loop as it started). andromeda
Slowed down one of the augmented radio sessions I did. and just played some long bass notes over that echo between speakers, and did the same thing at a higher octave on guitar.
Named after the pattern I got after dropping my favourite espresso cup.
