Today I was joined by a most reputable chap, Sergio Camerena of Jesus Makes the Shotgun Sound, and together we concocted what I consider to be a wonderful monstrosity! The theme behind this one is that the future depicted in the 50's became a reality, and our protagonist feels the weight of technology looming over him, pushing him to the brink of madness and ultimately to self-inflicted death. Fun stuff!
Lyrics: Cars are flying overhead Tomorrow came and never past. Who am I to blame for this ordinary lunacy? Photographs are meaningless; misdirected synergy. Running on the waterfront, the only way is out for me.
This song features an excerpt from "Old Man Smiled" by Throbbing Gristle, off their album Heathen Earth, which to this day remains one of my favorite industrial records. To me, the result sounds like Panda Bear and Blonde Redhead in a threesome with Genesis P-Orridge.
To commemorate the 20th day of this project, I went back and remixed/recompressed all previous tracks and have made them available for free download. They are seperated into two folders.
The other day, my friend Ryan Bergmann showed me The Music Machine's "Talk Talk," and it moved me so much that I felt compelled to remix and mash it up with my own material. I figured the only way to do it any justice was to make it as raw and grinding as possible, so I hope you dig the sleaze.
Today, I recorded this lovely bout of riffery with my dear friend Marcio Rivera from the Summer Twins. We got started a little late, but luckily Marcio had all the ideas ready when he got here, and we hammered them all out fairly quickly. I love the simple, punchy straightforwardness of this one, and as it turned out I didn't have to do much since Marcio knew his way around Logic better than me. He even showed me some cool new plugins to use, so expect recordings that don't suck in the future.
Today was seriously incredible! Ryan Bergmann, of Duhkha fame, laid down a super slick bassline for this one, and even lended his superb crooning. I feel like we've created a mutant. A glorious and magnificent mutant!
Today I had the pleasure of recording The Summer Twins! I toyed around with some effects on the girls' vocals, but quite honestly they're so good they don't even need it. This has been the easiest and most efficient day yet! I actually lost count of the days earlier, which I think is a good sign that this whole thing is evolving from work into play.
This basically started as what I planned to be the friendliest and most welcoming song ever. The parts fell together so quickly and organically, with hardly any obstacles. I showed Ryan Beal the initial loops taken from a Sublime Frequencies comp I'd rediscovered last night, and he started coming up with parts immediately. He even let me take a 5 minute nap while he mixed the drums. Our good and dear friends Ryan Bergmann and Amanda Martin paid us a visit, and we discussed the finer things in life like having puppies and the various ways of getting them to stop peeing in the house.
Lyrics: Please stay, you're always welcome. Please stay, you're always welcome. My home, I open to you. Rest well: Forget tomorrow.
Today, I was visited by two lovely young chaps, Kyle Souza (Narhwal Party/Stab City) and Bill Davies (Duhkha/Mothers of Gut), who lended their superb guitar abilities to the making of this track. Inspirations include Achim Reichel and Manuel Gottsching, amongst other notable Germans. Enjoy!
This song turned out way better than I anticipated! Wrote it from scratch this morning.
Lyrics:
A boy swinging on a rope, a slow descent into the lake below. Blue waves begin to fold, earth pulling down to meet him there. Soon, suspension in the air gives heed the depths alone, Trying and trying and trying and trying to just let go.
I'm running forward and backward to find the piece of the puzzle. The tragedy of a diaromic mind is the turquoise in water.
Last Summer we went to the big island of Hawai'i for a week. The long car rides around the island were quite possibly some of the most breathtaking moments of my life, thanks in part to our musical hosts, Roedelius' "Wenn Der Sudwind Weht" and Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Stone Flower." When I think of those two albums together, I picture an analog paradise, and that's kind of what I was trying to emulate here. As it happens, this is the first recording where I played all the drum parts live with all 4 mic tracks running at the same time, so that feels good.
A little proggy fun for the kids! Recording this one really tired me out. I seriously can't understand how Yes recorded their albums so immaculately. They must've been snorting something good. There are several more parts to get down, but the first minute and 1/2 took all day, so I'm giving myself some time to breathe.
Morgan Gee arrived at my house shortly after noon, and we came up with this song together. We were going to add a spoken incantation, but both agreed that it would sound campy. I love the nature of the recording, personally. It just doesn't get much better than doomy viola. In fact, I might name my first kid Doomy Viola. Near the end of the song, to me, it sounds like beards everywhere, like falling into a chasm of raw beard, like when Gimli is drinking malt beer and gets it in his moustache.
My good and dear friend Travis Farwell from Hello Astronaut, Goodbye Television/Travisaurus/Slumber Beast fame wrote this wonderful piece of music! I feel like this is a precise example of what it sounds like when our styles become literally mixed together. So cool!
To celebrate the 10th day of this project, I'm offering up the first ten songs for free download HERE. I hope you enjoy it!
This is an Aphrodite's Child remix/mashup. If you haven't listened to 666, I highly suggest it, at the very least as a reference point.
I've been doped up on Ibuprofen all day, so you'll have to forgive the teetering off of ideas near the end of the song. I usually am against crescendos simply for the sake of crescendoing, but it just seemed like the first minute and 1/2 served as the crux of what I was trying to accomplish.
Today was chillax'd out, on account of twisting my neck in my sleep last night. This song turned out much nicer than I intended. The theme behind this one involves a group of astronauts who wake up after many light years of hypersleep, who come to the cold realization that their world is gone forever and they exist now as merely remnants of a forgotten dream. Y'know, pretty much like my life.
Lyrics: Dreaming of crysanthymums in pouring rain, where silk is raw, the untroubled man is floating on.
The idea behind this one was to take what I considered to be arguably the greatest moment in Black Sabbath's career- Hand of Doom 3:38- and remix it. The result is a surprisngly rewarding blend of hard rockery and congotronique.
Lyrics: They hear footsteps, coming from a distance. Echoes spilling on oceans, pulling them closer. Maddened by a whisper, the silence approaching, whipping in a frenzy, washing away the summer.
This song was a doozy! Learning it from scratch took literally all day and all night, but I think the outcome was worth the hassle. As fortune had it, my good friend Adam Elabd was able to come over later and lay down a nice clarinet part. I hope you like it.
Built this one frome scratch today. At first it was a bit challenging, but I love how it turned out. The ending reminds me of Conflict's "Whichever Way You Want it" for some reason. I'm finding the days seem to be getting more and more rewarding, and I'm so grateful for that, to finally feel the effects of productivity. It's like going to the brain gym every day. Tonight I will be housing my good friend Adam Elabd, and tomorrow hopefully we'll have something worked out with a clarinet in the mix! I'm very excited for that.
Lyrics: To know without knowing is the best. A riverbed awaits that weary traveler. Suffering the void until there's nothing left, just fragments of a boy who's lost his way. No one can find him anywhere. An inconsequential glow is keeping him at peace. To live until he dies is long enough. And he has never come across a bird or beast who ever felt regret for not asking questions. Your words won't get you anywhere.
Today was excellent! Things fell together so nicely; I hardly had any issues. What a relief! A good friend of mine and fellow connoisseur of the musiks, Dustin Krapes, singer for Halloween Swim Team, whose music you can check out here, arrived at my house later on- via bicycle- and laid down some killer textural scapes. To me the result is a liquid metal orgy.
Lyrics: No more running No more running away from the pain that I suffer all alone. There're so many There're so many roads I could take, but I walk alone with you. I have never I have never meant to be a brutish man, but a man of science.
Kristina wrote this song, and I love it! I think the allure to her songwriting is the simplicity. When I first met her in 2005, not only was I enamored with her brilliant artwork, which you can check out here, but I couldn't get over that soft spoken yet truly beautiful voice. Listening to her sing is like watching the Nature Channel or something, like a primordial force. We both agreed this song reminds of the 90's, and that kind of triggered some self-inquiry, in that even though I lived through that decade, my memory of it is convoluted, much like how in the 90's our collective memory of -say- the 70's was distorted and skewed. I think it's that our memories carve out particular shapes and when we try to reconstruct them, we end up with a kind of psychedelia. Go figure. Anyways, ENJOY!
Lyrics: We walk these steps all night we're on our own. These stalks we see they're ours we're on our own. And when the bottle comes you'll be a different man. You'll say a lot of things, you'll write me a song. And when the day is empty you'll drown in all the lead. You'll say a lot of things, you'll write me a song. And when the curtain's holy you'll want to burn the stage. You'll say a lot of things you'll sing me a song.
Woweewowow what a day! We had a great time recording this one. Today's guests were Omar Jamal from Brother Mitya fame, and my wonderful companion Kristina Collantes.
Lyrics: Look behind the sun to the dark eyes of a deeper sun bound to bright fangs. His last breath was a whisper, falling far into a canyon. Echoing in my mind, haunting my thoughts. Achingly small and feeble, a silence that could open any door, lead me into any room. A passage through violet verdure, her distance calling out to me. I'll take off my shoes and stroll into her garden, and swim in her oceans of black hair and seasons.
Lyrics: Still my visions drag me down into the fray, but I wouldn't have it any other way, and my love for you grows stronger by the day, but still my visions drag me down into the fray.
The first day is done! It only took eleven hours too. Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have some spare time to at least wash or feed myself. Today I subsisted solely on Filipino cheese ice cream and Soba noodles w/ fishballs. Yes, I shop at Seafood City and I love it.
This song was sort of a sketch I'd been working out in my head, and it turned out pretty nice, though I had quite a few problems getting the ball rolling this morning. Trying to set up drum mics is fairly nasty by one's self. Ryan Beal came over a little later and laid down some super sweet lead guitar, so thanks to him for that. I predict that in 29 days I will be either dead or a raving lunatic. We will see.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
This is my music room. Much of the recording/power napping/eating will take place here.
This is Shoobee. Incidentally, she was born on exactly 10/10/10, so tomorrow she will be three months old.
Tomorrow I plan on waking up at 8 and getting started, and by midnight I will have a song posted. See you then!
Beginning January 10th, 2011, I will be officially quarantined in my home for no less than thirty days, with one goal in mind: To write, record, produce and release a song a day, and the results will be posted on this blog by midnight of each night, whether they're done or not. The purpose of this assignment is multi-faceted; on the one hand, I will be pushing my creative abilities to their limits (perhaps further), and on the other hand I will be that much closer to mastering the forms in which I approach songwriting and composition. Also, this project is meant to be collaborative, in that I will be inviting musicians who I know and trust to come over on scheduled days to lend their creative abilities. Following each released song will be its theoretical summation, having been prior discussed between myself and the collaborators present, and of course all comments and criticisms are welcome. See you all in ten days!
