Still on the Internet, Still a Nobody
Hello there, it’s time for another burst of musical creativity, this time in the form of some upbeat, reggae and dub-themed dance mixes I’ve called the Psonic Psunshine EP, I hope you enjoy it.
As usual you can listen for free via the embedded player below, or hop over to my Bandcamp page if you’d like to buy these or any of my other music to play at your leisure forever.
Hello again, I’m back with yet more new tunes, with my second new album release in less than a week!
No, I haven’t been on a manic two day recording spree, these are tracks which I’ve worked on over the last few months, alongside my crash course in rack synths, patch cables, ring modulators, sonic envelopes, audio generators and all manner of musical geekery.
This collection has more of an eclectic EDM vibe to it, featuring my own peculiar mashup of styles and genres. From techno and glitch-hop to electro and house, with a pinch of drum and bass and a soupçon of Twin Peaks, it’s a tasty mix of sonic tomfoolery for your ears to devour.
Listen for free via the player below and don’t hesitate to purchase the album in its entirety, or any individual tracks which take your fancy, from my Bandcamp page for a ludicrously low price. (Also don’t forget to check out the dalecooper57 YouTube channel, to see videos for some of the tracks featured on the album)
Thank you for your attention, now without further ado let’s enjoy some Sounds from the shed.
Hello, Happy New Year and welcome to part two of this roundup of recent audio visual output, this time focusing on music I made entirely by myself, as opposed to adding to/remixing existing material.
I created each of these compositions using dozens of samples, which I patiently assembled from the hundreds I’ve found by trawling the internet, then added extra layers of sound by mixing two or more of these initial sequences together.
The videos are made with a variety of pattern generating and editing apps, often using several different versions superimposed on top of each other, then multiple layers of effects are added (because I never did know when to stop) to achieve the sometimes retina-bothering results you see below.
I’m aware my sonic noodlings are sometimes rather long, which is a result of my preferred method of a “live jamming” recording process. I really only make the accompanying videos because YouTube links are the easiest to share, so if prolonged exposure is a bit much for you, I quite understand. ;~}
There is a whole load more music which is yet to be released into the wild, so my next project will be to compile some of that into my third Bandcamp album of original material. Watch this space for details.
Anyway, to the music.
This first one started out as a silent experiment in overlaying animations and I thought it needed a soundtrack, so I repurposed an old track of mine with some effects, just for fun.
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After which, there’s this, the first result of the aforementioned experimentation. I started making the video one weekend and didn’t get round to finishing it, so it sat there in my editing app all week and every now and again I’d have an idea like; “Ooh, what this needs is loads of dancing robots…”
Then I’d think of another layer of effects to apply, then another, and another.
After the slightly creepy, pumpkin headed dancing men arrived, I figured it was time to stop
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Here’s a slice of psychedelic disco for you, the video is a bit like being sucked into a funky wormhole.
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Trance and techno more your sort of thing? Try this great big wall of sound production, it’s pretty damn anthemic, even if I do say so myself. (You could even check out the Extended Breakbeat Remix, should you so wish)
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And finally there’s this, well, I’m not sure what you’d call it, but it certainly builds to a very satisfactory crescendo of interesting noises.
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Stay tuned for part three, coming soon…
My Bandcamp profile continues to grow and you can explore it in full by clicking on the image of my back-catalogue, but you can also get a taster right now in this post.
If you caught yesterday’s audio visual spectacular, you’ll have already heard one my two latest compositions, Grid Muzik, but if not you can listen to it here
However, I only completed work on the second of the weekend’s peculiar electronica projects this afternoon, so this will be it’s first public airing.
I’d like to present to you, an up-tempo little number called Planet X, check it out, it’s never quite what you expect it to be…
This weekend’s musical project was conceived when I heard Tom Tom Club‘s Genius of Love on the radio during the week. That’s most often the time I think “Ooh, that sounds like it has potential for some mucking about” and file it away for future experimentation.
Well yesterday the experiment began.
I started by establishing the BPM and key of the song, (102.9 and B Major, if you’re interested) then I proceeded to assemble an eclectic range of samples from online archives, which I carefully sequenced, after re-tuning them to match the pitch and speed of the original track.
And as usual when I embark on these sonic adventures, I got a bit carried away and ended up making an entirely new and somewhat extended piece of music; one that stands up perfectly well on its own and with which I have to say I was pretty impressed.
But, since I’d made it, I thought it was still worth splicing together with Tom Tom Club’s bouncy, post-punk pop song and the freely playable and downloadable result appears below in all its extravagant glory.
Enjoy.
“Music”, John Miles once said, “was my first love and it will be my last”.
Well maybe I wouldn’t go as far as that, but music has always been a huge part of my life, despite my being about as naturally musical as a bucket of spanners falling down the stairs.
But as anyone who has been following my particular brand of nonsense for a while will be aware, that hasn’t stopped me from dabbling with Sound and Vision for a few years and my skills are gradually improving.
I’m always playing around with remixes for my own entertainment; forcing together tunes which are almost certainly not supposed be combined, foisting them on unsuspecting friends on Facebook and sending them all to my old friend, Ho, the inexplicably eager guinea pig for musical experimentation.
Obviously it’s gratifying when somebody likes the result of my sacrilegious sonic noodling, but I’ve never laboured under the misconception that any of my amateur offerings would get an official release by a proper record label.
Until now, that is.
Only the other day I told you about my cousin, Rich Thair, founder member of the globally successful Red Snapper and more recently side project, (with bandmate Ali Friend) Number. Well, when they released their single Face Down In Ecstacy, their label , Sunday Best Records decided to run a remix competition. It was to be judged “blind” so that the band would not know whose mix was whose and mine was of course submitted under the moniker dalecooper57.
The prize was the chance to have the winning mix released on an exclusive Bandcamp EP and I just could not resist entering.
I never expected to be in serious contention, competing as I was against people who knew what they were doing when it came to dealing with things called “stems”, for example.
These stem files were what I was sent by the record label (essentially, the component parts of the track to be remixed) and I had no idea what to do with them and nothing with which to, since as with everything else I do, I was using my phone for the entire process. So in the end I used the album version of the track, which I had purchased on its original release and informed the label that I just didn’t have the technology. They were very nice about it and basically said, do whatever you want, so I got to work.
This was about the time it occurred to me that all my previous attempts at mastering the remixer’s art had involved the aforementioned splicing together of songs, which I couldn’t do on this occasion because of copyright infringement issues.
But…wait a minute…that didn’t apply to using my own musical compositions, if you can call them that, for the additional mixing elements, did it?
Aha, the game was afoot.
So I sat down on a sunny afternoon a few weeks ago and, using one of the tunes I’d created with my Korg synth app during lockdown, I got to work on my remix of Face Down In Ecstacy
I submitted the completed mix a few days later, crossed my fingers that at the very least they wouldn’t reject it out of hand and waited…
To my amazement, the deadline for submissions arrived and I received an email saying my mix had indeed been entered into the competition and they liked the “spacey feel” I’d given the track.
Wow!
Like, WOW!
Ok, so I wasn’t going to win, but I’d had it accepted by a real record company for serious consideration, that’s pretty good, right?
And on Friday, I found this momentous message in my inbox;
“Hi Guy,
Thanks again for your remix entry.The band have decided to release a remix EP exclusive to Bandcamp, which includes your remix. The release is a 7 track EP which consists of some of the entries from the competition and the original ‘Face Down in Ecstasy’ mix.The release will be published on Number’s Bandcamp page on Monday 21st September. I’ll send over the release link once published!Thanks so much again and hope you have a lovely weekend!Cheers,Sunday Best Recordings”
WOOHOO!
Yes, it’s official, dalecooper57 is now on the same record label as David Lynch, how cool is that?
I am, as I’m sure you can tell, extraordinarily chuffed about this turn of events and I would now like to suggest that you click on the image at the top of this post, or USE THIS REALLY OBVIOUS LINK to navigate your way to your listening pleasure.
Right, back to the turntables, who knows what’ll happen next…
RETURN OF THE INTERNET NOBODY 