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.
Good evening to you, unless it isn’t, then good morning or good afternoon, wherever you may be, I hope you’re having a lovely weekend so far.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time recently, making a couple of extremely complex audio visual delights and the time has come to share them with you.
The first is a completely “original” composition, made using royalty-free samples I found in online archives; created by my usual method of producing two complete eight track recordings and then mixing them together on my virtual DJ decks.
Once again I have lovingly constructed a multilayered, psychedelic, visual feast to accompany the sonic odyssey, Flare Rider, which you may enjoy right here and now. The music will also soon be available as a release on my Bandcamp page.
The second musical offering I have for you is another in my series of unlikely soundclash mixes; this one features some ’80s pop classics, along with some bespoke breaks, beats and bleeping noises from yours truly on the virtual wheels of steel.
It’s also FREE to download on Bandcamp (because; royalties, copyright, etc) so grab a copy for yourself while it’s still available…
Time for more sonic experimentation to brighten up your hump day.
Firstly, here’s a brand new slab of deep, dark techno, called Fathom…
…followed by this free download of a truly preposterous concoction; two previously separate compositions spliced together to make up a veritable cornucopia of weird noises and conspicuous bleepery, Datastream.
Hello there, I’ve been having an afternoon of musical creativity and technical shenanigans, resulting in not one, not two, not even three, but four new tracks being added to my page on Bandcamp.
Three of them are completely new and original compositions by yours truly, (about which, more to follow) but for starters I’d like to present you with a gift, free, gratis and without charge, (ok, that’s primarily for copyright reasons, but still…) in the form of my remix of a goth classic; The Cure‘s Carnage Visors.
Carnage Visors was originally conceived as the soundtrack to a film which never saw the light of day, (although you can watch a short clip of it HERE) and was included on some versions of the band’s 1981 album, Faith.
I have mucked about with it before, making an extremely eclectic mashup mix involving several songs by wildly differing artists, which was only partially successful if I’m honest. But this time I spent a considerable amount of time composing an extended piece of original music with which to remix Laughing Bob and friends’ hypnotically gloomy epic.
So here is my enhanced version, which you may download for free or listen to via the embedded player below, entitled rather unimaginatively, Carnage Re-Visor.
Stay tuned for more music news coming soon, don’t touch that dial…
No, that’s not a typo, it’s a reference to the blatant artistic thievery I employ to create my unconventional mashup mixes; jamming together unsuspecting and unlikely tunes for my own twisted entertainment.
Well, I’ve been producing them for long enough now that I thought I should compile some of the best and make them freely available, as an unofficial and totally unauthorised release on my newly re-energised Bandcamp page.
I cannot possibly charge you anything for them – I can’t even allow you to “name your price” due to copyright issues – however, there is nothing to stop anyone from browsing the rest of my back catalogue and choosing to pay for a completely different track, while downloading the free remixes…
Anyway, the album is embedded below, should you wish to sample its delights, and quite a mixed bag of obtuse musical juxtapositions it is, too.
Both the somewhat blunt title and mildly disturbing cover art, (which, you’ll be unsurprised to learn, are Twin Peaks-related in-jokes) are from an album I created to store all the mixes in my phone’s music player, so it seemed only fitting that I use it for its real world release, so to speak.
I thought it was time to update my audio visual showcase, so I have added a plethora of YouTube videos to my Sound and Vision page, compiling all the best mixes and sonic experiments from the last few years.
I have also added a link to the folder containing these and dozens of other mp3 files, should you wish to download any of my peculiar ouevre, completely free of charge.
Today the Melodic Randomiser spewed out a track from 1974 called 1984, one from 1984 about leaving home and one from 2012 (rather spoiling the pattern) about coming home.
The first cut is the deepest, so they say, and that might just be the case on today’s Isolation Radio show…
…given that the first cut is David Bowie‘s dystopian reimagining of George Orwell‘s “1984”, from the fantastic Diamond Dogs album.
And we finish up today with a song from the original soundtrack album of one of the best TV dramas about music I think I’ve seen, Treme.
This sprawling series by The Wire creator, David Simon, follows life in the titular area of New Orleans which was so badly devastated by Hurricane Katrina. It brilliantly chronicles the neglect felt by inhabitants and how they felt let down by the Bush administration, mirrored by the deep love of jazz and it’s long traditions in the community. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it for your quarantine watch list.
So to play us out, here’s Steve Zahn‘s character, DJ DAVIS and the Brassy Knoll, with “The Road Home”
That concludes today’s festivities, but rest assured I shall return tomorrow for more electronic entertainment from the ether.
Peace
X
{*If you wish to hear my very own megamix tribute to The Art of Noise, combined with a bit of New Order, you can listen or download fromHERE for free}
I seem to be having a few little problems with pingbacks and notifications, which a couple of readers have mentioned and I have also noticed something similar on K’lee’s blog recently.
So this is a test post to help the WordPress Happiness Engineers to track and capture any gremlins who are lurking in the system.
But since I have you here, you might as well get something out of it, so here’s one of my strange remixes for you to listen to and/or download.
It’s a bona-fide ’80s pop classic which I’m sure a lot of you will recognise, spliced rather neatly together with a band who were one of their major influences and one of my all time favourites. So click the link below or the image above and enjoy, completely gratis and free of charge, my latest understated masterpiece…
It’s time to delve into the world of Linda G Hill and her SoCS feature, for today’s attempt to crowbar a random word or phrase into whatever post I had planned anyway find inspiration in the weekly prompt, which this week is;
“ When you’re ready to sit down and write your post, look to the publication (book, newspaper, permission slip from your kid’s teacher, whatever you find) closest to you, and base your post on the sixth, seventh, and eighth word from the beginning of the page. “
Well, I found, this on the living room table beside me…
…one of those free catalogues of useless gadgets, gizmos and questionable “fashion” items that comes stapled inside the TV guide.
A crapalogue, if you will.
Giving me this as my prompt;
ORDER WITH CONFIDENCE – We Guarantee You Will Be Happy!
Ok, then.
You will be delighted to hear that I’ve been experimenting with my audio visual toys again this weekend; namely, my edjing mixing app and a selection of video imaging and editing gadgets.
My first sonic hybrid creation is an atmospheric and vaguely cinematic piece; electro-goth by way of Twin Peaks, (just for a change) using Dark Water by Hide and Sequence, from this excellent album of Peaks-inspired, retro-synth tunes, combined with the bass line from Sanctified by Nine Inch Nails, who appeared in the recent third season of David Lynch’s oddball masterpiece.
I used Poweramp to generate some fancy visuals and set up my temporary studio in the airing cupboard to shoot the accompanying video, managing to re-synchronize the soundtrack perfectly, (even if I do say so myself) which you can experience in all its glory, right here.
You will be equally thrilled to learn that I’ve had a go at combining another trio of Kraftwerk classics; mixing the German and Japanese versions of Pocket Calculator together, (or Taschenrechner and Dentaku, if you prefer) to make a frenetic bleep-a-thon I like to call;
Then I took a few samples of Music Non-Stop, from the 1986 album Electric Café, adding them to a version of Radioactivityto produce this bastard lovechild of a track, the epic electro megamix called;
You will be able to listen to and/or download my remixes if you wish, using the links above. And you will be able to find many more of my mixes and strange compositions on The A/V Project page.
Hello there, I hope your weekend is going well and isn’t spoiled too much by the failure to finally conclude this story in today’s SoCS post, inspired by Linda G Hill and her prompt;
” “ink.” Use it as a noun or a verb. “
Well, you see, it’s like this…
Having been up since five this morning, (to do overtime at work) my brain is now a little too mushy to do much in the way of creative writing so, to save precious internet ink which could be used by someone in need of coherent wordage, I’m cheating.
What I actually mean is, I’m using this post as a thinly veiled excuse to inflict another of my DJ mixes on you.
This one, many of you who grew up in the ’80s may remember; it’s a remix of a Big Audio Dynamite song, with lyrics that (should you have ever wondered) are in part references to the movies of Nicolas Roeg.
My mix is a somewhat exuberant and frenetic version, (with the obligatory, ’80s style, extended intro and plenty of rhythmic indulgence) using a sample from the same song to add extra…well, extras.
And because of this, it seemed only right to rename it E=MC³
Use the link below the cunningly customised sleeve artwork to listen and/or download it for free.
RETURN OF THE INTERNET NOBODY 