Writeups
Waiting in Line at the Bank - November 2007 - !QY70! This is my first song made entirely on a Yamaha qy70. Look it up if you don't know what it is. It sounds like elevator music. Very easy listening, especially compared to some of the stuff I've been working on. I love that old drum machine sound!
Rebuilding a City - September 2007 - The Rusted Gears of Age is probably my favorite song of my own. I wanted to do a follow up and here it is. It was really fun to go back and try to recreate a lot of the sounds that I used over a year ago. None of the sounds are precisely the same, which gives this one a lot different personality. I don't like it as much as Rusted, (I just couldn't make the glitchy stuff sound right this time) but I think the chord progression and overall movement is more polished.
Continuous Welded Rail - July 2007 - Started and completed in one day. Floating, busy ambient sound throughout. I joined the 'using-old-sound-clips' bandwagon here. The clip is from an advertisement for the Edison Phonograph, spoken by Len Spencer in 1906. Presumably it was to be played on an Edison Phonograph while it was on display. You can find the recording on wikipedia. It's actually makes a pretty convincing case.
Quantam Foam - July 2007 - After being pretty disappointed with the last song I kind of stopped working for a while and focused on other things, namely piano playing. I'm back now, and this is my first song since the hiatus. I like hip-hop until the vocals come in (did I say that out loud?) This started as a feeble attempt to emulate that genre, but then turned into funk and who knows what else.
Majority Rules Yet Everyone Fails - February 2007 - This marks the first time Cubase actually got mad at me for trying to do too much. "You've gone over your track limit!" it said. That'll give you an idea of the complexity of the song. I'll give it the genre of 'hybrid orchestral electronic and... some 8-bit thrown in for fun'. Some inspiration came from the soundtrack to the movie 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', which had heavy use of the theremin and a ridiculousy over-the-top dramatic score. My kind of thing. My own approximation of a theremin isn't precisely accurate, but pretty close.
Harvest - December 2006 - Harvest really is low key. I wanted it to sound like a very small band recorded raw. Other than the usual reverb and some compression, there are no effects. The instruments are a harp, cello, and a small reed ensemble, with a little bit of sleigh bells for texture. It kind of made me think of farming and wheat fields, so I named it harvest. Very cool song that I'm quite proud of.
Falling Gracefully - November 2006 - I really wanted this one to be simple and low-key. That didn't work out at all. This one is incredibly complex. It is quite a journey from start to finish, much like the older Chaos Theory. It almost sounds like I can actually play the keyboard in the beginning, doesn't it? There are a few parts that I'm a little disappointed in that I would change if I went back, but overall I enjoy listening to it.
The Dark Tower: The Thinny - Novermber 2006 - Anyone here read Stephen King's Dark Tower? If so, I've made an ambient piece for you as described in Book IV, Wizard and Glass. If you haven't read it, the short description of the thinny is any area where reality was falling apart, sort of melting away. It kind of looked like grey clouds, and King spent a lot of time describing specifically the sound of it, which I tried to recreate in a somewhat stylized manner (for instance, the sound is described as maddening, but if I did that no one would want to listen to it.) It's a fun ambient song, pretty creepy. I hope you enjoy it for what it is.
Behold! the Mountain Cries - November 2006 - This is a an important song for me, since it is the first song using the Yamaha Motif. I can now use just about any instrument I can think of, and I've used quite a few in this one. A string section, cello, and hand bells make an appearance in this song, as does some great synth melodies and nice hand crafted percussion. Enjoy!
Static Value - September 2006 - Lay down the cardboard and start practicing your robot, because I've got a heapin' helpin' of break-dancin' awesome. This is the first song made with the new studio and I just love how it came out. It was inspired by 80's break dancing music, but quickly morphed into my own style. It's a bit more complex than most of the songs in that old genre, but it still knows very little subtlety. Get breakin'!
Tower in the Desert - July 2006 - I don't particularly like this song, but I worked on it for so long and it caused me so much annoyance that I just had to END IT. It has some good elements, but it sounds like sandpaper, isn't mixed well, and the percussion is too repetitive. Still, I don't hate it so much that I won't publish it. Here it is. Some folks said they like it.
The Rusted Gears of Age - April 2006 - The first half is ambient, the second half is more dramatic. This was a lot of fun to work on. Not quite as refined as my last piece, but possibly way more fun to listen to. I'm pretty sure you'll like it. The cacophonic percussion in the second half is a deliberate nod to artists Mazedude and Telefon Tel Aviv, both whom I admire greatly. Look them up.
Understand - Feb 2006 - This one is a bit more subtle than Chaos Theory, but actually has more individual elements. The song went through many different iterations before becoming what it is now, including a much more upbeat ending, or complete percussion-based madness. None of these ideas worked in practice, although maybe I'll finish those versions in the future so you can hear them too. Elements that I particularly like are the overall dramatic feel and the loud, stereo-swimming drum kit. This was just a simple drum loop with some delay, but it was very effective.
Chaos Theory - Dec 2005 - My new standard for quality. All of my other songs will now be compared to this one until something better gets made. This is my most ambitious work ever. Probably my best song ever, as well. There's a lot going on in the five minutes and twenty seconds that this piece runs. Key changes, tempo changes, lots of different sounds and great melodies are what you'll find here. I think my ability to make interesting music out of limited equipment (synthesizer, drum machine, cubase) really shows here. By the way the mp3 format really kills this song. If you like the song and want to hear the it in wav format, let me know.
Dusty Road - Sept 2005 - An extremely relaxing, well produced ambient song with great percussion. This is one of my new favorites. It has also become quite popular amongst the few people who actually listen to this stuff. I can probably guaruntee that you'll enjoy this one.
Orange Juice - Aug 2005 - This is my first song made using Cubase, and man you can really tell. My intention was to work with a style that I don't really like, in this case, a slow downtempo relaxing piece. Not that I don't like relaxing stuff, I just usually don't like the style of percussion. Anyway, it came out really well, despite being a little busy at times. Plus it gave me an excuse to use the vocoder a lot.
Wheel - April 2005 - Wheel was finished around April of 2005, however it was started over a year earlier and was forgotten because I thought it sounded like garbage. It came out really well though. It's certainly more upbeat than my other ambient stuff.
