i can't date this exactly. i know it was the first half of the second semester of grade 12, which was spring of 1999. further, i'm taking it forward to about midway because the first part of the course was about voice-leading and i spent it orchestrating the beatles' something. i don't have any files.

i was lucky: i went to a high school with a big music department. not an arts school, mind you. just a school that had enough funding to run a wide array of course options that are outside the basic core topics. there were three main assignments in the course, and while i don't remember the exact assignment questions, i do have two pieces to show for it.

this, here, is a conceptual piece about pop music. all of the sounds are created from pop cans. yes, puns are fun. the samples run from pouring water out of pop cans into the sink, to crushing and smashing pop cans, to opening them, to exploding them, etc.

i used the tab of a pop can as a pick as i played the ambient guitar parts. it's all thrown together, processed, warped and perfected in a wave editor.

constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this track appears unmodified on my third record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2017). 

credits

released April 15, 1999

j - guitars, effects, samples, loops, digital wave editing 

somebody asked me to do this for them for a school project in the second half of grade 12, which was early 1999. we're both italian. silly joke, no offense intended.

i never saw the final version, but the guy described it to me. it was an anti drinking and driving ad (think madd) for a marketing class. they sequenced it up with shots of one of them stumbling towards a car, getting in and driving off. very clownish, apparently.

i didn't spend a lot of time on this, so i didn't charge them for it or anything. i think i was more hoping that it would float around a little, but if it did i'm not aware of it.

streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this track appears in slightly modified form on my third record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2017).

credits

released March 9, 1999

j - hammerhead (909 emulator), digital wave editing

publishing inri026

i went through a string of extremely cold basements in the late 90s. it was half heating costs; on that level, i could even agree for environmental reasons. however, it was half because my step-mother legitimately prefers absolutely frigid, air-conditioner-level temperatures and didn't want hot air rising from the basement to ruin the freezing temperature upstairs. you can understand how that might get frustrating sometimes.

i was offered a room upstairs, but then i'd have to go to bed at 10:00 pm rather than stay up until 4:00 am recording music and chatting on the internet, which was clearly unacceptable.

the song is more than a surreal commentary, it is a morbid fantasy i was legitimately having. there wasn't any real chance that i was going to light the basement on fire; if i were to do that, i might ruin my guitar, and then i'd be worse off. the story runs a little off the rails, but that is it's charm.

this was the last song recorded for inclusion on my second record, inriched (inri021), and initially sequenced as the penultimate track (as the viewless/suicide sequence had already been decided upon as the ending track). the song was finished on the evening of the 5th; i finished the cover art on the evening of the 6th. it remained in that position, as the 14th track, from february, 1999 until jan, 2016 when it was split off for the technical reason that i wasn't able to remove the vocals because i didn't retain source material. this is frustrating, because it's by far the most interesting song on the record, from a musical perspective.

however, i've always viewed the track as transitional; i realized, even at the time, that i was starting something new rather than ending something, with this. in hindsight, the elaborate electro-prog explored by the track is certainly more similar to what would follow than what i was closing down. it is actually fitting that the track was removed due to a lack of source material, as that defines what i created over 1999 (which i'm retroactively labelling period 1.3).

as the track was still on inriched through 2013, it was remastered along with the rest of the record. a version was also produced for the deleted inricycled b compilation, which included some extra mastering and the removal of the opening sample. these versions were both mastered to fit into their respective sequences; while they're both improvements, neither really captured the essence of the track as it's own thing. so, a final standalone mix was constructed in sept, 2017 to permanently close the ep.

initially written and recorded in the winter of 1999. remixed in late 2013 and again in early 2014. this track was separated from my second record in january, 2016 but the single was not completed until it was remixed one last time in sept, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017). 

credits

released February 5, 1999

j - guitars, effects, bass, sequencing, drum programming, synths, vocals, loops, samples, digital wave editing 

 

i've read quite a large number of the sagas, and they certainly stand out for their female protaganists - which one might point out were also prominent in celtic societies.

it kind of bugs me that so many feminists are so insistent on this idea of perpetual patriarchy. they seem to openly doom themselves to subservience, by providing the most extreme exit plan possible. so many of them are convinced that civilization itself is inherently patriarchal, and you have to go back to the very beginnings of human culture to overturn it. give me patriarchy, or give me death.

i don't think the evidence is there. frankly, i think the evidence is much stronger that patriarchy is a fundamentally jewish concept, and that it's been usurped and brutally enforced by christians and muslims, but that the indigenous groups both in christian europe and in the middle east tended to range from broadly egalitarian to questionably matriarchal. you don't even have to go full gimbutas on this. we have historical records of the power of priestesses in the pre-islamic semitic world - as well as the greek world, for that matter. the hellenic world was quite often dominated by powerful female monarchs (propped up by court eunuchs) - it was quite normal, not the anomaly that it was in western europe, save britain, which largely kept it's celtic traditions and both in england and in scotland.

tied into this is unquestionably the fact that so many historical feminists have been so religious. many of them seem to have even defined the question of feminism as the process of winning the right to participate in the church. the situation is far from irreversible,  but it does require overturning the system that so many seemed to long to be a part of. the only logical way out is to collapse into parmenides and deny the possibility of change: patriarchy is irreversible, so it does not hurt to join the church.

if patriarchy is intrinsically connected to abrahamic religion, however, it can be abolished along with the religion. and, i would promote that positive view.

we don't need to go back to the norse sagas. but, we can see the society as proof that there are alternate paths to this place in time and space.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/09/11/high-ranking-viking-warrior-was-female-dna-tests-prove.html

i may have literally been the first to argue that canadian social positions are politics, but i was being cynical - these are the things i want in an agreement.

and, it's easy enough to make the case for environmental & labour standards, as these things are what the agreement is actually about.

as a canadian, i can even understand the indigenous rights part, although the jurisprudence is a bit behind in the united states and, as far as i know, non-existent in mexico. but, even basic language on consultation would be hugely positive. that said, perhaps the prime minister could start at home.

it's the gender section that doesn't actually make any sense to me, in context. what, exactly, does a gender chapter in nafta contain, if anything at all? i'm just not able to imagine what they're imagining. it could take the form of a basic list of rights, i guess, but that would be supplemental - because women are people, too. that's settled case law. i guess i'm aware that the harshest work is disproportionately done by women, but i don't know what that translates to in a nafta chapter that wouldn't, and shouldn't, be approached more broadly.

nafta certainly isn't about political representation or any of the things that the liberals routinely invoke gender around - except, unfortunately, in one way, which is as a distraction.

so, now i see the headlines focusing on the topic, and the prime minister going out of his way to use it as a talking point, which is worrying, because when he does that it almost always means he's hiding something unpopular.

it's very cynical of me, but if you know then you know and i know that the likely truth is that this is intended as a bait and switch.

i just hope we don't wake up to a patent regime or a border arrangements or a resource sharing agreement that was rushed through while everybody was talking about something else.