this little sample collage went a long way over the years. in the end, it needed a home of it's own.
the initial collage, from september 1997, is actually the earliest computer music experiment that i have. years of enjoying playing 'civilization 2' by myself had me imagining soundscapes during events, and they began to arrange themselves in my mind, in patterns. if you were even alive in 1997, you might want to think back to the realities of technology at the time; i had a dial-up internet connection, minimal access to software and little idea of what i might be able to find on the internet. when i finally did find a shareware copy of cool edit '96, it became clear what i was looking for; before that, all i had access to was the default windows 95 software, which included the windows 95 sound recorder.
it would be harder to find this executable nowadays than you might think, unless you have a windows 95 cd (or perhaps a set of windows 95 floppy disks). it was clearly not designed for sound art, but it did have a crude copy and paste operation. really, it had some potential, it just lacked a tactile gui.
while the program was difficult to operate due to a poor user ui, i was able to take advantage of it to produce some interesting sound experiments that would be difficult to reproduce in any sort of other program. you could tell the program to loop or to slow or speed down samples, but you had to make a good guess as to where to paste it in - often with the aid of some napkin math. what i was able to get out of the program is perhaps wholly idiosyncratic, but i would not recommend it at all, not even in the conscientiously goofy retro sense.
really. don't do this. i plead of you.
once the background collage was completed, i initially intended to turn the track into a goofy electro-swing thing, with punk rock guitars, but i found the out from the computer to be noisy and the in from the 4-track to lack dynamics. so, sending the track to tape created too much noise and trying to record in over cool edit seemed to suck the life out of the guitars. i would later realize that this was gear specific: i was using a stock soundblaster from c. 1995 and a stock floor digital effects processor that needed to be warmed up by the tape. a version with vocals was recorded in january of 1998, but it was discarded in favour of the pure collage, which i decided worked well enough on it's own, in a quirky, yet subversive, kind of way. when i burned my first demo cd in june of 1998, i used the strict sample collage (shaped slightly for continuity).
i was assigned an electronic music project in the winter semester of 1999 and intended to use this track, as it narrates the absurdity of a war situation (and even kind of sounds like the 30s). however, i couldn't hand in the first part of the collage because it was lifted directly out of the sample. in the initial context it didn't matter - it was entirely atmospheric, purely conceptual - but it was imperative that it be removed in the academic context and be replaced with something i could assign myself writing credits to. so, i took an isolated experiment with score writing off of the first demo and fused the tracks together, creating a fully original hybrid written/sample piece. this was done twice due to reasons that i don't fully remember, but partly to remove the glitchy cricket sounds in the background; in the end, the second version did not have the sample overlays that the first did, which are only available in the 'early warning' version.
the track was remastered in 2013, along with the rest of the early material, but it didn't work out for any of it, in the end. at the end of 2014, i was able to recreate the originally intended version (with punk rock guitars) by taking advantage of a much newer soundcard, as well as noise reduction and digital mastering software. it was this version that was used in the reconstruction of my first record in january of 2016, but i again had to modify the lead-in; this time, i created an ambient sample collage to rise from the ashes of what i had to destroy.
meanwhile, the initial sound card experiment had also been dramatically updated by the newer technology. the lead track was created on oct 26, 2016 to simply explore the idea of what merging the two completed components together would sound like. in the end, it seemed necessary to release this, in order to be comprehensive.
the track is really more about mental journeys undertaken during long overnights of civ 2 than it is about anything explicitly anti-war, although the ideas intersect and the latter certainly evolved from the former. this is really actually a little bit of a window into what is going on in my own mind, as i'm conquering alien land masses at 3:30 on a wednesday morning.
this track was initially created in the fall of 1997 as an experiment using the windows 95 sound recorder. it was further expanded upon several times over 1998, resulting in several different mixes. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013, while a more successful rescue was carried out on a reclaimed full band version in late 2014. the track was further reconstructed and remastered for inri015 in january of 2016; the lead track was created on oct 26, 2016 out of material that had been remastered over 2013-2016. the ep was created on oct 26, 2016 but not released (and finalized) until sept 13, 2017, in order to properly fit into sequence. 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 (1997, 1998, 1999, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017).
the initial collage, from september 1997, is actually the earliest computer music experiment that i have. years of enjoying playing 'civilization 2' by myself had me imagining soundscapes during events, and they began to arrange themselves in my mind, in patterns. if you were even alive in 1997, you might want to think back to the realities of technology at the time; i had a dial-up internet connection, minimal access to software and little idea of what i might be able to find on the internet. when i finally did find a shareware copy of cool edit '96, it became clear what i was looking for; before that, all i had access to was the default windows 95 software, which included the windows 95 sound recorder.
it would be harder to find this executable nowadays than you might think, unless you have a windows 95 cd (or perhaps a set of windows 95 floppy disks). it was clearly not designed for sound art, but it did have a crude copy and paste operation. really, it had some potential, it just lacked a tactile gui.
while the program was difficult to operate due to a poor user ui, i was able to take advantage of it to produce some interesting sound experiments that would be difficult to reproduce in any sort of other program. you could tell the program to loop or to slow or speed down samples, but you had to make a good guess as to where to paste it in - often with the aid of some napkin math. what i was able to get out of the program is perhaps wholly idiosyncratic, but i would not recommend it at all, not even in the conscientiously goofy retro sense.
really. don't do this. i plead of you.
once the background collage was completed, i initially intended to turn the track into a goofy electro-swing thing, with punk rock guitars, but i found the out from the computer to be noisy and the in from the 4-track to lack dynamics. so, sending the track to tape created too much noise and trying to record in over cool edit seemed to suck the life out of the guitars. i would later realize that this was gear specific: i was using a stock soundblaster from c. 1995 and a stock floor digital effects processor that needed to be warmed up by the tape. a version with vocals was recorded in january of 1998, but it was discarded in favour of the pure collage, which i decided worked well enough on it's own, in a quirky, yet subversive, kind of way. when i burned my first demo cd in june of 1998, i used the strict sample collage (shaped slightly for continuity).
i was assigned an electronic music project in the winter semester of 1999 and intended to use this track, as it narrates the absurdity of a war situation (and even kind of sounds like the 30s). however, i couldn't hand in the first part of the collage because it was lifted directly out of the sample. in the initial context it didn't matter - it was entirely atmospheric, purely conceptual - but it was imperative that it be removed in the academic context and be replaced with something i could assign myself writing credits to. so, i took an isolated experiment with score writing off of the first demo and fused the tracks together, creating a fully original hybrid written/sample piece. this was done twice due to reasons that i don't fully remember, but partly to remove the glitchy cricket sounds in the background; in the end, the second version did not have the sample overlays that the first did, which are only available in the 'early warning' version.
the track was remastered in 2013, along with the rest of the early material, but it didn't work out for any of it, in the end. at the end of 2014, i was able to recreate the originally intended version (with punk rock guitars) by taking advantage of a much newer soundcard, as well as noise reduction and digital mastering software. it was this version that was used in the reconstruction of my first record in january of 2016, but i again had to modify the lead-in; this time, i created an ambient sample collage to rise from the ashes of what i had to destroy.
meanwhile, the initial sound card experiment had also been dramatically updated by the newer technology. the lead track was created on oct 26, 2016 to simply explore the idea of what merging the two completed components together would sound like. in the end, it seemed necessary to release this, in order to be comprehensive.
the track is really more about mental journeys undertaken during long overnights of civ 2 than it is about anything explicitly anti-war, although the ideas intersect and the latter certainly evolved from the former. this is really actually a little bit of a window into what is going on in my own mind, as i'm conquering alien land masses at 3:30 on a wednesday morning.
this track was initially created in the fall of 1997 as an experiment using the windows 95 sound recorder. it was further expanded upon several times over 1998, resulting in several different mixes. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013, while a more successful rescue was carried out on a reclaimed full band version in late 2014. the track was further reconstructed and remastered for inri015 in january of 2016; the lead track was created on oct 26, 2016 out of material that had been remastered over 2013-2016. the ep was created on oct 26, 2016 but not released (and finalized) until sept 13, 2017, in order to properly fit into sequence. 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 (1997, 1998, 1999, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017).
credits
released July 1, 1999
j - guitars, effects, bass, orchestral sequencing, windows 95 sound recorder, digital wave editing, sampling, production
the rendered electronic orchestra includes piano, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and synth pad.
j - guitars, effects, bass, orchestral sequencing, windows 95 sound recorder, digital wave editing, sampling, production
the rendered electronic orchestra includes piano, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and synth pad.