Wednesday, September 13, 2017

publishing inri030

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).
 

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.
maduro should still be on the look out, though.

those panamanians are always up to no good.
They also banned its state oil company’s U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, from sending dividends back to Venezuela.

well, gee. that's a neat trick, eh?

bolivarians should relax, this is just normal imperial piracy: boost the price and steal the profits.

"because we have the nukes."

well, find a new fucking market, then.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article173054886.html#storylink=cpy
“The White House was willing to stomach a slight bump in gas prices, but..."

ah.

clearly.
i've been saying for years that this is the underlying reality in venezuela: if they wanted maduro gone, they'd put up a blockade and he'd be gone in days. but, then what?

you have to wonder what it was like to live in carthage around the beginning of the common era. for, you surely knew the history. and, yet you realized your place in the empire.

however mithradatic chavez may have been, maduro does not have the same military background and will not survive such a coup - but i can't fathom how creating instability in the country is in any way in america's interests.

i don't know what the white house was planning, exactly, but i doubt it would have amounted to much, in the first place.

http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article173054886.html
purchasing this release does not come with a download.

inri015: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1994-1998. initially constructed in this form in june, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced jan 6-10, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. audio permanently closed on aug 10, 2016. finalized on oct 10, 2016. lp001.

inri016: created in the summer of 1998. released as a standalone ep on nov 16, 2013. audio permanently closed on oct 12, 2016. release finalized on oct 27, 2016.

inri017: initially written over the course of 1997. recreated and expanded over the course of 1998. lead track first sequenced in this form in feb, 1999. further remixes generated over the course of 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013, and another in late 2015. remastered in november, 2016 from various sources, 1997-2015. finalized on nov 17, 2016.

inri018: initially written in 1997. recreated and reconceptualized in late 1998. salvaged somewhat at the end of 1999. remastered in 2013. compiled on nov 13, 2016. finalized on nov 19, 2016. final album version added as a bonus track and refinalized on dec 15, 2016.

inri019: written and demoed from 1996-1999. initially constructed in this form in january, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. compiled on nov 13, 2016. sequenced on nov 22-24, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. audio permanently closed on nov 24, 2016. release finalized on nov 27, 2016. symph002.

inri020: initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed on july 2, 2015. remixed on july 15, 2015. reconceptualized & remixed repeatedly over november & december, 2016. finalized on dec 13, 2016.

inri021: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1993-1999. initially constructed in this form in feb, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced over november and december, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. finalized on dec 15, 2016. lp002.

inri022: recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. corrected to normalize for stereo in september, 2014. expanded incrementally between dec, 2014 and dec, 2016. merged with inricycled b and then finalized on december 16, 2016.

inri023: constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. the first two tracks were corrected to stereo in sept, 2014. the last two tracks were added for re-release as a remix lp in dec, 2016. lp003.

inri024: initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed over the summer of 2015, with a lengthy pause due to malfunctioning electronics. final compilation date is jan 3, 2016. finalized dec 17, 2016. lp004.

inri025: this idea was developed in parallel to the inriclaimed project over the summer of 2015 and first compiled on nov 27, 2016. finalized on dec 17, 2016. lp005.

inri026: initially written in the fall of 1997. 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.

inri027: 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.

inri028: 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.

inri029: recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. published in november, 2013. aborted early version added as a hidden track on sept 13, 2017; release consequently finalized. symph003.

originally created from 1996-1999. this compilation is dated to june 30, 1999. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2013-2017. compilation finalized on sept 13, 2017. as always, please use headphones.
 

credits

released June 30, 1999

j - guitars, effects, bass, bass synth, pick scrapes, synthesizers, piano, flute, drum kit, drum programming, orchestral & other sequencing, sampling, vocal relics, mic noises, vocoders, octavers, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, found sounds, paper, strategies, soundraider, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound design, noise generators, noise reduction, light-wave synthesis, metronome, loops, a broken tape deck, tapes, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, vocals, chance, production

the various rendered electronic orchestras include piano, organ, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, synth pads, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric bass, sitar, tubular bells, tinkle bells, synthesizer effects and flute. 
 

republishing inri029

this was my grade 12 final project in electronic music design. the assignment was something along the lines of creating a piece of music with a social message.

the message is part dystopian, but focuses more on the idea of identifying certain threats that would become a problem in the upcoming century. remember that this was the middle of 1999. how close was i?

1) intro
2) war
3) noise pollution, or pollution in general
4) conformity (or the collapse of individualism)*
5) chemical warfare
6) global warming
7) outro

* i was thinking in terms of personality/uniqueness, rather than something political. and i think the extreme conformity underlying gen y social attitudes have played this out frighteningly well, actually. it's a reaction to the radical mindset of anti-conformity that dominated gen x, but it's still a very real thing that will have very real ramifications in the upcoming decades. if you thought the 50s were creepy, wait until you see what these kids grow up into!

i should have included something about inequality. i also removed a vegan track, partly due to time restraints. besides that, i think i got all of the broad ideas right.

the piece is made to be played in an indefinitely repeated loop.

most of the tracks are slightly remixed/resequenced versions of tracks from inri or inriched. track 5 is brand new, and recorded on the school's synthesizer (part of the project requirements).

recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. published in november, 2013. aborted early version added as a hidden track on sept 13, 2017; release consequently finalized. this is my third symphony; 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, 2017).
 

credits

released June 20, 1999

j - synthesizers, sequencers, effects, guitar, bass, piano, drum programming, noise generators, metronome, a broken tape deck, sampling, loops, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, sound design, digital wave editing, production
"well, then work harder to get better access to clean air."

fucking calvinists.
no, i need to be absolutely crystal clear on this point.

the reality is that there is no solution for a non-smoker with a low income. the market is going to price non-smoking alternatives out of their range, forcing them to co-habit with smokers.

this is a social problem and, like all social problems, it is without a market solution; it requires that smokers make reasonable compromises to modify their behaviour to be more conscious of the health implications of their habits on other people.

and, the fundamental step is a change of language, and a reversal of the concept of property rights - which do not even exist in this country.

the reality is that so long as smokers think that they have some kind of right to pollute, they will continue to take uncompromising positions that put everybody else at risk - and there isn't anything anybody can really do about it.