you shriek: spies on zero zero island

no. 16: criticality (750 Röntgens)

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 01:06:06 -0400

the caesium fallout series: 3 of 3
symptoms indicate fatal radiation poisoning.
convalescence period: n/a, terminal. (subject survival: 12 days) december 1995. end.\\\

no. 15: equivalent dosage (500 Röntgens)

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:29:21 -0400

the caesium fallout series: 2 of 3
symptoms indicate acute radiation poisoning.
convalescence period: january - november, 1995

no. 14: overexposure (200 Röntgens)

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:41:32 -0500

the caesium fallout series: 1 of 3
symptoms indicate moderate radiation poisoning.
convalescence period: december - february, 1994

no. 13: lads slum it (show production pt.2)

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:27:40 -0500

as promised upon the very inception of this production: the band acts as if they don’t know they are being photographed for public review. fortunately (for the band), i have only included enough evidence of this humanity to cause the mildest of discomfort. apologies.

come see us play music on Friday 30th November at Milky Way. Chris Ewen, Addambomb, Znuh & Mothra will be spinning.

episode 12: show production pt.1

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:36:19 -0400

no performance this month. instead, watch us put the gear back together so that we can play live.

episode 11: infiniverb

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:15:50 -0400

as promised last month... eBow.
and Skot. (although that was never promised- just a nice surprise.)

incessant guitar floods frozen reverb by pedal switch. pulse bass courtesy of sync’d auto-pan pressure pad. skot makes busy turning effect on and off. i move my head around a lot at appropriate times. still brings some melancholy.

episode 10: low damage

Sun, 5 Aug 2007 02:54:48 -0400

first episode with electric bass? there was going to be guitar in there as well, but i ended up playing the main melodic figure on an FM synth thru an amplifier model. e-Bow didn’t make the cut. next time.

episode 9: melody

Thu, 7 Jun 2007 23:01:29 -0400

a piece i’ve been working on that might become a song someday. plays around between the keys of D minor in the verse and its relative major in the chorus. sort of gives a lift, as they say.

episode 8: BeatlesS

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 23:01:33 -0400

... in which i use only pieces of sound from Beatles recordings.

episode 7: multiple controls

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 22:46:49 -0400

this is kind of fun. the trigger pads on the axiom 25 are pressure-sensitive, and therefore can send continuous controller information. in this clip i used CamelSpace to impose a rhythmic pulse upon the synth chords. 3 pads are set up to control the attack time, the volume level, and the decay time of the individual pulses, via labeled macros in Ableton Live. the wheel is set to vary the filter’s cutoff frequency; rotate forward for brighter. nice to play around with. i recorded some tracks with this technique in a recent song.

episode 6: more powerbooks

Thu, 8 Feb 2007 06:00:44 -0500

since the studio is still packed away, i’ve got the powerbooks all standing in as synthesizers. they are getting MIDI from the main machine via ethernet, so that I don’t have to drag out the interfaces. works. i play a melody for you. enjoy.

axiom 25 controller senses pressure. i have missed that using the oxygen8. greater pressure makes the vibrato in this patch

episode 5: realtime loop record

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 00:57:08 -0500

the bank of 8 trigger pads (center of the movie) defaults to serving as individual record/stop record buttons for 8 tracks at a time in Live’s automatic setup for this controller. i thought i’d try it out that way for tonight’s work, but i suspect you’ll see the pads used to trigger percussion sounds in later episodes. i won’t be doing much on-the-fly recording with this rig, and mouse clicks work just fine for loosely-timed events like “stop recording,” so it seems a shame to have all 8 pads in that mode. instead, one button for “start/stop the current record slot” would be great to have as a transport control, leaving those pads open to play parts you can’t play on a mouse button. unfortunately, Live doesn’t have such a concept, yet.

episode 4: typical kik and bass

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 02:40:38 -0500

the studio is still a long way from built, so i’ve been using these nice headphones (beyerdynamic DT 770) that actually represent the bottom octave very well. more so than those JBLs in the video, or my old, assorted AKG standbys. so all this bass-awareness inspired me to do some sidechain ducking and just plain composing the bass on the off-8s, rather than on all of the 16th notes- especially avoiding the 1/4 notes where the kick drum lives. pretty standard stuff, but fun to play with.

episode 3: (re)mixing drums in Live

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 04:26:53 -0500

pieces in this mix were originally recorded at electrical audio by steve albini: kik, sn, fills. you’re hearing a mix of close mics and stereo overheads chopped to short hits. another version i made has more of martin atkins and bill reiflin’s full performances.

the beginning shows the kik come alive with eq and compression, then I add in the electronic spaps and doomps to subdivide and move. you will be transfixed.