This album was recorded in a single take, late one winter night in Escondido. Adam Goodwin, my former roommate, had come from Berlin to tour the Southwestern United States with a loose confederacy of instrumentalists known as the Murmur Collective. These shows were the first time in years that Adam and I had shared a difference tone. While this recording marks a clear continuation of the aesthetics of Molten Lava Eyeball Fiend (2010-2012), much of the instrumentation has changed. Everyone’s favorite amplified metal cow-bat, Ms. Bovina Clovis, has long been put out to pasture and euthanized. Her characteristic bullroar has been replaced with belching, distorted homemade synths and turbulent wavelets of Penelope Gkika’s virtuosic violin shredding. The dispersive resonance of long amplified metal springs provides a broth for the stew.

Regarding the music video we made for this album — “Grand March” — I hope it is clear that the marchers are not intended to be understood as fascists. The source footage comes from the Korean People’s Army, so, if anything, the marchers are workers with an unfair despot for a leader. In that sense, they have something in common with the USA. Mostly I was thinking about solidarity with the marchers, hence painting them red and black. The non-human military imagery risks seeming to glorify technology–I intended instead to simply point to the totalitarian endgame of technology under capital. It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, especially since we kept the title as ‘Grand March’, implying the imperialist spread of liberal Whig ideals toward world domination.

Sitting around a campfire in 29 Palms, we discussed the inevitability of civil war breaking out here. Families would be ripped apart, urban guerrilla warfare would likely drag on for years afterward. “It makes me want to flee the country for Europe or something like that,” I said flatly, “It’s just not worth it.” Adam paused, and looked at me for a moment. “It makes me want to come back.”

Thank you to J Robert Oppenheimer

NUCLEAR RAPTURE is:
Πηνελόπη Γκίκα – Violin
Adam Goodwin – Bass
Joe Mariglio – Electronics
20′ industrial spring – Itself

Written by NUCLEAR RAPTURE

Album art by Adam Goodwin, Chelsea Pattee, and Joe Mariglio.

Recorded, Mixed, Produced by Joe Mariglio.

"You got it." - me

This album came together pretty quickly, out of a heap of recordings mostly made in the past 6 months. It was almost accidental. By any measure, I don't have time to record solo material. I've been working full-time as a software engineer, and in my off-time working on that dissertation which, I promise, will happen soon. And on top of all that, I've got a project with Bob Pierzak under the Mayor Tacoghost banner which is going to totally blow your mind in the spring. But somehow I've been throwing ideas around more often, and more frequently than ever, I've been hitting the record button. So there you go.

It's not just me this time, though. I've brought in a lot of my friends for support here, and I'd like to thank them here. Some of them don't even know they're on this yet. You know, I plan on winning a Grammy with this one, so I figured I'd take the money and run.

When I showed Bob the instrumentals for the album, he ignored them. Then I asked him to write a few hooks for it and he got interested. We kicked some ideas around and ended up with the hooks for "Truckin', Not Sorry", "Feeding the Spaniels", and the gregorian chants in "Colliminal Messaging". His contributions to this album might be a preview of the collaborative approach we're taking on the new MTG material.

When I asked Bonnie Lander if she wanted to contribute some vocals, she agreed. Then, instead of doing that, we proceeded to record a completely different project with Clint McCallum which is forthcoming and sounds totally rad. I sampled a bit of her voice from those sessions. Later, she helped lay down some of the hooks.

Devin Connelly was down to record that guitar cameo immediately. And he totally shreds. I'll admit, I may have chopped up his guitar a fair amount, mostly in an attempt to make it less tasteful. He told me he wasn't upset by it.

Adam Goodwin doesn't know he's on this record. I sampled him via some of our old Molten Lava Eyeball Fiend sessions. I've hours (almost a day's worth) of material from those sessions. At one point, Sam Dunscombe (who also doesn't know he's on here) joined us and we pounded some amplified metal together. It was hot.

I used a number of home-made analog synths, vaguely clever recording techniques and new custom software plugins which I'll have to document at some other time. But really, the most important new element here is I'm getting back to thinking melodically and harmonically. Don't get me wrong, texture and rhythm are still essential but, at least in this recording, I also cared about that other stuff. Having purchased that cheap detuned electric piano might have had something to do with it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. It's about an hour of music or noise. I hope it helps channel some of your collective energy and anger. It has mine.

This album was lost for almost 15 years. I made it when I was still in high school. A few months ago, I received a mysterious email:

“Hey Man, You may not remember me. We only hung out one time (via M H, with F M) years ago. We got all ripped up and went to a diner in the middle of the night. Great night. Anyway, I was driving home from Maine last night and put on an old CD I wasn’t sure of the contents of. It contained he first track of what I believe was your first electronic album. I hadn’t heard it for years, and, fuck it, it brought me to tears. I really love that track. Virtuosic. Any way to acquire a copy of the album? Happy to buy it. Hope you’re well. -Ben”

This email incited a mission to identify the work, and subsequently locate the recordings. Many of my original cassettes (that’s right, cassettes) were destroyed when my parents’ basement flooded some years ago. So, my only option was to call some old friends and see if anyone still had this thing lying around. Eventually, I learned that a friend from college, notorious for his meticulously preened music collection, actually had the album in full.

This album consists of remastered selections from that material. Despite all its naiveté, I stand by it. I have made only minor edits from the original, mostly to clean up the poor quality of the recordings. The remastering process has brought me more than nostalgia — it has helped me understand the person I am now, through the lens of the person that I was then. What strikes me most about the music is its consistency with my aesthetics today. Though this turned out not to be my first self-released album of electronic music, it is certainly the oldest one I have recovered to date. I hope I’ll find more, someday.

All tracks composed, recorded, and produced by 15-year-old Joe Mariglio.
He also contributed: Field Recordings, Synthesizers, Computers, Piano, Vocals.
Jessica Mariglio played electric violin on Track 4.

Thank you, Ben, for your unexpected and flattering email. This one’s truly for you.
Thank you, Jake, for actually having a copy of this. You’re an archival ninja.
Thank you, Risky Forager Records for letting me convince you to release this. May you continue to risk everything.
Most of all, thank you, Mom and Dad, for supporting your son’s self-indulgent musical habit, despite its complete lack of commercial potential or wide appeal.

In addition to standard feedback, Warm Jets can respond to changes in its own output, which can produce semi-stable chaotic complexes.

The three stages consist of:

Fiz - (Saturation / Overdrive)
The input stage is first saturated with a well-tuned nonlinear transformation (ie distortion), which is suitable for a wide variety of source material. At its extremes, this unit can go from subtle, tube-like warmth to blown-out sludge metal. Typically I like it somewhere in between, especially when using several of these in an aux-network (recommended).

Zap - (Allpass Network / Phaser)
The second stage is a stereo cascade of 32 2nd-order allpass filters with variable frequency and resonance. The left and right channels are applied in parallel, and tuned to be 90 degrees apart. This implementation has its own multi-stage saturation, which allows for creamy swooshes and metallic vocal formants.

Din - (Delay Network / Flanger)
The third stage is a stereo feedback delay network with variable speed delay lines. The previous allpass network actually happens within the delay network, so the echoes continually experience phase shift as they circulate. Not quite as dark as tape, and not overly bright like most digital delays. The left and right channels have some cross-paths that can prevent the unit from getting stuck in a rut.

The "Wobble" knob modulates the filter and delay parameters using a filtered form of the output signal itself. The modulation happens dynamically, potentially at audio rates. When the rates are slow, this is similar to a phaser or flanger effect. When the rates are high, all bets are off. The chirping, throbbing sounds can lock into subharmonics of the audio, producing responsive flurries of sidebands.

How it sounds:
I recorded the same clip through a number of different settings on the plugin, to show some of the combinations that are possible.

The settings were:
1) clean, low res phaser (manually modulated), no delay
2) low saturation, hi res phaser (manually modulated), no delay
3) hi saturation, low res phaser (manually modulated), no delay
4) no saturation, no phaser, low delay
5) no saturation, no phaser, low delay (manually modulated)
6) low saturation, hi res phaser (manually modulated), hi delay (manually modulated)
7) low saturation, low res phaser, no delay, low wobble
8) low saturation, low res phaser, no delay, high wobble
9) low saturation, low res phaser, low delay, medium wobble
10) high saturation, high res phaser, high delay, high wobble (!!!)

And finally, I've recorded a track using 3 of these puppies in an aux network:

Adam Tinkle and I have an ongoing collaborative project called Creosota. We are responsible for a wide variety of electro-acoustic disturbances.

From the Stanford event write-up:

Electroacoustic musicians and sound sculptors Adam Tinkle and Joe Mariglio -- collectively known as Creosota -- explore the visual, sonic, and theatrical potentials of projected light, vibrated fluids, and laser microphony, in works inspired by Interferometry. Interferometric techniques are best known for their use in Cold War-era spying. Shine a laser at a window, measure the displacement of the reflection -- poof, you have the sound of the conversation occurring inside the room.

Creosota are responsible for recorded artifacts, interactive installations, and long durational performance installations. Their sculpture, the Shantytown Scrapblaster, was permanently installed at the MEDIA ARTS Center San Diego in 2014. Their collaborations date back to 2005, during studies with Anthony Braxton, Alvin Lucier, and Ron Kuivila, at Wesleyan University. From 2010 to 2013, they led the Universal Language Orchestra, an ensemble of elementary school-aged musical novices who improvised on, and composed for, invented instruments.

For synths, we primarily used a Yamaha TX-802, essentially the tone-generator from the venerable DX7. We also used a Steiner-Parker EVI. Effect plugins were largely by SoundToys.

We are working on a new album, which is shaping up to be a bit more edgy. More on that later...

As time goes on, I have been able to include an increasing number of channels to the array. I am currently at six, although no six channel recordings yet exist, as I am currently swamped with other projects. I have, however managed to make this recording with four channels:

This recording was made with a dish of water, sitting on top of a vibrating plate. The mics are pointed at various locations on the surface of the water. The plate is used like a speaker, and sends a mix of the four independent mic channels back into the water. The result is a feedback network, which can be made to self-oscillate. By changing the position of the mics along the water, or the mix of the mic channels being sent to the plate, or even by affecting the water physically, such as by blowing across the surface or using an eyedropper to make quick impulses on the surface, I can change the steady state of the oscillations, resulting in a rich source of complex textures and sounds.

Here is a single channel recording which uses some of those "more physical" techniques:

There are several sessions of these to sift through. As soon as I finish mixing them, I will post more music. Also, I have some impulse responses to analyse. Another update will come very soon!

source (and for further reading): uctv

i worked most closely with soprano bonnie lander. we had already worked together on a few other projects, including a bizarre sock puppet show (which will be documented here soon). i also collaborated with double bassist mark dresser. i processed and sampled both of these excellent musicians in realtime, and blended their sounds with field recordings of rain, sirens, and coyotes.

for live sample manipulation and effects routing, i used my granular sequencer app called nonsequence. nonsequence allows me to define scenes, using graphical editors, to determine thirty or so parameters on several different timescales. using nonsequence, creating stochastic or self-similar patterns is relatively simple. i can also navigate these scenes live, as new data streams into the system-- from, say, a performer. these features make nonsequence my go-to app for live processing. more on that later.

i also used a network of four spectral processors, each of which performed a fourier transform of incoming data, and applied a "shift", "stretch", "average" and "gate" routine to the spectrum. these nodes were arranged in a fully distributed feedback network with weights that were hand-tuned to produce interesting results. i could also nudge these weights, and the arguments of each spectral routine, in realtime. the system was capable of self-oscillation-- i used a compressor to make total saturation sound nice and soft. rather than giving myself controls that mapped linearly, i mapped many parameters to a relatively small number of controls, hand-tuned the ranges of these mappings, and focused on playability. this turned out to yield much more aesthetic results than my earlier toilings with fully independent linear mappings.

my contributions to the piece were largely blocks of improvisation, although i developed an overall game-plan for each block. that being said, i frequently had to think on my feet. getting linux to play nicely with a newly acquired motu traveler was not easy. during the dress rehearsal, my system crashed between cues, but i was able to bring everything back up before the next cue. no one suspected a thing! happily, that was the only crash of the production.

i am very grateful to all the performers i worked with on this project, and to steven schick for conducting. it was great working with the director, mark dechiazza. of course, my warmest gratitude is reserved for anthony davis for writing a part for me in his killer opera. it was a pleasure.

my involvement with the project began when brendan asked me to turn his mother into an alien.

here's a teaser:

he had written exposition in vietnamese from the perspective of the story's collective alien entity. his mother then recorded all this exposition and sent it back to him. despite the excellent character of her voice, something about her delivery was unmistakably maternal, a quality even i could pick up, not understanding a word of vietnamese. i then pored over the translations and cut the vocal takes into individual phrases. working phrase-by-phrase, i used a granular sequencer i implemented in SuperCollider to make tiny (and sometimes not-so-tiny) adjustments to her voice. i also used a healthy amount of convolution reverb, with impulse responses synthesized from grains of her unvoiced mouth noises. i even used a prototype version of my wavelet delay plugin , and some favorite matlab functions.

here are each of her monologues. i designed other sounds, like spaceships and alien dinner music (did i mention there was food?), but nothing compared with the complexity of these monologues.

part one

Greetings...

Humans...

We have arrived!

This young man…

Strange… He is like us…

He was the first person we found upon our arrival just one hour ago…

we wonder about that gun…

We wonder… what it means… don’t you?

We think we know…

We have traveled billions of light years to find that gun…

And we are going to take it!

But that’s enough for now… we want to invite you to our Star Ship…

It isn’t far… but first, we’d like you to be well-nourished before boarding…

Come… follow us… follow us… the lights… follow the lights… come…

Come… follow us… follow us… the lights… follow the lights… come…

Come… follow us… follow us… the lights… follow the lights… come…

Come… follow us… follow us… the lights… follow the lights… come…

part two

It is like a boat in the sky.
Space is so cold.
We built it to save ourselves from an untimely demise
We are the descendants of a collision of two mighty galaxies...
One populated by a race of tyrannical overlords, the other... we don't recall. So many light years ago, so many light years away.
Perhaps it is wise not to pass judgement. Do you concur? We concur...
It is by accident that we arrived here in the United States of America. Although we would like to see Belgium… maybe you can take us there sometime?
We hope the trip to our Star Ship was not too painful.
It could not be as arduous as our journey to find you…
We hope your stomachs have been satisfied…
We want you to know that…
We love you. But…
Humanity is a funny thing.
Not in the Ha-Ha way… we don’t understand your Ha-Ha humors.
We think you are funny in the way you speak… in the way you drive your cars… in the way you have sex… in the way you raise your children… in the way your body is shaped… in your disgusting eating habits… in your backwards political views…
Not Ha-Ha funny… More like… mmmmm… delicious… distracting… deviant… divorce… dodecahedron… dorian mode… That kind of humors…
Some of you might take “offense” and call these blanket statements… stereotypes…
Did you notice the creative use of your grammatical system using quotations around the word “offense”? We have only been here for two hours and we already love your very human thing called sarcasm. We know no such thing as “offense.” It is an absurd notion… as absurd as the fact that we can read these subtitles, too… Unlike you… we are allowed to stereotype humans because…
Because we are only looking out for your best interest…
Because we love you…
Because we say so…
Here is another blanket statement:
You think linearly…
All of you…
As if the arrow of time moves in one direction…
As if history serves the present…
As if you understand how the present came to be…
As if asking the right question will yield the right answer…
Can you see that the arrow of time is a concept you created?
Can you see that that arrow only points backwards?
Can you see that your sense of causality is a delusion that is reinforced by your need to have subsequent events come to a singular moment in time and space? Can you see that you cannot accept the reality that the present only flowers into unforeseeable possibilities?
Of course not… We think that humanity is synonymous with ‘not-understand.’
The present is like a sea of bubbles… little things, big things… grow, pop, disappear, reappear.
Can you see that in such a world there is no forward-pointing arrow? There are innumerable arrows and they point in all directions… up, down, inside, out, backward, forward, sideways through time, across space, into everything, out of nothing…

part three

Forgive us… perhaps we have confused you. Let us explain ourselves…
We are not like you. Anatomically we are most closely related to your distant cousin Turritopsis nutricula. In colloquial terms you might refer to them as a type of ‘jellyfish.’ Turritopsis nutricula has developed the ability to return to a polyp state by a specific transformation process that requires the presence of certain cell types. All stages of the medusae, from newly released to fully mature individuals, can transform back into polyps. The transforming medusa is characterized first by deterioration of the bell and tentacles, with subsequent growth of a perisarc sheet and stolons, and finally becoming feeding polyps once again. This ability to reverse the life cycle in response to adverse conditions is probably unique in your animal kingdom, and allows the jellyfish to bypass death. This development process is called transdifferentiation.
You see… like the Turritopsis nutricula… we too are biologically immortal. We are in the middle of our own transdifferentiation.
We believe we inherited this biological trait not through evolution, but through the Life-Everlasting Gun… It looks like a Glock… but fires Life-Everlasting Bullets in the face of Death… Yes… that Gun… the one that young man has… it is ours… and only ours…
We travelled a long way to find it…
So you see… our dear humans… we see things differently… you have an age that you count in terms of rotations around your mother star. We… we… are born, and reborn… We don’t have an age… the very notion of age is absurd…
But like the Turritopsis nutricula, we return to our polyp state only in response to adverse conditions…
The universe is full of adverse conditions…
it is itself an adverse condition.
Can’t you see that your condition is one that is adverse?

part four


Your ear drums tell you stories about the vibrations in the air… we see those vibrations as pillars of dust upholding a concrete asylum. You see light photons as an image of color, form and depth. We see them as living, breathing craters floating in a suspension of disbelief. You smell and taste molecules in the air that activate certain types of nerve receptors. We don't perceive those things at all. This is a story about those smells we can't perceive…
Do you like stories?… Stories are very linear. They are the way you think. But these events did not happen very linearly. So the story must be so. We think this is how the young man found the Life-Everlasting Gun. It is why we want to go to Belgium - it is where it all began. A musician, a dealer of illicit substances and illegal firearms, and their shared fondness for that thing you humans seem to enjoy - music.
Belgium: 18:30:21:09, 21 December, 2006
This young human...
(chopped… chopped… chopped…)
... at the orange.
The rind ejected molecules in the air only he could smell.
(Chop… Chop… Chop)
A knock at the door.
(Knock. Knock. Knock…)
It was nobody…
The next week… again…
(Knock. Knock. Knock…)
Again… nobody…
… and then again…
(Knock. Knock. Knock…)
And then finally… Nobody. A Nobody.
This Nobody had a bag, a head, and a holster. All were empty and needed to be filled. The young man with the orange could offer that… but he too had a vacuum that needed filling. His cranium, his ventricles, his bones, and his mission objectives were empty like the vacuum of space. So he followed the Nobody hoping to be filled. He filled the Nobody's bag with sauce and starch, the Nobody's head with trash bags full of endorphins, and the Nobody's holster with promises unkeepable. In return, the young man had his cranium filled with remorse, his ventricles filled with gun powder, his bones filled with apathy, and his mission objectives… accomplished. It was a violent form of harmony; a beautiful, sublime function of the complex relationship between deception and dark matter.
But the young man had another space vacuum about which he did not know until it was finally filled - like how the First Expansion didn't know until it was…
He had a holster, too… This holster… when all was said and done… was filled… with the Life-Everlasting Gun. Except at the time it did not look like The Gun. It looked like:
(Chop… Chop… Chop...)
The rind ejects molecules in the air.
(Chop… Chop… Chop…)
But he fired it in the wrong direction…
(Chop… Chop… Chop…)

(Chop… Chop…)
Blood Orange!
Delicious. Departmental. Decapitate. Demoralize. Destroy. Defend. Demonstrate.
Ha-Ha. Humors.
It didn't work for him… he didn't know it had to be a head shot. He is still a mortal!
(Bang… Bang… Bang… )
Besides… He may have the Life-Everlasting Gun… but he has no Life-Everlasting Bullets…

(ALIEN LAUGHTER)

part five


We have finally made it… And your planet is horrible!
We heard rumors…
That the streets were paved with gold!
That everything would be beautiful!
That we would escape tyranny!
That we would find the land of opportunity!
That there were cities of gold in the sky!
That we could find our independence!
That we would be surrounded by virgins!
That we would brave the deadly waters of space!
Risk everything… our homes, our relatives, our friends!
So that we may find a better life!
So that our offspring may flourish!
So that we may escape death!

(… but there is no machine.)
But they are just rumors!

You have not been good hosts!
(volcanoes erupt…)
We don’t believe you will EVER take us to Belgium!
(entire oceans evaporate…)
You know nothing of yourselves!
(on a planet 9.875 billion light years away a creature screams for forgiveness…)
Your arrow of time only points towards the oblivion you seek due to your sinful nature!
(stars explode…)
You are all inhospitable vermin!
(galaxies collide…)
You are a cancer to a universe of nothing!
(the large-scale structures of the universe expand like a single cosmic inhalation…)
You are only fit for slavery of the highest order!
(our future non-selves smile in the bliss of not-being…)
May She have vengeance on your wretched species!
(the last particles of light fly to the endless void of the unknown…)
We will consume all of you!
(into the ubiquitous and farthest extent of the unfamiliar…)
You will all die!
(the last sips of a cosmic soup…)
It is inevitable!

etape by Creosota

They play their own compositions as well as reinterpreting songs old and new. Adam and Joe have extremely diverse musical backgrounds, and their shifting, thoughtful aesthetic reflects this. This album is Creosota's debut, and already their performances have begun to move into new territories. There is ample room for further exploration.

This recording was performed live in the Acoustics Lab in San Diego, CA on August 15th. It was sculpted, mixed and mastered at Tanglezone Farm, in the workshop of Joe Mariglio and in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, UCSD. It was truly a labor of love.