[blips and ifs]

Cruftworld #7: Cruftworld Theme Song

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:09:39 -0500

Anoraks UK, previously known as Tricot, turn in a crunchy instrumental number that has risen to become the cruftworld theme song. Unlike a lot of tracks in Cruftworld, this one is instrumental. And in a lot of ways, it's not really representative of the project as a whole, since it starts out so electronic.
But by the time the end rolls around, I hope you'll see why this track became the theme. It's about transition, about handing the reins over from a computer to a man. There are washes of distorted Mellotron here blending in with the naturally distorted guitar and bass. Dive in.

Listen to Cruftworld #7: Cruftworld Theme Song. - 4.4 MB

Audio Toy Field Test #10

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:37:30 -0500

Two items for todays agenda.

1) Microsofts really cool dragon thingy. I can only imagine how cool this will be. It seems to be a terrific way to sort through imagery and I love the whole book/magazine concepts. All in all I can't wait to scour through my own data using the same software. Truly ground breaking software.

2) Although this may seem less exciting and new, blipsandifs has successfully connected to it's database. This won't mean much for a while, but it does mean that the PHP book I bought on Valentines day as a gift from my wife was worth it. Being able to write my own data driven websites is very exciting. Many of the coolest websites out there use PHP and databases. I've got some grand ideas and can't wait to start trying them out...but first I'll just keep plodding along, singing my song, doing my job...wishing I could be blippin' 'iffing.

Audio Toy Field Test #9

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:46:11 -0500

Haile is a robot that 'listens' to a live players music in real time and jams it's own beat with them.

Watch the robotic percussionist in concert in this video from Georgia Tech.

A truly monumental moment in virtual instruments; a virtual musician that can improvise. This machine will assess the beat made my a human and create, based on algorithms and whatnot, it's own jam. This is almost as cool as seeing the Lemur at Adam's house and half as cool as Bigdog is scary. That haunting gas powered kind of darpa scary sound, bigdog is an Americal Soldier.
I love color TV, the internet, and many other magnificent things the American Military has brought us, dispite it's bad side, but if I see a bigdog walking round my neighbourhood with a machine gun on it's back I'll think different about how cool killing badguys in video games and watching YouTube videos are.

Unless it's bigdog beta... that's awesome.
Be sure to watch the Bigdog March Release before you watch the beta.

Blips and Ifs is dedicated to the future, and will not stop until it's over! Stay tuned...

Cruftworld Issue #8

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:13:49 -0500

More cut and paste action from Moil helps to produce the second zine in the Cruftworld. You gotta read this. This is what sets all these silly little rock and roll songs apart. It's full of confusing, metaphorical and occasionally funny writing. Hundreds of vancity rock parodies are hidden inside. But hopefully you can enjoy it just for the artwork and the rock value of it. Even better, print it, cut it out and staple and glue it together yourself. Are you dreaming of having a bookshelf full of cruftworld zines, tapes, miniCDs, and promotional collectable items? I sure as hell am.

Cruftworld #6:

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:18:13 -0500

Totally live. Totally raw. Totally cruft.
This track from The King In Yellow is absolute uncut real cruftworld music. Laid down in the new SZ C-world studio, even the drums. Weirder vocals than usual perhaps, but that's the thing with The King In Yellow. They're weird.

I'd rather not talk about this song so much. Let's just agree that it's old school, and leave it at that. You should be thankful that we haven't recorded it to cassette and then back to computer. Just be thankful for that.

Listen to Cruftworld #6: Where is my mind. - 3.5 MB

l33t bl0gg0r

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:55:17 -0500

i have managed to hack into BAI from behind the great firewall. For graet justice.

Cruftworld Poster

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:07:43 -0600

Cruftworld #5:

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:23:19 -0600

The cruftworld continues with this latest single from Futon. This is the first single they recorded at Cruft Studios here in Shenzhen, aka Boomcity. Note the whirling distorted octaves on the lead guitar --- the result of investment in an authentic Leslie cabinet. Futon is easily one of the hottest Cruftbands and has been filling up Cruftclubs and Cruftpubs all over the Cruftplace.

We currently have over 20 Cruftworld tracks backlogged and ready to go, so check back here each week for a new one --- or a Zine, or a Poster ---- we're up to our eyes in Cruft. We've been getting great reviews from those industry insiders who have heard the stuff, so stay tuned and keep on downloading.

Listen to Cruftworld #5: My Chest is Empty- 3.6 MB

Superflat Single #71 / [710W3]

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:13:23 -0600

Between the Cruft we bring you the latest Superflat Single, just another form of cruft really. This is from the remains of Groundhogsday 2008. The thirteenth one by my books. This single was found deep in the rodents hole after the little beast ran scared from it's shadow and burried itself for another few weeks...or months (it's hard to tell in this city). Curse that Groundhog, my shoes are still wet.

Listen to blipsandifs071.mp3 - 3.8 MB

Cruftworld Issue #7

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:41:56 -0600

Available for your downloading and viewing pleasure is The First Cruftworld Zine Release.
(In Medias Res --- we're starting with Issue #7).

This is the result of my musings on a strange topic: what if, instead of trying to create personas to record music under and get reviewed in various music zines, I created my own zine as a fictional construct which contained all my various pseudonyms and recording projects?

Long question, boring answer. Another way of saying this would be: what if we viewed a city's music scene as a single MMORPG server, and all the bands interacted like Warcraft guilds?

Either way, I came up with the cruftworld project. This world is composed entirely of bands that I myself create all the music for, or, in a few cases, includes my friends' bands. All the listings of gigs and everything is fictional. I feel it's necessary to explain this in the beginning because I don't want to defame anyone's reputation.

Lots of the bars, bands and personalities are inspired by or parodies of corresponding places and people in Vancouver's music scene or the Pitchfork-influenced world indie scene in general. Some references will be more obvious than others.

I've invested quite a lot of time into the creation of this world and have recently purchased a metric ton of music gear to realize the tunes. The PDFs will be accompanied by MP3 available for download from this site, beginning shortly. If you followed my remake of Public House's "Remains of the Lost Amphibians" cassette, you should be able to understand the related review in this PDF.

Anyway this is the long intro by the dungeon master at the beginning of the game before the first yellow Cheeto stains have been rubbed on the first Clix model. From now on, everything else will be in character and no more fourth-wall breaking.

Thanks to [710w3] for his entirely analog layout work.
And stay tuned to this location for more Cruft content.

Cruftworld #4: Fifties

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:04:56 -0600

Here's the last installment from the original Public House cassette. This was a total throwaway song that we just recorded because we had extra time left over. It was written by me as a faux-sellout joke song. But in the end it turned out to be the most popular song from the tape, and my friends from the time can even remember the (deep, meaningful) lyrics.

However, it has a certain charm. I was happy to get the chance to play a solo for this one --- as I recall, I played it on a borrowed Japanese Telecaster. And as for my updated version, I've thrown in a harmony line in the chorus that I can't believe never made it into the original.

Anyway, I got no time to go into more detail because I'm moving to China tomorrow. But I will say that this cruftworld series is definitely going to continue in 2008 "if the good lord's willin', and the crick don't rise."

Listen to the original Public House Recording of Fifties - 2 MB

Listen to the 2007 version of Fifties - 2.3 MB

Cruftworld #3: Desert

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:45:59 -0600

This is my favorite remake so far.

The story behind this track is quite easy for me to remember --- at some point, during a very early Public House rehearsal, I went to the bathroom and wrote this song... probably because I was getting the idea for it but couldn't write it all down in the room with the boys jamming.

It's built around a somewhat unusual mode, ultra depressing lyrics (I was 16), and a simplistic song style. But I still like it. The violin seems to fit well and Jay's drumbeat at the end still sounds cool to me. Plus the dynamics are good.

As for my new version, I had no problems departing heavily from the original Public House version. It's got a lot of noodling, a cool keyboard sound from my DX7 (which I had to sell to my buddy Lars), whispered parts, acoustic guitar, weird breakdowns... listen for yourself. I dig it. I'm in the desert.

Listen to the original Public House Recording of Desert - 4.1 MB

Listen to the 2007 version of Desert - 6.9 MB

Cruftworld #2: Far Far Away

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:32:41 -0600

The cruftworld project, my attempt to create an entirely fictional music scene, is well under way. Here's another musical installment for your sampling pleasure.

As with our previous release, there's two versions of the same song: the original one from 1994, and my new version from this year.

I really like the old version. It begins with a weird effect which is Public House's violist, Geoff Deere, playing sliding harmonics on his instrument, which is being processed by a combination of delay and phasing. Eventually the band crashes into the song, which is a simple verse-chorus-wash-rinse-repeat structure. If you listen closely during the chorus, you can actually hear [710w3]'s first recorded appearance: I forced the rest of the guys in the band to let him sing backup on this track, and I think it worked out pretty well. My favorite part of the old version is Chris Bekkers' guitar augmentation which appears around the beginning of the third verse. My least favorite part is the lyrics, which I wrote, which seem to be my tangled recollection of creepy kids' book "Bridge to Terabithia" mixed with a healthy dose of teenaged sexual frustration.

The new version here is quite similar. Of course I'm lacking the viola, so I just started off with the bassline, and put a bit of phaser on my rhythm guitar track. And as usual, I multitracked the vocals heavily, and laid some breaks in the background since I haven't got a drum kit. It's surprising how well our old Public House songs work with a classic break instead of a live drummer --- I don't think the loops sound as 'fake' or 'computery' as they could. And rather than trying to compete with Bekks in the lead guitar department, I just added some noodling for flavor. Enjoy.

Listen to the original Public House Recording of Far Far Away- 5.1 MB

Listen to the 2007 version of Far Far Away - 6.3 MB

Cruftworld #1: People

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:44:01 -0500

A new project is underway here at Blipsandifs. It's my little attempt at building a role-playing game where all the characters are bands...

It's a bit hard to explain in detail, and I'll drop more hints later. But it's starting off with me preparing cover versions of the cassettes my highschool band recorded back in the nineties.

I was in a band called Public House, and our first cassette was called Remains of the Lost Amphibians (a title selected randomly from the cover of a National Geographic).

Our lineup was:

Wayne Taylor: Vocals, rhythm guitar
Chris Bekkers: Lead guitar
Geoff Deere: Viola, mandolin, backup vocals, keyboards
Jay Lewis: Drums, percussion
Frank Henville: Bass, keyboards, backup vocals

(and 710W3 from blipsandifs even sang backup vox on one recorded track)

As an example of what we sounded like, here's the original version of the song "People," written by Wayne Taylor, and recorded in 1994.

Listen to the original Public House Recording of People - 3.5 MB

And here's my updated version, made on a computer, recorded mostly live (except for the drums)

Listen to the 2007 version of People - 5.8 MB

Thanks to 710W3 for production assistance and cover design.

Please stay tuned for more crufty goodness from me.

Superflat Single #70 / Kanade

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 21:11:38 -0500

Here's a track from us to you ... from our good friend in Japan, KANADE.

Haven't heard from us for a while? Well, I was in CANADA-EH for extensive consultations with d-boats and e-moil. We enjoyed the pleasures of a bachelor's garage, and also had a party when we got copies of the new ikude compilation from shima records in the UK, which has tracks by tachikoma and [710w3] on it ... and it's really a brilliant cd!! you must hear it! or at least download it from iTunes!

But back to the single at hand. This tune is a new version of "ES" from the latest CD by KANADE. He re-constituted material of a Japanese traditional musical instrument of "ES" in PRO TOOLS LE. He added a synthesizer sound and it was completed. "ES" means "Embryonic Stem cell".

Kanade's Equipment:

(The K in Kanade stands for KORG apparently!)

KORG RADIAS

KORG MS2000

KORG MS2000R

KORG microKORG

KORG EA-1

KORG ER-1

KORG MONO/POLY

KORG miniKORG

ROLAND M-VS1

YAMAHA SY-77

AKAI S300XL

CASIO FZ-1

Digidesign PRO TOOLS LE

Steinberg NUENDO

Steinberg CubaseVST5/32

Listen to blipsandifs070.mp3 - 5.5 MB

Superflat Single #69 / The Drunken Boats

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:00:21 -0500

This is a reward for all our longterm fans who've been tuning in to Blips and Ifs for months. The last few months have been tough on all of us. It must be the summer. Our music is too cold and clinical to make when it's hot. We can make it in the winter but now it's 39 degrees C where I am, I just can't whip out an ice cold digital pad and shove it in a song. It melts too quickly.

We haven't given up. It's just that our music comes in waves. And to prove it, another wave is starting now. The D-Boats have been in the lab again, making music on borrowed equipment, grafting organic material and stem cells onto an old 505 to make it sound more lifelike. Last I heard, the 505 achieved sentience, hacked an iPhone and transferred its godlike consciousness into the internet, where it hangs out at sleazy bars trying to pick up underdeveloped audiotoys. This is the music they're playing in those bars.

Listen to blipsandifs069.mp3 - 3.7 MB

Still Buzzed.

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 22:58:24 -0500

Another review hits the web. I like this one too. I don't remember describing our music as "illbient," but, it's cool.

Growing Buzz.

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 23:25:50 -0500

Please check out the first review of Signalform + Tachikoma that I could find. Not glowing, but not particularly critical either, and quite a good read!

Superflat Single #68 / Tachikoma

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:11:20 -0500

Tachikoma and I were hanging out at Jona's Cafe the other day and I sort of mentioned a particular example I often refer to in my presentations. The following is an incomplete excerpt from my Introduction to Graphics Presentation.

"There are two types of graphics that computers use: Raster (also known as Bitmaps) and Vector graphics. Digital photos, scans and many web graphics are Raster. Common Raster
formats are JPG, TIFF and GIF. These graphics have a resolution, a grid of pixels (picture elements). Images printed from websites will either not look as good, or as big as they do onscreen. The other kind of graphics are shapes defined by mathematical formulas. Vector graphics can be resized without ever loosing quality of line, unlike Raster graphics. True vectors don't ever get jagged, blocky or pixelated. They output at the best of the ability of the device they are being displayed or printed on. Common Vector viewers include Flash Player and Adobe's Acrobat Reader. A photo-realistic vector graphic is possible, but would take a long time to draw, or are would be so complex making it inifficient compared to a Raster of equivilent detail. So in the end, Raster graphics can only be enlarged a certain amount before pixels or a blurring effect occurs, but vectors images could be shrunk down to the size of a postage stamp and then enlarged and burnt into the surface of the moon, with a laser, without any quality loss."
Tachikoma got me thinking about a re-writable Moon surface, like a re-writable CD that can be erased and then drawn on again. I mentioned it at Jona's and Tachikoma wrote this song that night. It's a new favorite of mine. Like last weeks release it's very Tachikoma sounding, his classic pads massaging the anvil, the subdued clicks and beats keeping the hammer going and the stirup being driven to dreamtown with the tame crazy. There is so much happy in this song. Listen to it and then draw an image to be burnt on the moon and send it to blipsandifs@blipsandifs.com.

Listen to blipsandifs068.mp3 - 3.7 MB

Basement Tapes from Brett

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:18:44 -0500

My good friend, Brett Gaylor, is working on a feature film. I think that we here at Blips and Ifs have a strong siding in this agument his film is based upon. Please check it out, and contribute even! The feature film is collaboration, united creation, remixing and the mashing up. Brett may be fascilitating the creation of a feature film, but the world is making it. Join in...

http://opensourcecinema.org/

Audio Field Test #8

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 22:14:26 -0500

Super Flat Origami:

This is more of a public note to myself then anything...I just like the thought of it. I was pondering in a day dream what it might be like to have software that could show you how to fold origami. Draw in a form and concept and it would unwrap it and show you how to fold it out of paper. My seach online provided fruitless. Seems this will have to become some form of Audio Toy and I'll have to make one. I can imagine a sort of software like Google's Sketch up, but somehow you wouldn't have to actually draw the object in 3D...just give an impression and the computer would do the rest by guessing or something. I'd imagine the software wouldn't be very good and a randomize or variance button would be good. Click it and it alters the design slightly, plus at anytime the model could be pulled and formed by the user. Again, I'm just thinking out loud here...

The following is an excerpt from "The Mathematics of Paper Folding:
An Interview with Robert Lang" By Margaret Wertheim

"MW: Is there a limit to the complexity of the models you can make with origami?

RL: Mathematically there’s no limit. Theoretically, you can take a finite sheet of paper and you can fold a star shape that has an infinite, arbitrarily large perimeter —10,000 miles, if you like. That shape’s points would have millions of layers in them. So, that’s a problem you can do mathematically but not in practice because, in the real world, paper has a finite thickness and you’re limited in what you can do by the tensile properties of the paper. In the last five to ten years, as people have designed more complex figures, their ability to fold these figures has also been enhanced by improvements in the field of papermaking. So you can now get extremely thin, strong shapes that probably couldn’t have been folded fifteen years ago."

So there you go...Pretty cool thought though eh? You just program in a flaming sword +2 against goblins and VOILA!!! You have your self the foldable blueprints for a flaming sword +2 against goblins. I'm telling you this is gold. You'll see.

Superflat Single #67 / Tachikoma

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:40:47 -0500

[710w3] correctly identified this track upon first listen, hope you will too.

I scrounged up my old sample CD that I made back in Jan. 2003, when I was living in the Banana House in Osaka, just beginning the Tachikoma project and making my first disc, "transients and artifacts." To anyone who heard that CD (or even my first disc on Shima which has some tracks from it), this song will be immediately recognizeable. I just wanted to make a song about being myself, using samples I made myself, and it ended up sounding like me. No surprise.

Listen to blipsandifs067.mp3 - 4.2 MB

Ikude: The Compilation

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Wed, 23 May 2007 20:42:44 -0500

The release of a compilation on Shima Records, which contains tracks by [710W3], Tachikoma, and other Blips contributors, is just around the corner. You can learn more and even check out the album art at Shima's Myspace Blog. The album art is particularly cool... I can't wait to get my hands on this CD!

In other news, the Tachikoma cd is now finally available for ordering. To all my friends who read this blog, if you want to buy a copy, send me an email soon ... I only have 50 ...

Superflat Single #66 / Japanese Pop Songs

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Tue, 08 May 2007 14:35:05 -0500

[710W3] used to look at this shoe a lot. It has a meaning. It means Class of '07, or '97, depending on how you look at it. The poignant isolation of this shoe in a barren tree greyscape is a perfect illustration of the Japanese aesthetic concept of mono no aware, or the impermanence of objects.

Japanese Pop Songs Ride Your Bike.

Listen to blipsandifs066.mp3 - 2.5 MB

Superflat Single #65 / Japanese Pop Songs

emoil@boomcity.biz (blipsandifs.com) — Tue, 08 May 2007 14:34:36 -0500

Theboats is a member of a collaborative street gang called Japanese Pop Songs. Their strictest rule is that their songs are not over two minutes. If you listen to them for just 3 seconds, you can be an honorary member. They have more myspace friends than you, though, and they already have a cowbell player. And they've been on CBC Radio 3. What more do you want? Geez.

Listen to blipsandifs065.mp3 - 2.5 MB