cerpintor

Bliss Within Agony

2011-06-23T18:26:00.001+01:00

Moving (not very) swiftly on...

"Bliss Within Agony" was the fourth release on ARC, coming out in July 2001. The title refers to the concept of deriving pleasure from pain. I should point out that I have an extremely low tolerance of physical pain, so this isn't about being bound and whipped for fun. It's more to do with the idea that the music was meant to stimulate sensations, thoughts and feelings in a dark, loud environment that weren't necessarily "nice" but were nevertheless enjoyable.

The release starts with "Sticky Fingers". A very basic track recorded in October 2000, it remains one of my favourites. It leads in with a kick drum that's quite heavily limited on the attack so it has a nice sustain. The vocal sample that filters and echoes once per bar caused some issues in the cutting room, I seem to remember, and on some decks can cause the needle to jump if not weighted correctly. All that really happens in this track is an off kilter synth line fades up and gradually gets more aggressive. It feels like it's constantly getting higher and higher but I'm sure that's an illusion, as the range on the EMU Audity synth probably wasn't great enough for me to be able to keep increasing the cut-off frequency for four minutes. The synth was sequenced using the Latronic Notron, hence the odd pattern, and an LFO causes the pitch to waver up and down giving that seasick feeling that I tried to create with many of my tracks. I love this one. It has a relentless, single-minded vibe.

Next up is "Eastern Rumble". Some might recognise that this track contains elements of the remix I did for Takaaki Itoh. The rumble referred to is a sample taken from his track "Step To Makin'". I recorded this track in September 2000, immediately after finishing the remix that made it onto the Electracom 12", while the sample was still loaded in the Roland S-760.

This track has a disorientating, chaotic feeling, created in part by the pitch LFO I constantly used on the Audity and also the pitch shift sequence used for the a cowbell sound on the Boss DR-660 drum machine. Also, it fades in rather than starting from a set point. I can't remember exactly why I did it that way. It's not the "DJ friendly" method of starting a track, but perhaps it sounded rubbish starting any other way. After the event, I liked the idea that - although an audience on a dancefloor would probably never be aware of it - the fade in signified that the track was coming "from" somewhere; that it didn't start at a specific moment, and when it fades out at the end it went back to where it came from. Or perhaps the listener did, after a brief glimpse into the maelstrom; a place / feeling / memory of something... heavy. OK, that's all a bit mystical, but a lot of what I was always trying to do with music was to induce in others feelings that I had personally experienced at one stage or another, often while listening and/or dancing to techno. As the record title suggests, these were not always "happy" or "nice" feelings, but intense, powerful feelings that afterwards one understands as valuable, even if one is doubtful as to whether a repeat experience is desirable.

First track on side-B was "Backlash Boy", recorded way back in December 1997. The title is an adaptation of the name of the band from which the main sample was taken. I'll leave you to work that one out...shouldn't be too hard. I would sometimes stick the input lead of the sampler into the output of a radio and just sample whatever was coming out at the time, and this was one of those occasions. I'm not fond of this track. To me, it feels like a track that was made on a day when things weren't really working, but I felt like I should push myself to record something anyway. Similarly, I suspect I included it on this release because it seemed like there was something about it I didn't understand, but that perhaps others may appreciate. And maybe they did...perhaps it's your favourite of the bunch. I don't want to spoil a track that others may like with my negativity about it, but I can't recall ever wanting to play this after it was pressed, and I don't think I would play it now either.

The last track on the release is "Home Is Where The Hate Is". This was made in March 1998. Like the noise track on "Walking Wounded", I made this track some years before I really understood that there was a lot of dark, nightmarish music which already existed and formed part of a long tradition of alternative music making. Much of the electronic music I was familiar with at the time which was not aimed at the dancefloor (I consider this track just right for the dancefloor, depending on the circumstances!) fell under the "ambient" banner. It was more of the "nice" variety, and this track is definitely more inclined towards the "nasty". It grinds, whines and wheezes its way over six nauseating minutes. Great fun.

Files are in 320kbps mp3 and lossless FLAC formats. Both are compressed from the same WAV files which in turn are taken from original digital recordings. I’m willing to provide WAV files to individuals who specifically request them and for whom FLAC isn’t sufficient. If requesting WAV files, please let me know which tracks you want.

download 320kbps mp3 version

download lossless FLAC version

ARCart website

See further comments on the label art concept and track titles here.

Please get in touch if you have any problems downloading, unzipping, or playing the files.

P.S. I've just switched on an option that displays a mobile version of the blog if a mobile browser is detected. Hope it works for folk.

Speech Emphasis

2011-04-16T11:47:00.010+01:00

Before I get into this post, I'd like to apologise again to anyone who may have been waiting for these files to be posted. I hope to pick the series up again and get it finished as soon as possible. As I mentioned a few days ago, I have been and continue to be very busy with various things going on in life....most of which are positive, but none of which are music related.

OK, to the next release then. I've decided to skip over the small collection of remixes (ARCN04) for now. I'll come back to it later. I appear to have lost the original CDr that Hardcell sent me so would need to produce a decent copy of his track. I tried to contact him a while ago but never received a response.

So, I'm skipping on to the next in the sequence, which is ARCN05, "Speech Emphasis", released some time in 2001. Three of the tracks on this release have vocal sounds in them, but the title isn't an intentional reference to anything in particular. It was simply two words spoken by my friend Ed during a conversation. I thought they sounded nice next to each other and probably noted them down somewhere at the time, for later use.

This record was subtitled "Elegant Manoeuvres part II", the second in an occasional series of loosely related records that started with the first ARC(ANE) release. As such it had – to my ears at least – a subtle difference from the sound of ARC and the sound of other ARC(ANE) records. A little bit more funky, less dark...maybe?

The first track, "Got To Get Down Again", uses the same vocal sample that featured in a brief skittish track on ARC02 ("This Weak Flesh"). The bass line for this track is the same sequence which fades up towards the end of "Divine Confusion" on ARCN02 ("Storyteller"). I almost never saved patches or sequences across studio sessions, and all these tracks appear in sequence on the same master CDr. This suggests that all of the aforementioned tracks, which made it onto different records at different times, were started and finished on the same day in March 2000. Except for some 909 ride cymbal from the Novation DrumStation, all percussion sounds are from the Boss DR-660 drum machine, and the synth sound which pops up came from the EMU Audity 2000 rack-mount synth. I manually switched between vocal sequences somehow during recording, to produce the sections in which it repeats more frequently. I'm still very fond of it.

"Mapped" is a deliberately plodding track, recorded in September 2000. That plodding feel is largely down to the TB-303 bass line, which is just three single hits on the first, second and fourth beat of each bar. The other sounds, which seem to combine a sound reminiscent of the TR-808 toms and another spiky sound, was probably created by me randomly hitting a bunch of keys and quantising the result in the Alesis MMT-8 sequencer. I think those sounds are from a percussion bank on the Roland JD-800, but I could be mistaken. I do remember that the spiky sound with a delay on it caused concern during the cut at The Exchange, almost making the cutting stylus jump off the lacquer. The only thing which does much here is a sampled sound which shifts up and down in pitch, giving the track a bit of momentum. I wanted to make something which was unexciting and uneventful but still hypnotic and engaging. I think I may have played this track during one of the warm up slots I played at Lost some years ago (2005/2006).

"Overcome" is next. Recorded some time during summer 2000, it's a muddled affair. It combines a 6/4 rhythm pattern, two vocal samples, a vocal waveform from the Audity 2000 synth, and a filtered sample sequenced on the Notron, to finish up with a track that doesn't really seem to know what it's doing or where it's going. Perhaps that's a good thing. I've nothing against confusing a dance floor, in fact that has always been one of my aims. Still, I'm not sure if this would confuse for the right reasons.

Last on the release, recorded in May 2000, is "Electric Olive ver.2". I like olives, but the title has nothing to do with that and everything to do with the source of the stab which appears in the first beat of every bar of this track. The looped synth sound and clapping sequence was pinched from somewhere else....I'm not exactly sure where...but it was off a friend's CD lying around at home. I guess it was an electronic music CD and as such I probably was going a bit too close to home again for sample source material. These are combined with a kick/hi-hat rhythm and looped up into a simple, repetitive sequence which changes very little throughout. Because it hardly changes at all, one notices the few moments in which something does actually happen. A few times the stab lengthens and seems to unfold deliciously into a female vocal sound, and a TR-909 ride does the "techno thing" of notching the vibe up and down every so often. Despite the slight unease I now feel about the sampling, I like this track a lot; it's one I sometimes listen to repeatedly as I find the feel of it very comfortable, and comforting.

download 320kbps mp3 version

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ARCart website

See further comments on the label art concept and track titles here.

Please get in touch if you have any problems downloading, unzipping, or playing the files.

still alive

2011-04-11T21:46:00.004+01:00

Believe it or not, I haven't forgotten about this blog or the series of digital re-releases I started over a year ago.

I had intended to issue one release per week over a couple of months, but over a year later I'm less than half way through. To anyone who still happens to be interested, I offer my apologies. I have been incredibly busy, although I confess that I could have found the time to keep it up if I was really determined....which I am not. The series started mainly as I was lacking anything to post about in the first place.

I will complete the series, assuming I don't die of old age first. In fact I might just get round to doing the next one this month!!!

Body Conscious

2010-09-14T09:32:00.011+01:00

ARCN03 was released in about October 2000. Titled "Body Conscious", it is one of the releases from my back catalogue that I'm most fond of. It follows on neatly from ARCN02, "Storyteller", and may be the best example of the dark, disorientating techno that the ARC(ANE) label was created to put out.

The first track was recorded in September 1997. "Shiver" is largely sample based. Short vocal snippets and a sampled stab filter up and down, perhaps under my control or that of a random LFO. Most of the sounds, including the sampled and reversed hi-hat, are filtered through the Lexicon Vortex (pdf), a wacky rack mount effects processor which I think is great, and which played a crucial part in the formation of my "sound", if such a thing ever existed. Once I found a setting I was happy with (a stereo delay with a bit of modulation) that patch was saved, and I used the same effect to one degree or another on almost every track I subsequently recorded.

"Partly Due To", recorded in January 1999, is a murky, uneasy sounding track, with stuttering and echoing vocal sounds. I always liked the idea of dancers hearing voices in the darkness of a club, and never quite figuring out where they were coming from or what they were saying. This track is a particularly unsettling example of that idea, but having made that point I don't remember ever hearing this track played out by anyone, including myself.

"Through You We" is probably the most easily "playable" track on the record from a DJ perspective. The kick and shaker sounds provide a steady rhythm over which two or three spooky synth patterns cycle up and down in tone and timbre. Simple but effective, this was nice and easy to play out yet dark and disorientating enough to get some interesting reactions (seeing people fall over was usually the aim). I seem to have lost a master CD containing the original recording of this and other tracks, but it must have been recorded in either 1999 or 2000.

The last track is titled "Start The End", recorded in April 1999. This kicks off with a deep pulse and some sticky sounding high frequency snaps. The main feature of this track is a dramatic sounding looped sample which fades up slowly and bends in pitch here and there to create an uneasy feeling. I've no memory of where the sample came from. Although rhythm is provided by the sticky sounds and hi-hats, the kick drum doesn't appear until the final quarter of the track, shortly before the whole thing fades out.

Files are in 320kbps mp3 and lossless FLAC formats. Both are compressed from the same WAV files which in turn are taken from original digital recordings. I’m willing to provide WAV files to individuals who specifically request them and for whom FLAC isn’t sufficient. If requesting WAV files, please let me know which tracks you want.

download 320kbps mp3 version

download lossless FLAC version

ARCart website

See further comments on the label art concept and track titles here.

Please get in touch if you have any problems downloading, unzipping, or playing the files.

Walking Wounded

2010-09-07T18:00:00.006+01:00

To start this post: apologies to anyone who happens to have been waiting for this series of digital releases to continue. I had intended for these to come out weekly. If I had managed that, they would all have been completed already. I'm not entirely sure what has got in the way of that, except "life" and its various distractions.

So, on with the show. The next in the series was originally released on ARC as ARC03 in September 2000, and is titled "Walking Wounded", a phrase I heard in a news report. I liked the way the two words went together.

The track kicks off with "Is Not Beauty", which is an abstract piece recorded in November 1998. I wouldn't call this a noise track, but it does have some noise elements in it (although in recent years I've listened to a fair bit of noise, back then I don't think I was even aware that such a genre of music existed). I think that it's my favourite track on the release.

As is the case with ARC02 ("This Weak Flesh") I think the techno tracks on this release are not my best and have perhaps dated more than others. The second track, "Ayaar ver.2", is in that category. As the title suggests, it's the second version of a previously recorded track. Or perhaps it just used the same sample, I don't remember. With the percussion and vocal samples, it has a vibe influenced by the prevalence of those sounds in techno at the time (it was recorded in May 2000). In retrospect I'd prefer to have kept that sort of thing off of my ARCart releases, keeping it for the MIST material that came out on Cosmic Records. This is the track I like least on the record. Typically though, it was the most popular track with other people.

"Circular Heaven ver.2" is another track made from significant parts of another, earlier track. The original version was recorded some time between 1996-1998. This version was made a day or two before the record was cut, and I remember feeling a sense of urgency about getting a track finished that would fit onto the record. ARCart releases were compiled of tracks that were made across quite a few years. The age didn't matter, it was more important that the tracks seemed good enough and that they fit together to create a cohesive release. This recording allowed me to take something that I really liked from a track which wasn't quite up to standard, and beef it up into something simpler, with more impact. I love the vocal sample; It comes from a pop song, reversed and put through some chorus, or flange, or both.

The final track, "Enclosed In The", was recorded in November 1998. It appears immediately before "Is Not Beauty" on the original DAT, so may have been recorded any time from a few minutes to a few weeks prior to that track. When I recorded a retrospective mix of my own tracks in 2008, I came across this track with some confusion, as I barely remembered it at all. I think it's made up of some drum machine and synth loops which I sampled and then looped, adding some snare and hi-hat from the TR-606, and an additional sample put through filters quite randomly without any manual control after the breakdown, which I think contains an odd number of beats.

Files are in 320kbps mp3 and lossless FLAC formats. Both are compressed from the same WAV files which in turn are taken from original digital recordings. I’m willing to provide WAV files to individuals who specifically request them and for whom FLAC isn’t sufficient. If requesting WAV files, please let me know which tracks you want.

download 320kbps mp3 version

download lossless FLAC version

ARCart website

See further comments on the label art concept and track titles here.

Please get in touch if you have any problems downloading, unzipping, or playing the files.

Tommy Gillard - "Epiphanies"

2010-06-29T18:41:00.008+01:00

In 2001 the Exist label came into existence courtesy of Oliver Ho, with the release of the Exist CD compilation. I seem to remember that at the time a number of ideas existed, both music and non-music related, for how Oliver would continue the label. As far as I'm aware, though, no other physical releases ever appeared, as other projects took over.

One of the projects which never saw the light of day was a piece of music by Tommy Gillard entitled "Epiphanies". I'm glad, with Tommy's permission, to now make this piece available as a free 320kbps mp3 file.

"Epiphanies" was actually made up of a number of recordings going back as far as 1995. In Tommy's own words:

I made it with DAT, CD player, and (I seem to remember) a (detuned) radio! All through my [studio] mixer. I think I added loops from the [Roland] JD-800 [synth] as well. I think I had to make up some sounds and phrases, as well as the recordings, so I could mix between more sources.

download "Epiphanies"

P.S. Oliver and Tommy have a new release out.

P.P.S. Sorry about the long wait since the last ARCart digital reissue. I'll endeavour to get the next post up soon!

Fashions, and that

2010-05-08T18:55:00.008+01:00

A few weeks ago a friend of mine who is studying fashion textiles at University in London asked me to come along to a photo shoot she was going to be working on for a fellow student.

I have no knowledge of (or interest in) fashion at all. I do however have an interest in some fashion photography, especially since I became aware of the amazing dream-like work of Sarah Moon, some of which you can see here and here.

On the day it turned out that I had little to do. The uni had lots of hi-tech photographic equipment, which the main photographer the ladies had recruited was using. I'd never actually been in a photographic studio before, so it was interesting on that level at least. Some part of that equipment had sensors which caused the main lights to flash every time I took a photograph with my own flash attached, which meant that it was almost impossible for me to get a decent exposure. So I had to remove my flash unit and improvise. I also had to keep out of the way most of the time, and not shoot when the main photographer was shooting. I ended up taking only a few of the model and more of the shoot itself. Only a few came out, and they can be seen here.

This is my favourite of the lot:

This Weak Flesh

2010-05-04T20:17:00.005+01:00

ARC02, titled "This Weak Flesh", was released around August 2000. The fourth ARCart release and the second on the ARC label, it has a bit more of a straight ahead techno feel to it. It's not my favourite release, although it was one of the more successful releases on the label.

"Got To Get Down" is just a 30 second intro that I put together from a sample from a disco track...I think. The sample appeared again later on ARCN05 in the track "Got To Get Down Again".

The bulk of the first side of the record was given over to the title track, "This Weak Flesh". Although it could have been sequenced on anything due to its simple structure, I'm pretty sure this was made with the Notron. The main synth sound came from the EMU Audity 2000 I think. I don't dislike this track, but it does sound a bit too structured and simple to me now. Not that I think simple tracks are bad per se, just that this is perhaps a bit too clichéd. It also contains a very lazy sample on my part. One of the sounds looped up in the background of the track is a sample from another techno track released the same year, recorded by Claude Young. Bad form on my part, and just laziness, really. My set up never facilitated a particularly useful method of recording samples so I probably pulled this one off a CD that was lying around. I know that CY was aware of it at the time (he'd have heard it on the promo I sent him) and he kindly chose to never bring it up with me in person. I don't make music these days but if I did....or if I had developed the same attitudes around sampling which I hold now, this track would never have been made....or at least would have been different. Even though the sample arguably isn't the most significant feature of the track, I can't listen to it now without that thought nagging at me. That said, the feature which makes this track - the long, haunting synth sound which builds during the breakdown - caught the ear of Johan Bacto and that fact later helped to facilitate the Hardcell remix on ARCN04.

"Right To Left" is another track that I have mixed feelings about, 10 years after release. I always feel as if I don't like it much, until I hear it and find I'm actually quite into it. I guess the use of what sound a bit like "standard" Detroit techno type stabs puts me off at first, but then I enjoy the groove of the track and the way it develops. I also like the fact that there are one or two "happy accidents" in the track, created by me moving the tuning control for that synth stab the wrong way or too far during the recording.

By far my favourite track on this record at this stage is the last track, "He's Got A Knife". Many assumed that the vocal sample in the track was repeating the words in the title, but that's not correct. The vocal sample is very very short, maybe a quarter of one beat long. If it were to say anything it would only be "SA!". The rest of the phrase isn't vocal at all, but a mash up of the distorted drum samples and the short vocal stab which come together to create a loop which could under some conditions be heard as a voice saying "he's got a knife". I like the breakdown in this track, the sudden way in which the beat jumps back in, and the harsh oppressive feel of the track as it repeats over and over. This track was recorded by looping up the kick drum/vocal/distorted drum pattern as a single sample (you can hear that it is all one sample right at the end when I filter it down to nothing) over which are a couple of hi-hat and snare sounds from the TR-606 and that wibbly JD-800 synth sound that appears in the breakdown.

Files are in 320kbps mp3 and lossless FLAC formats. Both are compressed from the same WAV files which in turn are taken from original digital recordings. I’m willing to provide WAV files to individuals who specifically request them and for whom FLAC isn’t sufficient. If requesting WAV files, please let me know which tracks you want.

download 320kbps mp3 version

download lossless FLAC version

ARCart website

See further comments on the label art concept and track titles here.

Please get in touch if you have any problems downloading, unzipping, or playing the files.

Rewind on Sounds Like Me

2010-04-19T19:53:00.003+01:00

I recently took part in a discussion with Finn Johannsen as part of a series called Rewind, for a Germany based website called Sounds Like Me.

Rewind involves Finn talking with various folk about a particularly significant musical release that had an impact on their life. I chose the Strange Fruit release which compiled the first two sessions recorded by Napalm Death for John Peel.

You can read the discussion, and listen to part of the release in question, here.

Solar Beat

2010-03-30T18:26:00.004+01:00

This is really lovely. A musical Solar System based on relative orbital frequencies.

(via Information Is Beautiful)

Storyteller

2010-03-25T12:42:00.004Z

The third ARCart release was also the second ARC(ANE) release. It came out in June 2000 with the catalogue number ARCN02, and is titled "Storyteller". I think it was the first release I put out through Prime Distribution on a P&D basis. I believe that stands for production and distribution, but in any case it meant that I didn't have to pay for the cut, artwork and pressing up front with my own money - Prime paid and took those expenses out of the sales revenue from the release.

The first track, "The Nowhere Express", was recorded in April 1999. At about seven minutes in duration, it's the longest track released on either ARCart label. The bassline is a looped section from something playing on the radio at whatever time I happened to make the track. This is overlaid with sounds from the Roland JD-800 that are heavily processed and filtered. I was manually tweaking the fine tuning knob for the tone settings up and down half a semitone or so throughout the track to create the barely noticeable pitch shift. It's quite a chaotic sounding and noisy track for me but I like its hypnotic trancey vibe. It even has a couple of breakdowns.

"Divine Confusion" was recorded in March 2000, on the same day as and immediately before I recorded "Got To Get Down Again" which contains some of the same sounds and which will feature in a future post for ARCN05. The rich nature of the vocal sample meant that it was virtually impossible to cut it for vinyl without it distorting, so this is the first time it's available with a pristine sound. It nearly wasn't - when mastering these files I was dismayed to find the original recording (on an HHB so-called professional audio CDR, recorded on an HHB professional audio CD recorder) had degraded massively, along with quite a few other original recordings on a number of master CDRs that have effectively become unplayable and lost. By sheer luck I found a copy of this track somewhere on a DAT that I must have used to bounce the audio to a compiled master for the cut.

"Shift It", recorded in February 1999, is a rare example of me using the Roland TB-303 in a released track. It's a full sounding but very basic track, with a 3/4 bass throb under the beat, and a simple 303 pattern that pitch shifts up and down in semitones. There is also some subtle manual tweaking of the tuning knob. The 303 sounds like it has some chorus or flange on it to make it a bit edgy, and lots of stereo delay from the saved setting on my Lexicon Vortex which featured on pretty much every track I made for years.

The title track, "Storyteller", is also the oldest on the release, recorded in December 1998. It's more mechanical sounding than the other tracks on the record due to the incessant snare pattern. The only sounds which vary in this track are the delayed vocal samples and a high pitched synth pattern that (of course) moves up and down in tone.

All of these tracks were sequenced using the Alesis MMT-8, except "Divine Confusion" which used the Notron (I have the metallic blue Mark 2 model which is not currently pictured on that Wikipedia page).

Files are in 320kbps mp3 and lossless FLAC formats. Both are compressed from the same WAV files which in turn are taken from original digital recordings. I’m willing to provide WAV files to individuals who specifically request them and for whom FLAC isn’t sufficient. If requesting WAV files, please let me know which tracks you want.

download 320kbps mp3 version

download lossless FLAC version

ARCart website

See further comments on the label art concept and track titles here.

Please get in touch if you have any problems downloading, unzipping, or playing the files.

Elegant Manoeuvres

2010-02-22T15:46:00.009Z

The first release on ARC's sister label ARC(ANE) came out in February 2000, was titled "Elegant Manoeuvres" and had the catalogue number ARCN01. All the tracks were at least 2 years old when released. It was distributed by Prime Distribution which had agreed to take on my labels following the dismal performance of Metropolis described in the previous post. By that time I'd had another release on the Chicago based High Octane label, which was arranged by DJ Rush who acted in a sort of A&R capacity for them.

The differences between ARC and ARC(ANE) were always quite subtle, but were probably most audible on this and the two subsequent "Elegant Manoeuvres" releases. They had more of a groove to them, I think, and were more house-influenced even if they didn't sound much like house.

The first track, "Passenger", is quite pacy at about 140 or 142bpm. It was recorded in late 1997, immediately after the track "Ambrosia" which was released some years later on ARCN07. It uses the same sample or synth loop as its main riff, but it's sequenced differently. Derrick May played it once at a Lost party in Vauxhall. At the end of the night I approached him to say thanks for playing it. He asked me which track I meant, and I mentioned the title. He said "I only have white labels". So I described the logo which would have been stamped on the copy I posted to the Transmat office in Detroit. He said "oh yeaaaah....I thought you brought the hi-hats in a bit late". Cheeky bastard. I told him it would make more sense if he played more of the track. "oooh, yeah!". Anyway, it was nice to hear him play the record, it certainly buffed my ego a bit. I once heard Kevin Saunderson play another of my tracks at a much later Lost party...and I didn't like the way he used it at all. In fact I rarely enjoyed the way other people played my records, but I was always interested to observe from the dancefloor how a crowd would react to the tracks. I doubt I'll ever hear the other member of the Belleville Three do the same but two out of three isn't bad.

I seem to remember having problems with the bass sound distorting in the next track, "Hunk". This track was recorded in January 1998. The sound that echoes throughout is, I think, a sampled TR-909 snare that was messed with and put through loads of effects. I've never played this track in a set or heard anyone else play it. It's not particularly exciting to me now, and not one of my favourites of all the tracks I released, but I'd be interested to hear it on a big system one day.

"Picnic Cut" was recorded in July 1998. The main riff was a sample from a track that Tommy Gillard and I made together in January 1996 called "Life's No Picnic" (that track can be downloaded here if anyone is interested). I used the dysfunctional time stretch function on the Roland S-760 to mash it up a bit and processed it through the sampler's rough sounding filter while messing with a few simple percussion sounds. I like this track a lot, it was always my favourite track on the record.

Recorded in late 1997, the title of the last track, "Break The Laws" came from the vocal sample used, although I don't think that's what's actually being said. Like "Hunk", I never played this track in a set. I like the chunky beat it has, the shuffled sampled closed hi-hat and the low synths that appear a couple of times. I'm less sure about the two sections where the sequence of the vocal sample changes.

All of these tracks were sequenced using the Alesis MMT-8.

Files are in 320kbps mp3 and lossless FLAC formats. Both are compressed from the same WAV files which in turn are taken from the original DAT recordings. I’m willing to provide WAV files to individuals who specifically request them and for whom FLAC isn’t sufficient. If requesting WAV files, please let me know which tracks you want.

download 320kbps mp3 version

download lossless FLAC version

ARCart website

See further comments on the label art concept and track titles here.

Please get in touch if you have any problems downloading, unzipping, or playing the files.

Joyrage

2010-02-12T14:43:00.007Z

This is the first of a series of posts offering free digital versions of old ARCart releases, previously only available on vinyl, and in which I will waffle on a bit about the original releases.

“Joyrage”, the first ARCart release came out on ARC in May 1999. It was my third vinyl release, coming after “Watch As We Now Drift” on Meta, and “Beyond The Pale” on Kne’Deep. Those two previous releases helped provide some momentum and recognition from distributors. Not enough, though, for Prime Distribution, the main movers in the UK when the label was originally conceived and proposed.

I first set up distribution through a new London based organisation called Metropolis Distribution. They were, ummm…not very good. Nice guys, mostly, just useless at distributing records and even worse at paying labels for the few records they did manage to sell. Eventually they went out of business and I never did get paid what I was owed. It wasn’t enough to live on considering their poor sales performance but it would have bought a few very nice meals.

Before Metropolis collapsed I managed to get the unsold stock of this release sent to Prime, with whom I’d launched ARC(ANE) some months later. It sat in their warehouse for a while but when Prime offered up the bulk of the unsold stock of “Joyrage” (which was probably about 75% of what was pressed) they sold within a month.

The catalogue number differs slightly in format from all the other releases. ARC.MD.01 – this was partly down to a suggestion from Metropolis that I regret following, and possibly an error by the graphic designer, or by me, that compiled the artwork. It still irritates me for various reasons.

I’m still quite into the tracks on here. They’re all fairly simple affairs, especially on side A. I think that “Tinitus” (incorrect spelling, I know) was one of the first tracks I made after acquiring a compressor, hence the very low kick drum. The high pitched hissing sound is a sampled TR-808 snare playing forwards and then reversing on itself, filtered through the mixing desk with added delay. This was a possible contender when Oliver and I were reviewing tracks for the Meta release, but as it wasn’t used for that I put it out myself.

“White Lies” is as simple as it gets, just a relentless pounding loop, really, reminiscent of how it would often feel at 4am on the dancefloor at Lost during a punishing mid-90s Jeff Mills set (which was of course one of the major influences on all the techno we were making).

At this point in time my favourite track on the record is “Onslaught II”. I like the snare hit and the slightly woozy processed vocal samples that make up the main sounds of the track (all the non-percussive sounds are vocal samples). It’s the only track on the EP that has a hint of the slightly seasick wavering pitch effect which I later tried to inject into most of the music I made.

“21 Number 4”, titled in honour of my friend Tommy’s 21st birthday, also has a vocal sample stab throughout. This is layered with a filtered synth patch from the Roland JD800. The sequenced distorted percussive sound that fades up after a short while was programmed randomly using the Alesis MMT-8 sequencer, which is all I used to sequence tracks until later buying a Latronic Notron step sequencer.

As mentioned in the previous post, I’ve uploaded the files in 320kbps mp3 and lossless FLAC formats. Both are compressed from the same WAV files which in turn are taken from the original DAT recordings. I’m willing to provide WAV files to individuals who specifically request them and for whom FLAC isn’t sufficient. If requesting WAV files, please let me know which tracks you want.

download 320kbps mp3 version

download lossless FLAC version

ARCart website

See further comments on the label art concept and track titles here.

Please get in touch if you have any problems downloading, unzipping, or playing the files.

ARCart releases in digital format

2010-02-06T21:37:00.003Z

Several years ago I updated a page on the ARCart website announcing that mp3 versions of all the ARC and ARC(ANE) releases would be made available. Some years later I removed that text as I realised I'd still not got round to fulfilling that promise and, like my vague ideas of ever making music again, might never actually get round to it. Well, at least on one of these points I've finally managed to make good on my word.

Over the coming weeks I'll be making available digital versions of every ARCart vinyl release. The intention at this stage is to make them available in two formats – 320kbps mp3 files, and FLAC files. Both are compressed from the same WAV files, which were created from the original digital recordings made on Digital Audio Tape and in some cases, CDr. The WAV files will also be available to anyone who really needs them but I won’t be putting them online in the same way. Those will be available on an individual track basis to people who specifically request those tracks from me.

The files will be posted in the order they were originally released. I expect I'll write a bit about each one as well, giving some background information as well as sharing my opinions on how I feel about them all these years later.

I don't know if anyone is really that interested at this stage, but it will at least serve the purpose of creating an archive that will sit alongside the bits of vinyl still floating around in various collections, bargain bins and landfill sites. And it will give me something to write about on this ever-sluggish blog.

Oh, and the files will be made available for free at this stage, although that's for personal use only. Anyone who happens to want to use any of it for commercial reasons should get in touch.

let's get this party slanted (spannered.org)

2010-01-18T13:08:00.004Z

I did a mix for spannered.org. It's sort of ambient-ish in a downlifting, throw-ya-hands-in-the-meatgrinder kind of way.

Tracklist

Lustmord - 'Primordial Atom' (Soleilmoon)
Simon Fisher Turner - 'Hymn For Thatcher' (Mute)
Brunnen - 'Tippoo's Tiger' (Beta-lactam Ring)
Chris Carter - 'Chakutut' (Conspiracy International)
Autechre - 'Paralel Suns' (Warp)
Column One - 'Re-Worked Transmission' (Stateart)
Black Sun Productions - 'The Skunk' (Old Europa Café)
Max Waters - 'Stars And Scribble' (Blasé)
Andrew Liles - 'Auto Manipulator - 4th Degree (A Lesson To Be Learnt)' (Lumberton Trading Company)
Black Dice - 'Endless Happiness' (DFA)
The Jackofficers - 'An Hawaiian Christmas Song' (Naked Brain)
Aerial Service Area - 'ETI Encoding' (Fax +49-69/450464)
Pemalas - 'Tones' (Experimental Seafood)
The Silverman - 'Nature Of Illusion' (Beta-lactam Ring)
Danny Kreutzfeldt - 'Chasm' (Databloem)
Satori - 'Paralysis' (Dogma Chase)
Sun Electric - 'Newambi' (R&S)
James Plotkin, Mick Harris - 'Collapse' (Asphodel)

You can download the mp3 or stream the mix from here.

Completed artwork commentary

2010-01-15T20:00:00.003Z

Some months ago I blogged about a commentary I wrote about the centre label art on ARCart releases.

At that time I was missing a finished copy of ARC04 but I found one this week. I've added it to the commentary and it can be seen on page two of the ARCart label art gallery accessible from here.

an old set recorded in Brno, 2004

2010-01-13T16:01:00.009Z

A recording of my set at the Foundation party in Brno, Czech Republic in 2004. In two hectic, messy, high tempo sections. I think a few minutes must have been cut off in the middle as it jumps about 20bpm between the end of the first and the start of the second. Sound quality isn't brilliant as the decks were feeding back a bit in places. Also the ending is cut off somewhat abruptly.

Here's the tracklist.

Part 1

Susumu Yokota - 'Fairy Link' (Leaf)
Lift Syndrome - '13' (Rodz-Konez)
The Advent - 'The Living' (Internal)
Caustic Window - 'Astroblaster' (Rephlex)
Cybordelics - 'Adventures Of Dama' (Harthouse)
Universal Indicator - 'Green' (Rephlex)
Like A Tim - 'Space Punk' (DJAX)
Universal Indicator - 'Green' (Rephlex)
Mescalinum United - 'We Have Arrived (Aphex Twin TTQ Mix)' (R&S)
Like A Tim - 'Dangle' (DJAX)
Unknown Structure - 'Repitcher' (Sapho)
DJ Rush - 'Smooth Ride' (Trax)
Drexciya - 'Digital Tsunami' (Tresor)
Fast - 'Exit Wound' (Reverb)
Autechre - 'Djarum' (Warp)
Nick Rapaccioli - 'Skima' (Vertical Form)
Drexciya - 'Aqua Jujidsu' (Submerge)
Storm - 'Carbon Fury' (DJAX)
Richard Bartz - 'Mad Butcher' (Disko B)
Gas - 'Pop' (Mille Plateaux)
D'Arcangelo - 'Diagram VII (80's Mix)' (Rephlex)

Part 2

The Vision - 'K-Force' (Tresor)
Clementine - 'Breaking Point' (DJAX)
Bola - 'Horizophon' (Skam)
Ed Rush - 'The Raven' (FFRR)
The Black Dog - 'Chesh' (Warp)
Monolake - 'Frost' (Monolake / Imbalance Computer Music)
Ceephax Acid Crew - 'Seasick Acid' (Breakin')
Audiosex - 'untitled' (Aural Audio)
Vinyl Countdown - 'Erasure' (Edge)
C-Tank - 'Hardtrance Over Flow' (Overdrive)
Like A Tim - 'Wildstyle' (DJAX)
Andre Holland - 'Unabomber' (UR)
Gas - 'Pop' (Mille Plateaux)
Caustic Window - 'The Garden Of Linmiri' (Rephlex)
The Subjects v. Jeff Mills - 'Beyond...' (ULR One)
Caustic Window - 'Joyrex J4' (Rephlex)
DJ Funk - 'Booty Perk U Later' (Projex)
Bitstream - 'Speed Of Light' (Pylon)

zip file containing both parts is here.

Chris Watson on BBC Radio 4

2010-01-04T16:06:00.003Z

Chris Watson, who I wrote about a few posts ago, presented an excellent short program on BBC Radio 4 yesterday about recording the various sounds of water. It's only 15 minutes long so go and check it out. There's a section where he plays recordings made of an Icelandic glacier which is quite amazing and similar to the one of the sea ice freezing which he played at the National Gallery event.

Listen to the program on the BBC site here (6 days left to listen).

Nancy Elizabeth

2009-11-22T09:43:00.004Z

The wonderful Nancy Elizabeth played in London yesterday at The Borderline. It was the third time I've seen her perform live this year, and each occasion has been brilliant.

The previous two performances had focused on her newer material, released at the end of September on the album "Wrought Iron". On this latest occasion she played a mixed set of songs from both this and her first album "Battle And Victory". Happily she also had her harp with her. At previous gigs she'd used just acoustic guitar and piano, mentioning having fallen out of love with the harp which featured heavily on her first album, so it was good to see she's got the bug back. I welled right up when she first used it last night to play "I'm Like The Paper".

I can't recall ever hearing a singer whose live performances are so perfect. Her voice never wavers. She's also without doubt the most endearing performer I've ever witnessed. She always talks to the audience between each song and is delightfully funny and charming. Odd then that on this occasion quite a few people who had presumably paid to get in thought it somehow appropriate to talk through the performance.

The final song of the main section of her set was "The Remote Past", and she invited the audience to participate by humming a part along with her. It took a few attempts for people to get properly into it, but in the end it worked very well, pulling the audience right in and creating a very sweet atmosphere that definitely increased everyone's pleasure levels. That's the first time I've seen her getting the audience properly involved in the music itself, rather than through the spoken interaction she encourages between songs.

Here's a video made for one of the tracks on her new album. I recommend watching it full screen:

Nancy Elizabeth - Feet Of Courage from Leaf Label

Johnny Mad Dog

2009-11-19T10:30:00.008Z

Last night I went to a local cinema to watch a film called Johnny Mad Dog. It's an extremely harrowing depiction of civil war in an unspecified African country (although I believe it was filmed in Liberia where such horrors have taken place, and which still happen every day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and focuses on the role of child soldiers used by both government and rebel forces.

The film is in a local dialect of the official Liberian language of English but which few in the UK could ever understand without subtitles.

The opening scene portrays the horrific abduction ritual which is often described in the media, whereby a village is raided, and children are forced to kill their own parents before being dragged away to be drugged and brainwashed into taking up arms in a war they can't hope to understand and will probably not survive.

Johnny Mad Dog is the name of one of the characters who appears throughout the film, a late teen who has been fighting for as long as he can remember. Although I would hesitate to call him the protagonist, he does appear to be the individual whose thoughts we get closest to. But he is just one of many boys forced into a situation where they know nothing but war, they kill and rape without hesitation, and they no longer remember their own names or where they came from.

From beginning to end, this film is nothing but brutal. There are no tender moments, and as far as I could detect, no moral messages. Just "this is it. death, craziness and mayhem without respite". Aside from a young girl's attempts to save her father, the closest we get to seeing a display of affection would be more accurately described as rape, albeit that the young victim is already so traumatised as to be unable to fully understand what's happening to her. No resistance is offered, and in fact it seems almost to be welcome, but I wondered if the fact that this scene took place on a beach with both parties covered in sand was suggesting a painful undertone for all involved.

It ends ambiguously, with the war supposedly over but little having changed except the uniforms of those doing the brutalising. Perhaps that's the message.

Letters of note

2009-11-10T16:59:00.002Z

The Letters Of Note blog is well worth subscribing to. It's still a young project, and I can't remember how I first came across it. The variety of correspondence in terms of content, the backgrounds of the authors and the dates of the letters makes it a constantly interesting and often inspiring read.

Favourites so far include Richard Adams declaring that he hates "Bright Eyes" by Art Garfunkel and Ludwig Van Beethoven's emotional letter to his brothers.

Chris Watson & Simon Fisher Turner at The National Gallery

2009-11-06T16:37:00.004Z

There was lots of great music to be heard last weekend. Thankfully, although the three very different shows I attended were announced between ten months and three weeks ahead of time, there were no clashes or overlaps and there was time to rest and digest between each.

The first event of the weekend took place in the unlikely location of the National Gallery in central London. This had popped up in the recommendations last.fm makes based on my music listening history. In this case it was due to the fact that I’ve been listening to Simon Fisher Turner’s excellent soundtrack to the Derek Jarman film “The Last Of England” (I haven’t yet seen the film) which also contains music by the wonderful and rather frightening Diamanda Galás, and also to Chris Watson’s amazing and evocative field recordings on “Outside The Circle Of Fire”. This free event comprised of two separate performances in different parts of the gallery, offering each artist the opportunity to showcase a commissioned composition inspired by a specific painting of their choice.

Simon Fisher Turner was up first, and I arrived just in time to catch the start, in a room which was already fairly busy. As a result, I was unable to get a good view of the artwork which is the source of inspiration for the music, two 15th century panels from a triptych by Hans Memling…specifically the reverse panel showing nine cranes, not visible in that link. James Heard of the National Gallery’s Education team spoke at length about the painting, offering some excellent historical context regarding the spheres of influence in Italian (or what would later become Italian) society at the time the painting was made, the way in which it was commissioned and executed, and the significance it had for its owner as well as the art world at the time. Some time into the talk the first distant tones of SFT’s music could be heard. The talk continued with the music in the background, James Heard dramatically pausing for a minute every so often to allow the atmospherics to fill the room, and eventually ending the talk and leaving SFT to take over for a few minutes.

I can’t say I was overwhelmed by the music. It was a very airy ambient type piece, which was entirely fitting for the occasion. Nothing ornate or in-your-face, just a light synth pad changing tone now and then. I think that having been standing up in that busy room for 40+ minutes I was becoming a bit uncomfortable, which may have affected how receptive I was. The music played would certainly be an appreciated accompaniment to a wander around the gallery.

Next up was Chris Watson in a much larger hall elsewhere in the gallery. Watson’s choice of inspiration was John Constable’s “The Cornfield”, a painting I had been looking at in the same building a few months ago, which led me to notice that it had been moved to a different position in the meantime.

Watson was briefly introduced by a lady whose name I’ve forgotten but who I believe held overall responsibility for the project we were now witnessing the results of. He then took over and introduced himself and his work as one of the world’s foremost field/sound recordists (that description is mine, not his! I suspect he’s far too modest to describe himself as such).

What followed was an enthralling and fascinating breakdown of how Watson sees and hears the world and attempts to condense it into his recordings for others to hear. Referring to the Constable painting, he described how visual perspective has an audio equivalent, and played us different recordings of sounds spread across varying distances, including insects across a wide space in the Mojave desert, and a huge thunderclap that had many of the audience, me included, jumping in fright.

Perspective in space was then followed by “perspective” in time. Watson explained the challenges of, for example, producing a soundtrack for a 90 second segment of film which focuses on a dawn chorus, the sounds of which change drastically over a 2-3 hour period, while still providing a realistic representation of the whole. He does this by segueing small sections of a long recording together. After the dawn chorus example he played us one of the strangest sounds I’ve ever heard, as he demonstrated the same technique with recordings made over 4 months (!!!!) of the sea ice slowly forming in an Icelandic bay. Incredibly creepy and magical, and not at all like one’s normal idea of sounds of the sea. I wonder if that recording is available on any of his releases, I’d love to hear it again.

After explaining these concepts to us and playing examples to illustrate them, Watson proceeded to give a scientific breakdown of the composition he had made for “The Cornfield”. He made numerous observations, of the colour of the leaves of a particular tree and the human activity in the field which appears in the middle distance, and from this he determined the time of year. Using knowledge of wildlife in the area the painting depicted, he determined which birds might be in the scene at that moment, and used appropriate recordings of those birds. Flowing water accompanied the stream, and Watson even interpreted the distracted look of the sheepdog to suggest an unseen woodpecker. The wind in the trees and the corn, and the pealing bells of the distant church were all added, and we heard each individual element in isolation along with the explanation for its presence. Finally, once every aspect had been detailed, we heard the completed composition.

It was good, I really enjoyed it, but I have to say that the highlight of the experience was hearing Chris Watson describe with such enthusiasm and knowledge the process by which the final result was achieved. It provided an amazing understanding of how much research, study and work goes into what he does. It’s a lot more than just standing somewhere with a microphone. A wonderful experience, I’m very glad I attended this event. Well done to all concerned.

blog stuff

2009-11-04T19:58:00.003Z

The two or three people who subscribe to this blog may have noticed that very little ever happens here. I'm going to try to change that. New posts will still appear randomly, and may be unrelated to either photography or music, the two main themes to date. The purpose is simply to collect bits of stuff that I write in various discussions, and that others have encouraged me to keep a record of.

These might be about anything from food to politics as well as covering the same subjects that have previously appeared intermittently. They may or may not be of interest to those who've read the blog so far.

Godflesh Peel session

2009-10-03T12:56:00.005+01:00

I found this on YouTube yesterday and thought I'd post it here. It's the Peel session recording of the track "Pulp" by Godflesh. I quite vividly remember switching on the John Peel show one evening in 1989 or so and hearing him introduce this track. It was the first time I'd heard them, and I still listen to them regularly now, as well as many other projects related to Justin Broadrick (e.g. Techno Animal, Jesu, Greymachine, Final, Head Of David - he's been a busy guy). This version also apparently includes Kevin Martin on saxophone. Martin at the time was in a band called God, who were also brilliant. He may be better known these days as The Bug, under which name he's produced some amazing aggressive dancehall material in the past years.

This particular recording of this particular track is in my opinion the best thing they ever did, and possibly the best track anyone has ever done. Brutal:

my Plex set

2009-09-13T15:02:00.003+01:00

I've uploaded what I think is a fairly accurate representation of my set at Plex on Friday. It's missing all the skips and jumps that happened every time someone put their feet on the steps by the side of the booth, and is probably mixed better. Not sure if it's 100% accurate in terms of sequencing but I think it has all the same tracks and is definitely pretty close. It was a great night and I really enjoyed playing despite the minor technical difficulties.

Here's the tracklist:

Techno Animal - 'Bio-Morphium' (Force Inc. Music Works)
The Omni Incentive - 'The Omni Incentive - B3' (Crème Organization)
Mantra - 'The Second Age - A2' (Bunker)
The Sun God - 'Above The Clouds' (Klang Elektronik)
The Chicago Shags - 'Poke Inferno' (Bunker)
The Sun God - 'Return 2 Saturn' (Klang Elektronik)
Lloyd Owes Me A Packet - 'Keep It Up' (Jelly Jam)
Newworldaquarium - 'The Games That We Play' (New Religion)
Pamétex - 'Bunker 3024 - A' (Bunker)
DJ ESP - 'Acid Juice' (Generator)
S-Max - 'Mental Purity Equals Love' (Telegraph)
The Chicago Shags - 'Streetgang' (Bunker)
Mantra - 'The Second Age - B1' (Bunker)
Frequency - 'We're Rolling This Way' (Lower East Side)
ESP - 'Idiom' (Synewave)
Jack Master - 'Bang The Box' (Jack)
Fym - 'Grace (Full Parrot Stylee)' (Boogizm)
Tobias Schmidt - 'Drugly Drunk' (Uglyfunk)
DJ Power Out - 'Hangover' (Geometric)
Schizophrenia - 'My Splendid Idea (With Rude Yoghurt Flange)' (Mighty Force)
Like A Tim - 'Troost - A2' (Like)
Lloyd Owes Me A Packet - 'The Pounder' (Jelly Jam)
Mark Broom - 'Pyrion' (Pure Plastic)
Legowelt - 'Slowjam Deeptechno' (Crème Organization)
Gizz T.V. - 'Shakar - A1' (Temple Records N.Y.C.)
Like A Tim - 'O.K' (Djax-Up-Beats)
Fumiya Tanaka - 'Drive # 6 (Edit 2)' (Tresor)
Black Widow - 'The Stalk' (Death)
Cosmic Journey Project - 'OK' (no label)
Kre - 'Friends - B1' (Numb)
Nukubus - 'Who Made You' (Bunker)
Nimoy - 'Smoking' (Bunker)
Naughty & Tolis - 'Lost Point' (Ferox)
RAC - 'Hub' (Warp)
Alden Tyrell - 'Obsession (More Obsession remix)' (Clone)

Grab the set via the downloads page on the ARCart site.