Mmm, there was a repeat,
boycott Metalworks.
Mmmmmmmmmm.
Really.
As much as i enjoy waiting around 2 hours for sound check;
It was a bit of a late evening.
Edit: I need to not write on my blog when I'm wasted. WTF.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops
I've really been digging this album lately. This is the first part of four different album that quite a bit of patience when listening to but the entire product is incredible. Long flowing minimal ambient music that actually physically degrades over the course of the entire track coupled with a really cryptic back story:
"disintegration loop 1.1, william basinski, video,2001, 62 m. In the process of archiving and digitizing analog tape loops from work I had done in 1982, I discovered some wonderful sweeping pastoral pieces I had forgotten about. Beautiful, lush cinematic truly American pastoral landscapes swept before my ears and eyes. With excitement I began recording the first one to cd, mixing a new piece with a subtle random arpeggiated countermelody from the Voyetra. To my shock and surprise, I soon realized that the tape loop itself was disintegrating: as it played round and round, the iron oxide particles were gradually turning to dust and dropping into the tape machine, leaving bare plastic spots on the tape, and silence in these corresponding sections of the new recording. I had heard about this happening, and frankly was very afraid of this happening to me since so much of my early work was precariously near the end of its shelf life. Still, I had never actually seen it happen, yet here it was happening. The music was dying. I was recording the death of this sweeping melody. It was very emotional for me, and mystical as well. Tied up in these melodies were my youth, my paradise lost, the American pastoral landscape, all dying gently, gracefully, beautifully. Life and death were being recorded here as a whole: death as simply a part of life: a cosmic change, a transformation. When the disintegration was complete, the body was simply a little strip of clear plastic with a few clinging chords, the music had turned to dust and was scattered along the tape path in little piles and clumps. Yet the essence and memory of the life and death of this music had been saved: recorded to a new media, remembered. As far as Sept. 11th goes, perhaps you had to be here and see it with your own eyes and experience the horror and the ghastly smell, and smoke, sirens, no television or telephone, F-16s strafing the city at ear splitting volume, the fear, agony and deep sadness, see peoples faces in the subway, the deep longing bonded look people gave each other, the lip compression signifying compassion, to understand the magnitude of what we felt here. This was the end of the world...and we were literally sitting up on the roof all day and into night watching without believing as NYC burned, and listening to the heartbreaking Disintegration Loops...I thought...it's the soundtrack to the end of the world...I had been assigned the job without knowing the details, it was done, and here we are...The Greatest Show on Earth, Armageddon. We were all literally losing our minds in terror, each person looping onto what holds him or her together..clinging to that which could provide some kind of release or explanation..just as each of the individual melodies in the Disintegration Loops did...at their own pace, seeming to hold onto that which made the melody unique, while letting go of the unimportant sustains or gently adding rests incrementally before the downbeat...it really blew my mind. I hadn't really thought of trying to "achieve" anything. But perhaps, if the music enabled listeners to contemplate the temporal nature of life in this world and come to some small inkling or understanding as I did of a redemptive spirituality that animates us and continues on, then that would be an achievement."
DOWNLOAD
*download fixed*
"disintegration loop 1.1, william basinski, video,2001, 62 m. In the process of archiving and digitizing analog tape loops from work I had done in 1982, I discovered some wonderful sweeping pastoral pieces I had forgotten about. Beautiful, lush cinematic truly American pastoral landscapes swept before my ears and eyes. With excitement I began recording the first one to cd, mixing a new piece with a subtle random arpeggiated countermelody from the Voyetra. To my shock and surprise, I soon realized that the tape loop itself was disintegrating: as it played round and round, the iron oxide particles were gradually turning to dust and dropping into the tape machine, leaving bare plastic spots on the tape, and silence in these corresponding sections of the new recording. I had heard about this happening, and frankly was very afraid of this happening to me since so much of my early work was precariously near the end of its shelf life. Still, I had never actually seen it happen, yet here it was happening. The music was dying. I was recording the death of this sweeping melody. It was very emotional for me, and mystical as well. Tied up in these melodies were my youth, my paradise lost, the American pastoral landscape, all dying gently, gracefully, beautifully. Life and death were being recorded here as a whole: death as simply a part of life: a cosmic change, a transformation. When the disintegration was complete, the body was simply a little strip of clear plastic with a few clinging chords, the music had turned to dust and was scattered along the tape path in little piles and clumps. Yet the essence and memory of the life and death of this music had been saved: recorded to a new media, remembered. As far as Sept. 11th goes, perhaps you had to be here and see it with your own eyes and experience the horror and the ghastly smell, and smoke, sirens, no television or telephone, F-16s strafing the city at ear splitting volume, the fear, agony and deep sadness, see peoples faces in the subway, the deep longing bonded look people gave each other, the lip compression signifying compassion, to understand the magnitude of what we felt here. This was the end of the world...and we were literally sitting up on the roof all day and into night watching without believing as NYC burned, and listening to the heartbreaking Disintegration Loops...I thought...it's the soundtrack to the end of the world...I had been assigned the job without knowing the details, it was done, and here we are...The Greatest Show on Earth, Armageddon. We were all literally losing our minds in terror, each person looping onto what holds him or her together..clinging to that which could provide some kind of release or explanation..just as each of the individual melodies in the Disintegration Loops did...at their own pace, seeming to hold onto that which made the melody unique, while letting go of the unimportant sustains or gently adding rests incrementally before the downbeat...it really blew my mind. I hadn't really thought of trying to "achieve" anything. But perhaps, if the music enabled listeners to contemplate the temporal nature of life in this world and come to some small inkling or understanding as I did of a redemptive spirituality that animates us and continues on, then that would be an achievement."
DOWNLOAD
*download fixed*
Terrible show last night.
Last night I played a show at Cream Tangerine on Queen Street in Toronto and it was really bad. I sucked. For some reason I was already extremely nervous before the show which is a rare thing for me. I was kind of thrown off by the crappy sound quality of having to play my sampler through a little single PA speaker sitting on the floor. Then during my first song "Coffee Cups That Won't Break Down" as I was building up a swelling ambient intro out of some sweet-ass guitar loops, the power breaker blew just as I was about to go full force into the song. The tension of everything was destroyed in pop and then sudden silence. After about 20 minutes of hanging around in complete silence and listening to some really talented spoken-word artists who didn't let the night go to complete shit, I resumed my set only to have two cops come into the cafe and end the show due to a noise complaint (it was like 11 PM and some people from across the street couldn't deal with the atmosphere, man) and ended the set. I was sitting down and had my head down the entire time because of how nervous I was so I didn't even notice them come up. Pretty horrifying to look up and have two bitchy looking cops with their arms crossed staring at you. Sorry for anyone who had to witness that spectacle. I'm laughing about it now.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Four 'live' songs
About a month ago I recorded live versions (no electronics or samplers or any of that business, only guitar, voice and looping pedals) of four of my songs in one long take. Kind of sloppy in some parts but whatever. First time attempting these songs in this way. I hope you dig.
Foxes in Fiction - Live at 222 Elm
Recorded sometime in April, 2010
1. 15 Ativan
2. Jimi Bleachball
3. To Go Home
4. Memory Pools
DOWNLOAD
It's so goddamn hot here. I've been up all night sweating, it's the worst feeling ever. Why the fuck don't I have one of these yet, I never had cool things like this as a child:
Foxes in Fiction - Live at 222 Elm
Recorded sometime in April, 2010
1. 15 Ativan
2. Jimi Bleachball
3. To Go Home
4. Memory Pools
DOWNLOAD
It's so goddamn hot here. I've been up all night sweating, it's the worst feeling ever. Why the fuck don't I have one of these yet, I never had cool things like this as a child:
Friday, May 21, 2010
1 / 3
Flashing light have ended now, no more of those days
Days when we could let it show, cut it up and watch it grow
Only found in photographs, this feeling haunts the past
The silence walks between us, the silence seems to last
So lay back down if you wake up and leave it out to dry
I’ve been trapped in parking lots, wishing I could fake a smile
I will learn to to grow detached, I will realize
All the time we spent inside, changing colour of out eyes
Your words harness energy, I’ve seen it in the past
But I’ve got something better, something that will last
And looking back in photographs, the basement held a light
Candles set by steady hands, show our faces to the night
Can we change the way we feel, did you say ‘don’t look back’
Sunday morning’s looking up, the night has gone the sun comes back
http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/14372-flashing-lights-have-ended-now/
Days when we could let it show, cut it up and watch it grow
Only found in photographs, this feeling haunts the past
The silence walks between us, the silence seems to last
So lay back down if you wake up and leave it out to dry
I’ve been trapped in parking lots, wishing I could fake a smile
I will learn to to grow detached, I will realize
All the time we spent inside, changing colour of out eyes
Your words harness energy, I’ve seen it in the past
But I’ve got something better, something that will last
And looking back in photographs, the basement held a light
Candles set by steady hands, show our faces to the night
Can we change the way we feel, did you say ‘don’t look back’
Sunday morning’s looking up, the night has gone the sun comes back
http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/14372-flashing-lights-have-ended-now/
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Studio
or something like it. This is my recording set-up as of late. Neat yellow tint. I got rid of my AC30 and replaced it with a ~*brand new*~ AC15, is nice.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
!@#$%^&*(
Hiiii everyone,
I think I'm losing my sense of articulation, every time I try and write a blog or an update my sentences start to look like mangled car wrecks and I defer to reading Hipster Runoff. Should have maybe taken summer courses. Should have read more books throughout the school year.
The CD reissue of Swung From The Branches on Moodgadget Records is going to be release on June 29th, I'll leave more details when they come. I listened to to the mastered version of it today, it's nice as hellll. There's going to be three new songs on it, too.
Also, my small-time-operations label Orchid Tapes is going to be releasing some material by some artists that I really love and am really excited about. Thankfully the reception I've received about the whole idea has been really positive so far, with lots of people willing to paticipate. I think I found a decent cassette duplicator service in Toronto that I'm gonna check out, so tapes as well as free downloads are gonna be a go! Check out the Orchid Tapes MySpace if y'all want to hear some of the artists.
I'm going to go outside now.
I want to be in Norway.
Warren
I think I'm losing my sense of articulation, every time I try and write a blog or an update my sentences start to look like mangled car wrecks and I defer to reading Hipster Runoff. Should have maybe taken summer courses. Should have read more books throughout the school year.
The CD reissue of Swung From The Branches on Moodgadget Records is going to be release on June 29th, I'll leave more details when they come. I listened to to the mastered version of it today, it's nice as hellll. There's going to be three new songs on it, too.
Also, my small-time-operations label Orchid Tapes is going to be releasing some material by some artists that I really love and am really excited about. Thankfully the reception I've received about the whole idea has been really positive so far, with lots of people willing to paticipate. I think I found a decent cassette duplicator service in Toronto that I'm gonna check out, so tapes as well as free downloads are gonna be a go! Check out the Orchid Tapes MySpace if y'all want to hear some of the artists.
I'm going to go outside now.
I want to be in Norway.
Warren
Friday, May 7, 2010
Live recording(s).
I played a show at a bar in Toronto earlier tonight called Tiger Bar. There was a lot of beer and I couldn't hear my own voice for a lot of the performance therefore I was sucky. Regardless, I made a recording off the soundboard. If you feel so inclined you can download it below. Thanks to Cameron for technical assistance, and Ben for motivating me to bring my computer to the bar.
1. Coffee Cups That Won't Break Down
2. Fear
3. 15 Ativan
4. Operating Room
5. To Go Home
6. Dr. Glass (Deerhunter cover)
7. Bronte Balloons
8. New Panic Cure
9. Snow Angels + feedback / Ninth Floor View
10. Memory Pools
11. OCAD Flu
DOWNLOAD: Foxes in Fiction - Live @ Tiger Bar March 6th, 2010
Edit: It is morning and I am sober so I'm able to function on a more human level and edit / upload the other recordings from the other amazing bands that played last night:
DOWNLOAD: The Box Tiger: Live @ Tiger Bar, March 6th, 2010
DOWNLOAD: Purple Hill: Live @ Tiger Bar March 6th, 2010
DOWNLOAD: First Rate People: Live @ Tiger Bar March 6th, 2010
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