Gravitas

Here’s a fun new song that features somebody “talking in tongues” (hence the title) as a kind of voice-over or voice-under, here and there. Some of the voice clips are forwards, some are in reverse. It’s hard to tell sometimes. I may use these clips again, they amuse me.

The source for the glossolalia was found on archive.org – it is about a one-minute clip which had been reversed before posting. I snipped it up into twelve discrete segments, and reversed them back again. This left me 24 individual clips to assign to their own keys in the virtual sampler, so I could just play them into the song.

YouTube page: https://youtu.be/018zJVK5Sg0

Green kaleidoscope background courtesy of zfootage.com.

Another from 1995, although this one was never finished. I only had the MIDI file, no MP3 or anything, so I’m just recently hearing it myself for the first time in decades. Needed some work, maybe still does, but I’m calling it done for now. It’s kind of a melancholy piece, which if the music doesn’t convey that, the photos certainly hit you over the head with it. Just missing a sad clown face…

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/OKkEt6ohBWc

Photos are by me: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rgdaniel/

2015 (via 1995) Another old MIDI file dusted off, imported into modern(-ish) software, and cleaned up. This one goes back even further – it’s based on a riff I used to play on the piano at home when I was in high school, maybe 1972. The 1995 version was awash with synths, and this one started out that way, but then I decided I wanted to nod back to its piano origins. It’s a bit relentlessly ostinato, not unlike myself, but it has its moments.

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/XsFWqK8rfHU

Background video courtesy of zfootage.com

Another new/old song from 1995, redone recently. I’m having great fun cleaning up these old MIDI files, although that can also sometimes be a pain. The title is a Flintstones reference (their stone age version of Atlantic City), and also because the pace is rather frantic. I had no idea Frantic City was also a Teenage Head album until today. 🙂

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/3y3nhBAPPpA

Background video courtesy zfootage.com

Here’s another re-working of a twenty year old song (see yesterday’s post). The title is a reference to an earlier song called “The Stuff of Legend”, available on my album “Gravitas” from online retailers everywhere-ish. This song is a sequel to that one in no way whatsoever except chronologically, and in that they share a mock-proggy grandiose sounding title and atmosphere.

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/TB85VjWfaVM

Background again courtesy of zfootage.com.

Another day, another new song! (A pace I will not commit to, but I’m on a roll for now…)

This is actually a reworking from the original performance data of a track from my album (available wherever these things are usually available). Against all odds, I had the foresight, back in the 90s, of exporting my songs from Opcode Vision as SMF (standard MIDI files) in case I was moving to different software. It may have been when it was announced that Vision was not going to be supported or developed any more. Thanks a lot, Gibson.

Anywho, I’m now on different software on a different platform entirely, but those little midi files will bring me hours of tweaky fun, importing into the new software, assigning instruments, remixing, and in some cases re-imagining. While the performance data is all there, some lot of the controller data (like program change commands) did not survive the transition to and from SMF format. So hours of world-ignoring fun “rebuilding” the song.

Once again, ambient background courtesy of zfootage.com

(YouTube link: https://youtu.be/-8-StSTZ6tQ )

Another new song! This one wants to be a blues song, and at its heart it more or less is. But it adds colour and texture that is not exactly canon for blues purists, I expect. This is blues the way that Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner is an anthem. I know, I’m no Jimi Hendrix. I don’t even have a guitar. But I got my own way to shred.

The title is the name of one of the virtual instruments. In the software, the “o” in Malstrom has the heavy metal umlaut over it. But for simplicity, and because the software itself doesn’t use the umlaut in practice, I’m spelling it the whitebread way, no umlaut.

Once again, ambient background courtesy of zfootage.com.

(YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suB09p7Pas0 )

Hot off the presses, here’s a new song, created in Propellerhead Reason. I had some fun revisiting this process, which is a little different than my Opcode Vision setup described in an earlier post. In this case, the instruments are built into the software, so no need for midi to be fed back out to trigger external instruments (TD-7 and DS-330 in my case, back in the day). Just using my midi keyboard at this point, no drums, so it’s an agreeably SMALLER setup.

The song is a bit trancey — not the genre, necessarily, it just feels like it would put you in a trance. In a good way, I hope. Who doesn’t enjoy a nice trance from time to time. The ambient video background is courtesy of zfootage.com.  Decently high-rez, suitable for fullscreen total immersion.

By the way, the title “Nazca” is just a reference to one of the instrument patch names in the software. It’s the instrument that kicks in around 2:30 into the song.

(YouTube link: https://youtu.be/VZRZHZM8Hfk )

I was rooting around in an old music folder, and found this noodly bit of fun with the unlikely title of “d2d-pi2.aiff”. As I (vaguely) recall, I was attempting to recreate the idea of the real-time layering of sounds as in Robert Fripp and Brian Eno’s experiments called “Frippertronics”, but using my late-1990s MIDI setup to do the looping. So there’s about 20-30 seconds to start, of me playing live, then the next 30 seconds is that part played back plus more live stuff recorded on top, then the _next_ 30 seconds is those _two_ layers playing back, with still more live improv on top, and so on. It becomes a train wreck pretty quickly, but in a fun way. Well, it was fun for me.

I’ve not been flogging this, but I figure once a year is not excessive, so here goes.

This holiday season, why not give the gift of quirky, original, mostly-instrumental music by some guy on the internet?

From the “album notes” prepared for CD Baby:

“Something a little different, kind of quirky, mostly instrumental, a true “solo album” where I play all the instruments. Think Tubular Bells meets Bill Bruford. I know, I flatter myself, but it gives you something to go on…”

“These are ten mostly-instrumental songs, created entirely by me from within a Mac-based MIDI recording environment. They are richly layered tracks with full instrumentation. As I am first and foremost a drummer, there may be a certain compositional bias towards rhythmical complexity, which is also in keeping with the progressive rock influence.”

“This is not computer music.”

My album (no vinyl, but yes, it’s still okay to call it an album) is available for download from a variety of sources. Short previews are available at these links as well.

Preferred
CD Baby – http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rgdaniel

You can also get the physical CD (which is a pretty cool package if I do say so myself) from CD Baby.

Other links
Amazon.com – http://goo.gl/t1y6FP
Amazon.co.uk – http://goo.gl/OZ5odA

(Apparently there is no digital music store on Amazon Canada).

iTunes Canada – http://goo.gl/hMkdOl
iTunes USA – http://goo.gl/9yAeZ6
iTunes UK – http://goo.gl/4NxhQ1

Thanks for listening!