103 Works Collection

A little experimental fuckabout done to test out a few things;

- playing around a bit more with some of the filters you can apply directly to samples- particularly the "reverb" filter but I fiddled with a few others that I have before (the "phase" filter) and some I haven't really touched ("all pass" filter and "comb" filter)

- trying to figure out the best ways to use the AM Channel fuctionality to emulate a distortion pedal for basses and guitars

- somewhat related to the above, trying to make M2K's built in samples sound a bit more "diverse"/"unique"/otherwise not from-the-software, to see if I can match the sounds and vibes of external samples

- this one was more fo fun, but I wanted to see how close I could get to writing a GenesisKeys style track- the basic bedrock of the track even takes some cues from The Thing You Fight Will Surely Die ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a91bsT5BPX4 ) (a favourite of mine from their back catalogue), and certain things like the flute melody during the first 'drop' I was trying to emulate the way they compose melodies

The results of each are a mixed bag; I need to practice and properly document what the filters do/how far they can be pushed, the track still has that distinct "MUSIC™ 2000" flavour in places, and I'm not wholly satisfied with the results of the AM Channel "distortion" effect (which I've tried to crack before and haven't satisfactorially done so). I was held back in a lot of places by the sample memory limits as well. On the flipside, I do like the end result- there's some good melodies in here, I'm happy with the chord progressions, some of the edits done to the drum samples and pads for the chords came out really nice, and whilst it's not a one-for-one ripoff of the GK track (and nor would I want it to be) I think that one pan pipe melody is a good approximation of how one of their melodies might go.

As this was a track done without much plan and mostly on "vibes", it's not really 'for' anything; the end result sounds like it'd fit a video game level/stage set in a haunted or otherwise dangerous graveyard in the middle of an equally haunted or otherwise dangerous large city to me- hence the sound collage work done for the intro and outro portions (the only non-M2K samples in the entire thing)- but that's all I've got, so it hasn't been assigned to any specific project. Still, it was a fun 'workout'! Maybe I'll offer it up as a Royalty Free track people can use in their projects or something; we'll see.

103 Works #11

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Arcade Child - Pass On or Pass Through (Theme for a Haunted Graveyard in The Heart of a Doomed City)

Oh, hello there; I'm back again, finally. I'd intended to take a short break from music to recharge after R.I.P.1.0.3. + XMAS 2018, but it uh... went on longer then expected. You can think my mental health bottoming out again for that one, per the norm. Thankfully I'm back in therapy, and among other quality of life improvements my therapist recommended I make more of a habit of writing music to help maintain a healthy mindset (as when I'm "in the zone" and working on music, I'm so laser focused that I haven't got the brainspace free for any sort of Depression and/or Anxiety™ nonsense), so you can expect to see music cropping up with more frequency for the foreseeable future. Anyway; on with the song decription!

This is another piece written for my friend Mushroomminded, based on her ongoing Micoverse project. This one's got a bit more context to it, though; one of the main characters, Jacob "Jake" Pierly, was the frontman of a punk rock band called Problem Sons in his youth, which served as an outlet for the anger and angst he and the other band members had regarding their, to put it mildly, less than ideal home lives. I'd been struck by the idea to write a song that'd be by the band "in universe" a little while back, and decided to commit to it as my first track after a break (because diving in at the deep end and writing in a music style I never have before was an excellent idea). In spite of the odds, I'm really pleased with the end result; I think this is the first entirely synth-less song I've written... ever, and though the guitars are obviously constructed out of single note samples rather then "played" I think the result still came out fairly solid. The composition and arrangement are almost certainly a lot more intricate and layered then you could reasonably expect a high school band to be able to pull off (not to mention there are several points where the band, which I think is a 3 piece, would need more then one guitarist to realistically be able to play it), but eh. Consider those acceptable breaks from the in-universe reality to make for a more enjoyable song.

Regarding the title; "love's hangover" is a pretty loaded and shitty term for an unwanted pregnancy; the idea behind it is that the term refers to the members of the band themselves, and where I capable of writing lyrics or singing I'd have happily performed a bitterly sardonic song with verses about how they didn't ask to be born, how it feels to be treated as a burden, that sorta thing. The only lyrics that really came to mind were "you built the f@!#ing cot, so lay me in it".

The glass bottle shattering SFX (one of my favourite details, and in my head that was performed during the recording of the song by Jake himself) is by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk).

103 Works #0

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Problem Sons - Love's Hangover

I'd originally planned to do something entirely different for the next cut in my ongoing "music I make on advice from my therapist" series, but as is damn near always the case with me, plans change. The idea to do a speedy oldskool Rotterdam Techno track with some mighty slap bass came to mind as if from a dream at the start of the week, and several hours over the next few days were lost to making it a terrifying reality.

This track is another piece for one of my many, many, many Gonkaka projects; Relentless Riders. An arcade racing/driving game that, were it a real game, would be somewhat Ridge Racer inspired, but with several twists. For starters, there's no actual opponent vehicles to race against, and the courses aren't circular; the race is instead against the clock, and the courses are straight shots with a defined beginning and end (so it's a bit like OutRun in that regard, too). Another major difference is that it has a defined narrative, which I don't have the character space to sum up here, so if you'd like to read more AND see some art of the characters I drew a couple of years back, check out the tumblr link here: http://nine-hundred-and-nine.tumblr.com/post/183759195212/happy-slapper-93-mighty-obnoxious-yellow-id

As for the track itself; it couldn't possibly be more inspired by Shinji Hosoe's early work in the ridge racer games if I'd tried, though there's a touch of the old masters of Rotterdam Techno- Holy Noise, Euromasters, King Dale etc.- in there as well. Whilst older Rotterdam Techno was fast pasted and had its fair share of heavy kicks and quirky samples, the early stages of the genre didn't quite go to the same extremes as it would in the latter half of the 90s and beyond (this was an age before Speedcore and Extratone, after all). In terms of actual specific songs, this owes itself to Speedster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NeAFVtEqVQ), Speedster Overheat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4kW9CatDJs), and though it's a newer track Rotten 7 [Remix] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe0lQUEHkDk) from the Ridge Racer series, all of which were composed by Hosoe. It's mostly the former two, what with their Slap Bass Action™, but the bittersweet chords were drawn from the latter a little. The bittersweet angle was a detail I specifically wanted to include; to keep in tandem with the narrative of Relentless Riders (seriously, click the tumblr link dog), I want the music for the project to have a forlorn tone to it. Not to the point of being morose and miserable, mind, but just enough to tug at the heart strings a bit.

Oh, yeah; why's it credited to "Mighty Obnoxious Yellow" and not "Gonkaka"? Another of the ideas for RR was to have the race BGMs be assigned to fake acts made up by Gonkaka (aliases for aliases; we're through the looking glass), though M.O.Y. is actually the name of a project that Gonkaka's bassist, Takayuki Mitsuyoshi, and their string player/head tech guy Denji Koshiro were in together before Gonkaka formed, wherein they blended electronica with their chosen instrument talents. Hence why the slap bass is off the chain here, and why the violin makes an appearance at a few points. The name and general idea are a reference to Oriental Magnetic Yellow, the name of a Yellow Magic Orchestra cover/parody band formed by Shinji Hosoe, Nobuyoshi Sano, Takayuki Aihara, and Hiroto Sasaki that they worked on between soundtrack gigs. The title of the song is a two-pronged pun; "Happy Slapping" was the name of a 'fad' from my secondary school days wherein you would suddenly slap someone, usually from behind, yell "HAPPY SLAP" as you did it, and some other dickhead would film the whole affair on their phone. And, as well established, the song's got mad slap bass in it ayyy.

Why yes, I DO think through this shit so thoroughly for pretty much my sole enjoyment, how did you know?

Mighty Obnoxious Yellow - Happy Slapper '93 [from "Relentless Riders"]

This is something long overdue; actual music for my Barnbellow's Estate project.

For those of you that haven't been around long or don't follow my exploits closely, Barnbellow's Estate is a Clock Tower inspired project that has existed, in some form, since about 2007, though it has gone through quite a few tweaks and changes within that time frame. Like a lot of my projects, it started out as an idea for a game I was certain I'd somehow make, but once reality caught up with me a bit I rejigged it into a "fake soundtrack" Gonkaka project. Because I might not be able to make full games, but I CAN make soundtracks and write an obscene amount of flavour text!

There are two primary modes of 'gameplay' in Barnbellow's Estate, were it to exists: one wherein you explore the impossibly large estate the game takes place in, solving puzzles, reading lore, and engaging with all manner of survival horror tropes; and one wherein you have to escape from the designated pursuer of whatever area of the estate your in, using the environment to your advantage (either to hide from or hinder said pursuer), or in a pinch, use Yuna's digital camera to stun and temporarily disable them. This is a piece that would play during one of the former sections- specifically, it's intended to be the primary walkaround music for the very first area of the game (the hysterical laughter and/or sobbing sample that I messed about with in the final section is a giveaway here, as it's intended to tie into the game's first pursuer; the Vengeful Mother, whom makes an appearance in and has some of her backstory expanded upon in this short story I wrote: http://deconwrites.tumblr.com/post/178869160413/barnbellows-estate-minisode-devils-handiwork). It's also a good demonstration of the general sound direction I wanted to take the walkaround tracks in: a sorta free-form, experimental semi ambient style with more melody driven breaks and a shot or two of some 80s-styled synth patches for cheesy horror flick fair.

This piece does have some more specific sources of inspiration, though; the use of rave stabs owes itself more to the music from G Darius than more dance-floor ready tracks, as G Darius' score did tend to make use of orch hits and rave stabs in unsettling and sometimes dischordant ways (here's an example track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z51Jh1kzGd0). The track's general vibe also owes a lot to the Ancient Castle Stage music from the first Devil May Cry (https://youtu.be/vF8rdHz2wZw) - the idea to use some effect-ladden and otherwise messed with samples of orchestra tune-ups and an opera singer belting out in a freeway in particular were inspired by the sudden appearance of a pleasant string melody overlaid atop the offputting ambiance (the big, bombastic organ/string section also owes itself to the Ancient Castle Stage track). The name is also a deliberate reference to the NES/Famicom horror title Sweet Home, because I don't think I've made my love of that game quite clear enough yet.

Fun trivia fact: this is technically a stealth remake of an older attempt at the first-area-walkaround-track for Barnbellow's Estate, called "Tragedy United Them": https://103records.bandcamp.com/track/tragedy-united-them-act-1-exploration-bgm-barnbellows-estate About the only thing it borrows from the original is that organ section, though.

This song includes the following sounds from freesound.org:
- orchestra warming up (BeeProductive)
- underpass (Simon Gray)
- Chamber Ensemble Tuning 2 (Cunningar0807)
- G51-09-Woman Sobs and Laughs (Craig Smith)

Gonkaka - Sweet Home (Walkaround Ambiance #1) [from "Barnbellow's Estate"]

A recently unearthed demo track for one of the songs that appeared in Nincom's horror themed beat 'em up from 1990, Efiáltis. According to an article posted to the defunct Nincom fansite "Battlemaniacs United":

"According to the notes, though the demos were initially written just to get concepts for the music outlined before being reworked, at one point during the development cycle there were talks between Nincom's main sound unit + in-house band Gonaka and the manufacturing leg of the team about experimenting with early CD sound technology. The idea, essentially, was that a CD reader would be placed in each machine with a soundtrack disc inside that would be, via techno wizardry way too complex for me to understand, be queued up with the game as it ran, playing the right tracks at the right moments, leaving the sound chips free to handle purely digitised SFX and Samples. Primary composer Fumie Saso even went back to the initial demos and mildly touched them up- adding a little more finess to the synths and adding additional sounds in- but the idea was eventually shelved due to both how much it would cost to manufacture the machines, and how much it would cost the end user to buy. This wasn't a total loss, however; due to a miscommunication, the slightly beefed up versions of the demos were used by the sound converter, Nincom's legendary chiptune-geezer Manabu Kawashima, resulting in some very awesome music that pushed the sound chip to it's absolute limits."

If you'd like to read the recovered article in full (and view some also-salvaged concept art from Efiáltis' development cycle), please click the following link: https://sites.google.com/site/thisisrandomlunacy/home/articles/halloweencountdown2019/006

(If you're confused; this is all metafiction I made up and wrote for fun! Do please read the "article", as I had fun writing it, and hey, if you wanna read more metafiction about Efiáltis, check out this breakdown of the game that I really, really need to go back and finish: https://deconwrites.tumblr.com/post/175353940768/gonkaka-project-breakdown-efiáltis-pt-1 )

This song uses the following samples from freesound(.)org:
- Thunder 1 (Yoyodaman234)
- Thunder Clap OWB KY 441x16 (Dave Welsh)
- Scream (MikkyLachae)
- Creepy Evil Demon Monster Growl Halloween (Voices_Of_Marz)

Gonkaka - I Will Walk Into Hell for You (Stage 1) [Initial Demo Track for "Efiáltis"]

"Down the hill it rolls; the head of he who will be known as Britain's first Christian Martyr. Blood stains the grass with each meaty thump as gravity pulls it further and lower away from the body it was once attached to. It finally comes to rest at the base of the hill, dead-eyed face gazing upwards at the awe-addled crowd; a little beyond where it rests, a spring of the purest and freshest water bursts forth from the ground. Silence falls on the onlookers, in reverence of the miracle they just bore witness to.

All except you.

After all, the moment your blade finished cleaving his neck, your eyes burst from their sockets."

---

Happy Halloween everybody! I've been up since about 2 A.M. GMT, and started working on this track about 5 in the morning or so. I had maybe an hour's break around lunchtime but otherwise I've been going flat out working on this cut. I am very, very tired.

As the bit of prose suggests, this track is loosely inspired by the legend surrounding the execution of Saint Alban- important local folklore for me, what with being a resident of the city of Saint Albans. If you've never read the story surrounding Saint Alban, give it a look; it's surprisingly Metal™. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Alban

Total honesty: the track was mostly inspired by the guillotine foley sample that closes out the intro. Which... y'know, isn't how Saint Alban was beheaded, but hey ho, semantics. Quite where the impulse to do something that clocks in at 189bpm came from I've no idea; obviously I've still got the Rotterdam Techno bug. I'm sure this'll be my last ridiculously fast and aggressive track for a while.

... Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhhhhh probably not.

This tune uses the following sounds from freesound(.)org:
- Crowd/Mob/Riot Noise (Voices Only) - 14 people, 2 minutes HENRY VI (FillMat)
- Morphing Drop (staticpony1)
- impact 2.wav (neezen.)

Rigor Motions vs Damn That Rotter - Holywell Syndrome

Hello; my name is Decon Theed. I make tunes using MUSIC™ 2000 under several different aliases. Originally from St. Albans