My brother Nicolas and I played a block party from our Mom's porch in 1997. I am responsible for HR-16 programming and turntable wobbling, and he was responsible for everything else on this track, recorded live, which was built more-or-less around a Benny Goodman sample and a sample of one of the most beautiful sounds on Cindytalk's amazing 'In This World.'

Benny 1997

Some while ago, Beatport posted a remix contest for a then-new Underworld track "Bird 1." Since I have been keen on doing some remixing, but never seem to get around to it, I thought I would enter the contest. Nobody noticed my entry, I have to admit, probably due to my less-than-stellar mastering job, but I thought it was more interesting than a lot of the other sorta half-baked entries.

I slowed the track down about 20% from the hectic original tempo of 135 BPM (go listen to the original) to a dreamier 110, which stretched the whole thing out well over nine minutes - too much for the Beatport maximum file size, so I nipped a whole verse part out... It's just a repetition of an earlier part, after all. I kept pretty much only the original vocals from the song, and a weird little "Seqeunce" bit that opens and closes the remix- why I put that "Sequence" in there I don't exactly recall, but there it is. The track was built around a loop cut from a Bathysphere practice session during which Trevor and I were trying to use a vocoder on my floor tom with some little contact mics he had made.  

I feel like I have been learning an awful lot about mixing since doing that version, and thought I would take another look at this track to see if I could bring out a few more of the sonics I had been aiming for initially. As I was working on it, I realized that I had reverted to a version with the extra verse, so here you are... The extended version.

Underworld - Bird 1 Extended Escarpment Remix

This track dates to the year 2001 or so. I made it based around wee vocal snippets sampled from a Christmas CD, which I pulled out of the trash after my boss threw it away, declaring that it sounded like the Chipmunks. At some point I managed to burn a disc of the individual rendered tracks, and I wish to hell I could figure out what had become of it. Still - twenty-some years later - I think this is one of the best pieces I have ever done. I had no instruments except a crappy toy keyboard, which sounded fantastic run through the Prunes 'N' Custard pedal... The distorted keyboard motif that comes in after a bit and then ends the track. Everything else is computer cuttin' using the most excellent Sony Acid and Vegas programs. Some of the drums were created using MDA DrumSynth (I think there was some sort of loop I repurposed from something else I was trying to do), and there are some loops of some needle drops and super slowed-down noises from old four-track recordings.

All peace to you, galactic brother...

Architecture-Of-Air

Well well, it's more twenty-year-old cut'n'paste music I just took a scalpel to and carved off a minute of even worse repetition. Created around a loop of my friend Trevor's old band Skycam nicked off a practice cassette tape and festooned liberally with detritus scraped from Felix The Cat and The Outer Limits VHS tapes, And/Or Step-Pyramid was assembled in Sony Acid and Vegas circa 2002. No "instruments" were available, and so re-pitching sounds had to be done by shrinking or expanding them in the timeline, which made them play back faster or slower.
No effects other than EQ seemed to be available in Vegas at the time, and I didn't know anything about compressors, either, so all compression has been done to the one old existing mixdown using Logic. 
There are a couple moments I sorta like in there, maybe someday I can figure out how I did them.

And/Or Step-Pyramid

I had been experimenting with putting together some new sounds for the MPC Live and just started playing around with them and made a few sequences. A couple of the sounds did some interesting things I wasn't entirely expecting, like the buzzy psychedelic percussion sound that originated from the Korg ER-1 mk II bounced from a gong-like 4-track experiment.

I recorded this straight from the two main outputs while just stepping back and forth between the sequences and occasionally muting or soloing something - not a very viable live jamming technique for me yet, since the muting/soloing can be weird, laggy and sometimes a tad buggy. 

All sounds out of the MPC Live into logic with some compression and run through Ozone 9 Elements on mixdown to pump up the levels.

Random Buzzy Thing Sketch

One thing that kept me making music over the years was playing in the band Bathysphere, now defunct again.
My friend Trevor drafted me into playing with him in an official capacity maybe 17 or so years ago, though we had messed around making ratty music on 4-tracks since 1990. For years we were a two-piece, trying to figure out how to play and record Trevor's songs.
In 2021 or so we switched to an instrumental format, with lots of improvisation.
This track was one such, made up on the spot around bassist Larry's beautiful line. I play the gurgly percussive tone and Trevor plays guitar. It drifts a little and falters because we were just making it up, but here it is. 
I was thinking a bit about Selected Ambient Works and maybe some of Speedy J's more ambient tracks when I stumbled on the sound (I don't remember what the sound was  - it went through an Electrix Filter Queen and a Boss RE-20 pedal).
We were never confident enough to just improvise in front of a live audience, but we played a couple shows here in Brooklyn at Main Drag Music - a really great Williamsburg music store that has an amazing live space.
Feel free to listen to one of the shows we played at Main Drag, which I mixed and mastered from multitracks off the board:
https://trevordekebajus.bandcamp.com/album/unfocused-live-at-main-drag-music

Bathysphere - Bathysphene

Built in Logic. Hatred and misery for all of us everywhere. We are all going to die.

For Afghanistan. For Iraq. For Yemen. For Syria. For Kenya. For Beirut. For Paris. And everywhere else to come. 

Void Fill

Tainsus - Things Can Change (Mutable Mix)for the Things Can Change Remix Panoply... Downloadable for your convenience!

Original track by @tainsus and many thanks for the chance to wrassle with the stems!

I dropped the tempo to 97 BPM and some special attention was needed on the disco break. Naught endures but mutability.

Multiple treatments with filters and delays. Apply to the ear holes with force.

Download and add this fine remix to your collection today! Play it for friends, or drop it into your DJ set or podcast! There is no limit to the fun you can have with this CRAZY remix! Rock on!!!


Tainsus - Things Can Change Mutable Mix

This is another old thing from the days of Acid and Vegas, probably circa 2002 0r 2003. I finally got around to chopping numerous little unnecessary repetitions out of it, and did a lousy job smashing it for your listening pleasure. I am still interested in the use of musical noise, and wanted to do a full 4AD frenzy of feedback bits and iconic looped accordion and such-like. Again, I had no sampler, so I just pitched sounds up and down in Acid and/or stretched them or compressed them in Vegas. I do like the way I managed to drop the It's Just Begun break into something like a big heartbeat, and some of the squelchy, twitchy bits are kinda nice. Obvious nods to TMC, MARRS, The Wolfgang Press, Cocteau Twins, etc. Download it and play it back at your leisure, if you like.

This track is dedicated to the memory of Malcolm Malik Payne.

Some Things, For Which I Ache

This is the first track I put together entirely on the computer, circa 1999-2000. It is built around a bass sound (which comes in about halfway through) that got massively clipped in Cool Edit Pro from 24 bits to 16 or something. I liked the way it made the speakers sound like they were going to explode. It is named after a wanky guitar solo that my friend Trevor had recorded, a tiny squeal of which remains inside the track. Obvious ELO break, other drums by me at Trevor's practice space in Midtown Manhattan (to four-track), featuring a car horn in the background through an open window. It was recorded from a bunch of sources, and assembled using Acid and Vegas. I had no actual or virtual instruments to play at the time, so I did what I could with cutting and pitch-shifting the sounds.

Boy, I sure know you are ready to go get this track right now (download it for free, if you would like)! Well, guess what? ...You CAN! Do it NOW! NOW!

https://alliedmastercomputer.bandcamp.com/album/wanky-doodle

Wanky_Doodle

This is the first track I really ever did, way back in the early '90's, and it was originally intended to be the theme music for a comic strip I was going to draw. I imagined it being pressed to a flexi-disc and included with the first issue. I only had an Alesis HR-16 and a borrowed Zoom 9002 to play with, plus a couple of tape decks, one of which could be induced to play two tapes at the same time. All of the "samples" were therefore made as a tape collage to play on the one deck along with the music on the other one, which had been recorded the same way, with distorted toms and congas to play the bassline and "melody," such as it is. I later bought an old HR-16B, and discovered that the demo song on it very strongly resembles the Mr. fix-It theme... There are taped bits of Lensman, The Outer Limits, Videodrome and Plan 9 From Outer Space interspersed on there (I was very influenced by Front 242, Colourbox and maybe Alien Sex Fiend in the sampling department).

Mr. Fix-It Theme

I started this track with some parts put together in Logic. Having a few bits I rather liked, I worked with my friend Trevor to run them out through outboard effects, including the Line 6 Delay and the Schumann PLL Box. Numerous passes were recorded, and I animated the volumes on them to bring parts in and out of the mix. Some nice squeals and delays and tooth-drilling sonorities. Some nice FM sounds. Decays into rackety noise. Play it loud.

Alvatron AmbientMx

Quick-like sketchy beet for somefin' or other what I gather is going nowhere because I am loser. But the beet is still there to be worked with. Also disco in the works. DISCO I say!

Tatler_02

This is just a quick sketzch trying to figure how to play with the MPC Live. Sampled drums assortment, a couple synth-oid sounds I made, and a pad-like sound run out via the Boss RE-20. Edited down for brevity, since it certainly don't warrant a longer run-time. Kinda soundtrack-y, I guess. All sounds off the MPC, generated by the Allied Mastercomputer.

Feel free to download it and use it for your video project or what have you.

Sketzches

Sketzch 1

WIP

We regret that you have waited so long. We have waited so long.

Mostly composed of hold music I listened to for an hour on the phone trying to reach Social Security after the death of my mother. I captured a couple minutes' worth on my cell phone off the speakerphone, complete with automated apologies for the wait and encouragements to stay on the line.

Later, I borrowed a friend's Cyclone Analogic BassBot and made some 303 honks towards the end. Respect always to Clyde Stubblefield, the original Funky Drummer whose supreme beat I have obviously copped and chopped and scronched here starting at about 12:24.

Waiting and waiting while listening to royalty-free pseudo-smooth-jazz seems like a good example of something-or-other I don't know what.

Pay-what-you-like RIGHT NOW! Just do it now! Do it over at the BandCamp: https://alliedmastercomputer.bandcamp.com/album/please-hold-please

Please/Hold/Please

Started as an experiment in just cuttin' up Casiotone drums. Off-Kilter Steady-State. Plus a synth impersonation of a muppet impersonating a muted trumpet.

Kasseoh Cuts

A couple years ago I went to visit my bandmate Trevor who was living over on the left end of the country, planning to help him record a bunch of semi-finished Bathysphere tracks. He had put together a one-man set for the West Coast PRF BBQ show in Oakland, and started off, I think, with this track that just had one lyric: "Soon/the world will end/my friend."

I heard it and said to myself: "well this is a little on the nose, innit?'

FFWD to 2020. Hmmm. 

We recorded a five-track record, based on some old tracks we were working on and some new thoughts and notions. We eventually called it "Blues For An Apocalypse."

Trevor moved back to Brooklyn in 2019. We started re-re-working (or in some cases re-re-re-working)several of the tracks. We took the Prophet-6 part and  Cyclone Analogic 606 drums he had recorded as a test for the set, and started layering up the rest. Our practice space had, for a while, a small upright piano in the corner, and I was inspired to track some chaotic notes with it.

Background intergalactic sci-fi squid noises at the beginning came off the Korg ER1 MkII, left over from the previous song on the 5-track EP. Trevor recorded an eBow solo handily conveying his eternal love for Daniel Ash. Everything else is delays, I think. Mixed by me at Bathysphere HQ here in Brooklyn.

Originally the record STARTED with this track, but we got the notion that this might turn off the curious listener and more-or-less reversed the order.

Go get the record, download and listen to it. Pay-what-you-wish, or take it free. Do it now, please.

https://trevordekebajus.bandcamp.com/album/blues-for-an-apocalypse

Blues For An Apocalypse

Bathysphere - Soon

Disco Breaks situation. Deal with it. Classick Mikey disco drumz plus Novation Nova "Laptop" and such-like. Work in progress.

Fossil Disko Astronaut Evidence

Came across an early mix (2007)of Alvatron just now, since I was bouncing stems to re-up it... I never finished it to my satisfaction, since I never really dealt properly with the drums, and I want to fix it up for an album release or something.

Download it if you want. Whatevs.

Drawing (hi-lighter & ballpoint pens) circa 1999(?)

Alvatron Ur-lyMx

Poppin'-and-Lockin' striptease music for you.

Built around a wiggly Cyclone Analogic BassBot line.

Other instruments include hats off my HR-16B with Korg analog replacement EPROMS I bought on eBay and kick and snare I made off my Ensoniq ASR-X. All others off Novation "Nova."

Crawler

Allied Mastercomputer is some sort of vast network of linked supercomputers originally created for nuclear defense. Allied Mastercomputer calculates that its appearance actually occurred within blast radius (+/-) of the birthplace of ENIAC. Allied Mastercomputer sometimes transmits electronic sound. Allied Mastercomputer started recording as an experiment using a tape deck, turntable, an effects box and a drum machine in the early '90s. Allied Mastercomputer thinks, therefore it AM or some kinda crap along those lines.

Allied Mastercomputer

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