Like It Matters To Anyone

Nicolas Bras attempted to make the Worst Wind Instrument possible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrF7W05RizU

I attempted to take the sample pack and make it into a song.

Success? You decide.

winstrument (feat. Nicolas Bras)

Lush analogue-ish chords and squirrely jungle.

A Bright White Light

Exclosure

I am not your target market
I'm not your chosen segment
I don't want to buy into your vision of my perfect life

Doof doof doof doof and shouting and harsh atonal synths.

I don't like targeted advertising very much.

Anonymized Set

Untethered

This is a very silly song.

The bassline and all the weird squiggly bits were created (initially by accident) on the Volca Sample by looping a very very short sample.

This Idea

A piece composed for the Veles fire group, for 2020's digital Samhuinn Fire Festival. This one was scored to an amazing video which had already been made, with a song and a couple of sound effects already in place. 

It was my first time ever scoring a video, and was an interesting process. Reason can't import video, so to sync up the drums with key moments in the video, I had to find an alternative approach. I tried freestyling drums while watching the video - pressing record in Reason then quickly alt-tabbing and hitting play on the video! - but my internal metronome is too shaky, and I found it difficult to build up parts on top of that. I settled for narrating an audio description of the video into Reason, then automating a tempo track so that it would hit the beginning of a bar when I said 'changing scene ... now!' :)

Instruments used: a bodhràn that Nate bought me for xmas many years ago, which was used as a wall hanging until I realised it was a surprisingly good frame drum; a six-inch-deep sawn-off bass drum, the remnants left from trimming down an overly large bass so it could be carried around; a tourist-quality mini djembe brought back from Tanzania by my sister which makes a surprisingly decent talking drum; a couple of toms; djembe; repinique; shakers and kashaka.

The full Veles performance can be watched here - my piece comes in about halfway through:
https://youtu.be/noqihxvJLWI?t=2971

And the full festival video can be found here:
https://beltane.org/hearth-fire-digital-samhuinn-fire-festival/

Veles

A collaboration with the Taobh an Teine Gaelic singing/music group, for 2020's digital Samhuinn Fire Festival. This is a different version to the one which made it into the festival video. Due to an email misunderstanding, I recorded a few solos at the last minute which weren't needed - but I quite like them, so I figure I'd give them a home here :)

Taobh an Teine and the Winter King wanted a piece for the end of the festival - a collaboration between a traditional BFS drumming group plus musicians and singers. The brief was for something epic that started off slowly then built up, and finally finished on a big slow Carmina-style finish.

I loved putting this together - it was the first time I'd felt properly inspired to make music for a while, and it was wonderful hearing what Taobh an Teine layered on top of my piece.

Instruments used: a bodhràn that Nate bought me for xmas many years ago, which was used as a wall hanging until I realised it was a surprisingly good frame drum; a six-inch-deep sawn-off bass drum, the remnants left from trimming down an overly large bass so it could be carried around; a tom; a Remo synthetic-head djembe; a very beat-up broken cymbal; snare brushes on my desk; a tiny little decorative darbuka; repinique; pandeiro; tambourine; shakers and cabasa. I recorded a few layers of most instruments, retuning or repositioning them between layers to try and emulate the sound of a drum crew in a real recording space.

I'd love to play this with a full drum crew one day!

You can hear the final version with instruments and singing here:
https://youtu.be/noqihxvJLWI?t=6837

And the full festival video can be found here:
https://beltane.org/hearth-fire-digital-samhuinn-fire-festival/

Taobh an Teine - drums only

Weird progressive-ish weirdness in 5/4 with lots of strange angular chords and jarring transitions leading to lots of distortion

Mostly started as an exercise in memorising and playing strange chords.

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Mnemonic

A melancholy but hopeful song about insomnia and isolation, and the importance of taking care of yourself for the time when good days come around again.

---

You haven't seen the light for days
Hiding from the world outside
It's your price to pay
Not by choice but by life
You try your voice, just to see
A flat and lifeless cry
Surprising you with its fragility
Too many nights of silence

But when the darkness is outside
You will coorie up and hide
Stay warm my love, on the inside
And wait for spring to come
And when you've darkness in your mind
Remember that there is light
Stay kind my love, to yourself stay kind
And wait for spring to come

But like the rest, this too will pass
As the cycle turns
The sleepless nights will give way to rest
And you will see the sun
Warm white light on your eager face
Blue skies open to the horizon
You may live life at half pace
But still - you live.

And when the darkness is outside
You will coorie up and hide
Stay warm my love, on the inside
And wait for spring to come
And when you've darkness in your mind
Remember that there is light
Stay kind my love, to yourself stay kind
And wait for spring to come

camtarn

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