Electrodyssey

Face Me (Featuring Jenny Vail)

Conjure One - Face the Music (Chris Derek String Mix)

This is the first track from my Electrodyssey album (2004). I built the entire song around an Indian string instrument sample, as well as a tabla drum sample. At the time, I was really interested in combining genres that you would least expect together. I particularly like this track for how, despite my bringing back the same 4 measure sample over and over, the song moves, modulates and grows and doesn't sound repetitive (at least I don't think so!).

Western Sunrise / Kathakali

This is the second track from my Electrodyssey album (2004). This was fun to write and produce because it was recorded in the UCD audio studio and several people collaborated on this. Naisha Williams sings vocals. The cello gives this track almost a bluegrass feel to it. The lyrics I wrote are about questioning what happens when you die, if there's something to look forward to, an afterlife, or are you just stone cold dead. The lyrics are actually pretty dark, contrasting with the relatively upbeat music.

Death Becomes Me (Featuring Naisha Williams)

This is the third track from my Electrodyssey album (2004). I never really liked to use my own vocals much because I don't like my singing voice. But on this one, I did use my own vocals. Musically, I love the "bubbling" flute sound that is a backdrop for the entire song. Lyrically, I wrote this in the early GW Bush administration era, and there was a lot of defense of marriage act talk, we had just entered Iraq, patriot act, and all of the other stuff from that time, and everything seemed so overwhelming politically that I felt like it "numbed" a lot of people.

Drowning

Fifth track from my Electrodyssey album (2004). William Orbit put out an album of classical compositions using all electronic instrumentation a few years prior to this. I always loved the concept of combining genres. He did a re-imagining of Erik Satie's Ogive 2. I was heavily inspired by this as I did my own take on Satie. I was also heavily inspired by the kind of crunchy drums/explosion-like sounds that Bjork was using in the late 90's/early 2000's, which you can hear in my backdrop to the song here. I created everything on synthesizer and effect filters for this track, from the strings, to the electric guitar sound, to the crunchy drum sound.

Satie Ogive No. 2

Closing track on my Electrodyssey album (2004). Here I remixed my own track to be more of a classic dance club track. It's really the only dance track on the album. I loved both versions a lot, which is why I wanted to include both on the album.

Death Becomes Me (Core Club Mix)

From 2005, and this remains as one of my favorite tracks-- it's a shame that it was created after the Electrodyssey album collection because I definitely would have wanted to include it on there. This version is actually a remix of a song written by my friend Dan Duran, who also went to UCD. Already an excellent song to begin with, he wrote the lyrics and melody accompanied by guitar. I thought this song and his voice would sound really great with an electronic/ambient take. The intro I created is really long, like 2 minutes, but I love how it builds in anticipation. At the time, I was thinking about Alfred Hitchcock movies like Psycho and the use of strings and oboe to build suspense. At two minutes the drums kick in.

Shopping and F*cking Soundtrack

Crystal Statue (co-written and sung by Dan Duran)

Former electronic/ambient musician, now just an electronic music lover.

Chris Silberman

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