In a very backhand way the binary structure of this is like Nite Prowl 3 (XCVII)
Except mostly with string instruments

228 : See, But I'm Harmless! released January 21, 2024

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See, But I'm Harmless!

Another 2 o'clock in the morning flow-state banger.
The creative process wouldn't be complete without a track about the creative process itself.
Found a use for the Scat voice sound on the synth!
I can guarantee you this is not ME going bippity-boop-bop-bow at double human speed.
Too funny.

I Guess We'll Go This Way

This ended up sounding like some weird action movie thing.
My verdict is "a grasper, rather than one that actually lands."
(My listeners know the terminology)
But at least in the mid-range of my stuff

Action: Meander!

A longer jazz piece with extra effort on insertions between repeating sections, and custom intro and outro.

Platypus

Something a little more involved with non-repeating extra touches on the repeating sections.  More of a traveling piece.

Dark Forest Walk

It's not the most sleepy piece but it does track with something about a weird dream-state.

Just Your Little Hypnagogia

Making the best of the middle of the week.

Hump-Day Baroque Rag

A fun electronica piece that got fairly involved I did front and end insertions for it.

Happier Off The Grid

The third in the laundromat series.
Which began with
If He Had These Clues, He'd Be Running The Laundromat By Now (track XII)
followed by
Something Is Definitely Up At The Lost Sock (track LXXIV)

Laundromat III

People who understand the symbology in the track art of where the graphic elements came from in earlier tracks, will get this and know roughly what to expect.
The rest'o y'all....not so much lol.
This is a de-centralized jazz track with some metal sounding instruments to it.

Amorphous Yang Energy

A theme song for a character in a MUD area on SlothMUD that I wrote.  I repurposed the stock Old Thalos DikuMUD area and made it a ruins.  At the four corner-towers of the ruined (conquered) city are four guardians that survived the defeat: their energy reservoirs are (slowly) recharging.  Ozomalk is one of these four beings.  With little to do but wait, he sits there and gives the PCs some expository hints.

The Strange Career Of Lizard-Guardian Ozomalk

A little soundtrack-like theme about the gnoll shaman in SlothMUD near the Thordfalan Slavers area.  His performances are better than a side of Eugrene's beer battered bollocks.

Ritual Of The Gnoll Shaman

For the 250th track I was determined to put out a decent one and this seems to fit the bill.  The connecting things between the repeated parts are different 'enough' and the ending was examined a little more seriously than normal to insert a better intro section.

A Little Less Lost This Time

I had low energy tonight so I thought lets do a fun thing about a character similar to the King at the start of Dragon Quest 5 and then it turned darker.  And then I thought 'villain origin story' is a meme.
So it has some fun start-of-story castle music then dark stuff at the end.

Villain Origin Story

A little something for the chance to release on Leap Day 2024!
Also the last track of QuinDeka.

Bissextile Day Felicitations

In a universe where prevailing dating advice is that desperation is the worst turn-on, the song title seems to be the case.

Pretty good litmus test, if your target, there, doesn't have a sense of humor about how this is a bad pitch to where they still run with it anyway and give you a pass, they're not in the zipcode of being The One.

You'll Transform Me Is Always A Hard Sell

I got taken behind the wood shed and told to make it 'more melodic'

This is the result.

You'll Transform Me Is Always A Hard Sell (More Melody)

My first vocals for anyone in 24 1/2 years.  That's right folks, since May of 1999 at Seattle University.
So I will sound a little out of practice and secondly I set myself a hard task with the instrumental track being made first and the vocals later.

brackets are lyrics left on the cutting room floor.

One day the fool came walking by
And the king said 'let's have laughter'
[Then the fool said 'Well I'll make a jest'
'But let's just not kill me after']
(replaced with some da-da-da'ing)

He proceeded then to make his pitch
And the king besat there, all bewitched
But there came a point which had a flaw
And the fool knew he might lose it all

[So he turned to something he felt safe]
[And the king then seemed to forget the gaffe]
But the fool well knew his lucky break
And he quickly then made his escape

Being free to muse on the fickleness of rulers
As the day grew gaunt and grey
He thanked his stars
That unlike his peers
He lived to jest another day

The Fool's Jest

I do enjoy the clavichord/wah sounds a lot, much to the chagrin some times of the people rating my stuff on Re-Ex.

So this was a little trip around the block with that.  As iffy as the timing problems are on this, it's already received some edits with Mixcraft to modify the speed of some sections and remove pauses.

Wah-Wah Walk

The original timing before it got fixed.  Also when i mixed the first time the guitar ended up suppressed a little much.

Wah-Wah Walk (Fast Timing Guitar Predominant)

The result of a Wikipedia crawl figuring out something around meme lore.  A Snowclone is a re-usable word phrase.

"In Soviet Russia, X Y's you." etc

I used to be a snowclone
But I took an arrow to the knee
I'm not a snowclone
But I play one on TV

If Eskimos have a thousand words for snow
Snowclones surely have one word for Eskimos

I Used To Be A Snowclone, But I Took An Arrow To The Knee

An expression of sitting around in the rain waiting for the week to start over.

Weekend Mountain Rains

Kind of a weird mix of almost-techno and classical as we approach March 15th.

Angst Nearing The Ides

Just a very weird concept piece about fish struggling to get free from hooks and stuff.

Also see the Robert Benchley essay.

From The Point Of View Of The Fish

Phrase is based on a WSJ article that was fairly recent.  One of the funnier clauses ever written.

Given The Stigma Of Sociopathy

The third rather experimental vocal track.  A lot of compressing sections to go faster and match instrumentals.

And if it isn't too much trouble
I would like to know just what you were angling for
For the time... grows...short
To search for redress, tidy the mess

Riddle me this

As we sit here treading water
Why is it that you keep dodging the issue
Are the terms... too... steep
To broker a deal
What is it you feel

I didn't want, to be cruel
But there comes a time
Begging validation
Plays me for the fool

Why Are You Malfunctioning / Whimsy Number 2 (Lyrical)

An apocryphal piece possibly by Leto II's (second) favorite musician on his internal safaris.

Hunting For Licallo

The fourth lyrical track, this is Track 67 (LXVII) with the vocal track just fitted on top of it without really changing the instrumentals at all.

Don't interrupt a woman when she's trying to keep you out of trouble.

Lyrics:

They're looking for a man
Who has a plan
Don't be put out by seeming
Shallow comparisons
Their abacus is always on patrol

They seek the best discard the rest
Remember they just try to build a nest
That instinct isn't really just a troll

They don't have time
To sit and wait
For you to find yourself
Until too late
The younger ones
Require being bold

Be More Worried If She Says Yes - Lyrical Extended

Just some weird Twitter/X thread where someone said we were a nation that hadn't done this in like decades.

Scaling Up In Meatspace

Slightly autobiographical.  Although I will add for Danika's benefit I do understand that revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded, about ninety-seven percent of music is purging demons about the significant Other.

All the tireless individuation i was doing
While the normalites were screwing
Means that trouble has been brewing for a while

When we get around to settling
The imbalance that's been nettling
There may be a confrontation off the top of the dial

It takes a fair amount of being a pussy
To build a world based on passing the buck
But when the choice is between
Some of the men that you've seen
Is the cagey guy the one you want to fuck


Though it's indicated to be tough
And we wonder what's enough
I should be gentle all the same

But when the gadflies of the swarm
Were causing genuine harm
It takes a fair amount of being a pussy
To shield them from the blame

It Takes A Fair Amount Of Being A Pussy

I felt like a very Netrek mood and at the same time something about quantum chromodynamics.

Dedicated to Tom Youderian, Scott Humphreys, Sheldon on Big Bang Theory and every International Netrek League (INL) Team I had the pleasure to cross swords with, in any era.

intro:

Feeling time to rank scum maybe

Iggy says hasta la vista baybee

main:

There once was a man of science

Who placed a great reliance

On Fleming's sagely tome


While the others in their hammocks

Dreamt of quantum chromodynamics

He paced about the sandy loam


Having grown extremely weary

Of perusing the Onium Theory

He shook his burly fists

exclaiming 'Mucus Pig Exists!'

And vanished into the Quantum Foam

The Quantum Foam

They probably are indeed the best type of cow for skiing.

If you spotted it the reversing red triangles of the slalom gates are from the Atari 2600 Skiing cartridge by Activision back in the day

Spherical Cow Problem

I went down a weird rabbit hole on X/Twitter where they were talking about the author Stendhal who in turn in Le Rouge et le Noir: Chronique du XIXe siècle was talking about some French chick who comes off as -kind- of an idiot.  And also in relation to the Wifejak meme character in some particular.

Encomium Uxoribus : The Quotidian Reality Of Love

The structure of this piece may be explained thus:
The start of any near-miss situation is a chaotic stumblefuckery where you almost bite-it
Then you get the upper hand
Then you get the maybe undeserved happy ending

The God Of Near-Misses

Travels through Love and Academia. Kicking off OctoDeka.

While toiling as the system's minion
I hallucinated an opinion
Of my unrequited's attributes
Pulling my hair out by the roots
For the pain that that begat

If I cannot find the path to contentment
But still get high off my resentment
Well you don't really need that

I travelled the academic crucible
until their proofs were irreducible

Though it wasn't to be seen as particularly advisable
I showed the March Hare's his map was diagonalizable

Through variation of parameters twice
And reduction of order once
I displayed to the assembled greyhairs
that I wasn't an unflattering dunce

At the end of time at school that was set
Thoughts turned once more back to regret

Mastering the yen to be vindictive
Is not altogether quite predictive

Of success to say the least
But that's the sordid nature of the beast

We're Gonna Make You Do Math

This actually was in process prior to the last release but had to wait until I felt I had more of an idea going.  It's more of an experimental soundtracky thing.

Hey, How Do All These Dials Work?

The big reveal where a long lost person sees another who didn't expect it.  Kind of soundtracky.

Didn't Know I Was Still Alive?

I just am really fond of this song, on an album that got no thanks at the time and didn't do well.  And I found it really weird that there are no other cover versions in 43 years or so.

It's in the 14 day holding period with Distro-Kid to formally become a cover song with a real license, while it's like that I have it on SoundCloud but non monetized so it earns zero until then.

Can't Turn My Heart Away (Art Garfunkel Cover)

I liked the technical challenge of this song.  A lot of moving vocal segments around and the first time that I sang harmonies against myself.

Looking at it a day later: it's like theres an extra measure in the verses where Bill shortened once he got to the 2nd-and-later, and I didn't because I cut and pasted, so it explains why I have to idle extra time each verse to deal with that.

But it does inadvertently fill the requirement that "cover songs should have their own weird signature that doesn't match the original too closely"

I very consciously did -not- read the spoilers for who Laura was really about before cutting the cover.  One fun way to interpret who Laura is, if you didn't know it's Joel's mother, is not an ex-wife or an ex-gf, like some are saying, but let's say a niece or a biological daughter that he never sees until Laura is an adult, but what hurts is they're cut from the same cloth, they're -so- similar but Laura's karma is different and gets her in trouble and he always has to financially bail her out etc.  Be a fixer.
She's genius-level but does substances way harder than him and routinely almost gets killed.  Loose cannon.  The 'umbilical cord' in this sense is then the aid he has to give, she -never- shows signs of growing up or out of this phase.

Laura (Billy Joel Cover)

A little eclectic instrumental piece about burning one's bridges.
And the source of most fatal errors.

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