Welcome to Starmer's dystopian Britain! Barmy Starmer seems determined to run the UK into the ground. I hope that it is just his contribution for Halloween, but it is looking more likely that this may be permanent.

Fright Night I

The second of this year's Halloween offerings - Fright Night II: Under Surveillance.
What has become of our once green and pleasant land?
Answers on a postcard....


Fright Night II

The third of this year's Halloween tracks - Fright Night III: Build A Better Britain.
We have had the right cheek and now we have the left cheek. It turns out that it is the same arse!

Fright Night III

The fourth Halloween outing of 2024. You make have recognised a theme: the UK really is in the middle of a nightmare

Fright Night IV

I have been sitting on this track for two weeks as I could not think of a title for it. I finally decided on "Arrival", mostly because of the spooky vocal.

Arrival

Starmerama, or, the further adventures of an incompetent nincompoop. I so enjoyed creating my last upload "Chatty Keir" that I thought I should do it again. I used the same 45 second speech, stretched it to two minutes with varying pitch shifting, using Ircam's TS2, then reversed it and added some orchestration. Then I exported it all as a wav file, imported that and then reversed it so the orchestration was playing backwards and the vocal was going forwards.
Confused? Me too.

Starmerama

Another dig at Starmer! I am having so much fun with this. I have incorporated a bit of a Frank Zappa tune that I recorded over ten years ago, as it seemed appropriate. I am sure Frank would approve.

Be Gone Damned Spot

Starmer's speech pattern reminds me of a primary school pupil reading a passage. He uses an unchanging rise and fall pattern like someone who has not yet learned how to vary the speech patterns to make it more interesting. With that in mind, I used a short speech as the basis for this piece. I tried to emulate the rhythm with percussion (not very successfully), before adding other instrumentation. I was particualrly intrigued by how he manages to strangle the word "Now" into having three syllables ("Nee-aah-woo"). 

Oh, no. Not him again

This was recorded last month, when it was freezing. It features a whole bunch of Soundpaint instruments. 

It's Freezing

An improvised piece using some of Soundpaint's extensive collection of sampled sounds: strings, woodwinds. tubular bells and featuring duduks taking the lead.
The title refers to what the WEF have planned for the world by 2030. Many will lose their jobs as AI takes over and will become dependent on the State. In the words of Klaus Schwab: "You will own nothing and be happy." and will be forced to live in a 15 minute city. By comparison, Orwell's 1984 is a holiday camp.

Endgame

Soundpaint dropped a Christmas freebie called Songwriting Guitar that I had to try out. I recorded some drums and bass, then had a quick burst on the guitar, played on a keyboard. This is the result.

A Quick Burst on my Banjo

Soundpaint have just launched sampled guitar plugin called Instant Acoustic. There are a lot of strumming patterns and arp settings, but for this, I concentrated on a solo setting and another solo setting that incorporated some synth sound. The recording took about 10 minutes in total.
As we are experiending some rather windy weather today, I have called the track "Windswept" and included a photo of the beach, taken during lockdown.

Windswept

A three part exercise in playing the guitar without a guitar. All was played on a keyboard (Novation Launchkey 61) using Soundpaint and Native Instrument plugins. As the title indicates: it starts quietly.
The image is one of me working from home in the days before I retired. Things were very different back then: the old twin-floppy valve comptometers required the employment of teams of suitably trained seamstresses to pierce the programme cards to enable the computations to be carried out the following week. Work was hard, but we were happy.

At Least It Starts Off Quietly

Recorded today (30-Jan-25), this started with the tinkly sound accompanied by two drone sounds. The oud was added next, then tabla, vocals and a bansuri (Indian flute). Finally strings were added to complete the track.
The photo was taken two weeks ago when the sky was blue and the sea was calm.

A Breath of Fresh Air

I whipped out my tiny guitar to see if I could play it, but, alas, it doesn't work. Instead, this is played with a combination of Native Instruments' and Soundpaint's plugins. I managed to make the whammy modwheel sound almost authentic.

Adventures With A Tiny Guitar

Those of you old enough to remember, will know that Mister Ed was a talking horse. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91LRPk8x14s) The theme tune went:
 "A horse is a horse, of course, of course
And no one can talk to a horse , of course
That is, of course, unless the horse
Is the famous Mister Ed."
The UK has its own Mister Ed in Government. But if you replace the word "horse" with "arse", you will get a clearer picture of who he is.
This track uses a combination of Soundpaint and Native Instrument plugins and a little help from Mr Ed.

I Am Mr Ed

Thought for today.
Electric vehicle? That's a misnomer. The primary attribute of any electrical machinery is that, in order to operate, it needs to be attached to the electricity mains. What people are driving about in, are battery operated cars. If they were promoted as such, nobody would buy them, as they would sound like they are not built for longevity. And therEby lies the truth: marketing propaganda.

This little ditty is an oriental flavoured track featuring duduks, percussion, vocals and an oud.

It's A Battery Car

Keeping on the subject of cars, it has been claimed that a Zimbabwean engineer called Maxwell Chikumbutso has invented, or more appropriately, harnessed "free energy" in a car. This was what Nikola Tesla was developing at the turn of the 20th century, but could not raise the finance to continue. Free, or self-perpetuating energy is the stuff of science fiction that may, or may not, be true. I tend to be sceptical on such things until they are proven, but I do hope that this is not another scam. We will have to wait to see what develops.
I called this track A-Free-Car (see what I did there?). The sounds are all Soundpaint plugins with the exception of Native Instruments' West African percussion ensemble.

A-Free-Car

Another poke in the eye for the clueless idiots running the UK into the ground. The discordant music and modified speeches of the culprits involved, reflect the Orwellian dystopia that Britain has become. Hopefully, Trump will read the riot act to pipsqueak Starmer.

New video: https://youtu.be/-lu0-L_zNHc

Clueless

We are starting to come out of winter, so, in celebration, this little piano/viola ditty is in celebration of sunshine unhindered by a chem-trail sky.
1-Mar-25 update. I spoke too soon - the chem-trails are back.

First Sign of Spring

A nifty little number that sneaks up on you and features a random bunch of instruments that occasionally sound like they know what they are doing.

Serreptitiously Furtive

UK is being overwhelmed by people, politics and a total lack of common sense. This is a lament to the country that I no longer recognise.

Overwhelmed

A couple of final uploads before I disappear from SoundCloud...
This speech by Ed Miliband (suitably modified) demonstrates the duplicity of UK politics

Mr Ed's Net Zero Dream

Close the Door Behind You

20-Mar-25
AU REVOIR
I joined SoundCloud in January 2010, the same time I took delivery of my hand-made Harrison Custom Merlin guitar. I have been paying a full subscription since then. Each year, when renewal time comes around, I weigh up whether I should continue paying for an ever diminishing set of tools. Nothing works now: stats (insights) don't add up; I am not informed of likes or comments to any track more than a few months old; the total stats only go back a few years - the first ten years or so don't count.
The platform, over the years, has changed from being musician oriented to listener oriented: in other words, a Spotify wannabe. The final push for me came this week, when, for the first time in sixteen years, my subscription charge was increased by 25%, so I have pulled the plug.
I have decided that I want to move to YouTube and post music with images and maybe animation, if I can figure out how to do it.
As a start, I have posted this - https://youtu.be/-lu0-L_zNHc .

John McLaughlin

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