Spent a week staying in the converted 15th century church in Tal-Y-Llyn, mid Wales, the weather was extremely windy (in fact there was a T3 tornado in the nearest town that same afternoon,  probably while I was playing!) so I recorded myself improvising on the Victorian pedal harmonium while the wind roared through the rafters. All the creaks and click are either the organ, the roof, or my knees! It is like riding a rusty bike uphill while you play, not easy!

Improvising on the Harmonium in St Mary's Church Tal-Y-Llyn on a Very Windy Day

You would not find a miracle
if it shined on your face,
if it shined in your heart.

You would not find a miracle.
You would decline the love divine.

I pray for you,
cut your soul
by my Sword.

Heart

Miracle Chase by Steve Chab Band

Comfy by Steve Chab (Demo)

Track for the Monome Community Christmas Album vol. 2.  Happy Holidays everyone!!

kringle clanger

In 1999 we made a song called Works of Art with the obscure band Sekret Oktober in Leuven. It has pretentious lyrics that were meant to be poetic, and deliberate use of a depeche mode song title in the lyrics. The music was meant to be cool / trip hoppy which was fashionable at that time. It was recorded on some bad quality cassettes with a used 4 track recorder, and 10 years later made into an mp3 and posted on myspace and soundcloud. 

Vocals by Myriam. Music by Daniel. Switching on of groovebox by Stefan. I don't want to say who wrote the lyrics.

Works of Art // Sekret Oktober

Improve E-

Little Objects

I sat down to make music with the intention of finding a way to express my emotions at the moment, and I was confronted with a wall of mental noise, presented to me by all the music technology at my disposal. While I struggled to find my heart, my mind was busy thinking about technology and technique. After a bit of discussion with @dr.no and @Hawthorn, decided to run with that as the concept for the piece. This is the result. 

I decided to also take inspiration from #disquiet0460 and start with a tortured, complicated sound (evocative of the mental "noise" that comes from using music tech for expression) and transitions to the starting point, then returns to the chaos. 

I started with a simple arpeggio on a nylon guitar (which I later changed to a synth sound). Added a Bitwig Micro-pitch device set to an obscure Wilson scale, and added a send track with Output Portal (granulated pitch transformations in this case) & Thermal (more glitchy feedback fx) on it. Added automation to start with Micro-pitch wet, FX send volume, and global tempo set very high, decrescendo, and then re-crescendo, over the course of the track.

TS 1:2 - Microtonal Emoji - disquiet0460

TS 1:3 - What's Inside This Box?

An excerpt from this morning's jam with @modulogeek

A Gentle Tide

Sunday night guitar loops. Unlike other recent guitar loop experiments I've tried out, this one has a live component. After the first minute or so (which I'd already layered in advance of hitting record), new material is added and then later deleted. This setup consists of electric guitar, reverb pedal, overdrive, and looper, plus an eBow on occasion for those extended notes. After recording (amp to phone, live in the room), I used Adobe Audition to implement a fade in and a fade out, and for a little additional reverb.