Ambient

Psychedelic

Everything

Elements

Drone

Collaborations

Improvised multi-layer using Korg Radias and Kaossilator.  Imagine trying to balance a bunch of chairs on a frozen lake...

Stable

No whales were harmed in the creation of this song.  They are not real whale sounds, sorry.  Improvised guitar and old Yamaha keyboard through an effects pedal.  Whale sounds were keyboard in portamento through the effects pedal.

Sad Whales

Improvised song on my old Yamaha keyboard through a guitar effects pedal.  The coolest part of this song is the unintentional recorded feedback matched up with what I was playing.

Standard

Collaboration project between Bismuth Sky and NOSTRUMUVA.  If you put a neodymium magnet between two bismuth ingots and then put another large magnet above that, you can get the small magnet to float because bismuth is diamagnetic.  Bismuth Sky provided the bass track and I improvised Akai EWI4000s over top of that and ran it through audacity to provide more of a drone ethereal sound.

Diamagnetic

Multi-layer improvised song of me playing alto saxophone, singing with echo pedal, and playing my old Yamaha keyboard in drum mode.

Oxygen

Multi-layer improvised, me playing Korg Radias keyboard (mostly as drums), me playing Akai EWI4000s in Flute mode, and me playing alto Saxophone.

Magnesium

Improvised Korg Radias keyboard, then I went back and improvised chromatic harmonica over top of it with an echo pedal.

By A Thread

Apologize to Flying Kiwis... the vox was way too quiet.
But at the time, I had no time.

LYRICS:
In the dim haze of an evening's sigh,
Embers low, dancing in the quiet sky...
Whispers in the cooling night, weary minds, soft and light,
It too unwinds, blurred in gray.
Wistful dream slips away.
Shadows grow, entwine their grace, soft and slow,
Lasting trace...
Quiet rage, trembling spark, within its cage, staining the dark.
Fragile cup, a bitter tongue, anger wells up, quietly sung.
Unshed cries, tightening grip, a disguise, every sip.
Fans the flame, 'neath the calm, whispering a name, balm embalm...
In this ritual, the fury brews.
Cigarette ash falls like silent snow.
And the tea, once sweet, now bitterly stews, in the heat of an anger that refuses to go.

Cigarette and Chamomile

Cigarette And Chamomile

Gadolinium is the 64th element of the periodic table.  It is normally used as a contrast agent in MRI scans, but many people develop bad symptoms after having it injected into their blood.  The positive properties are that gadolinium is magnetic when at room temperature, but loses it's magnetic properties slightly above room temperature, allowing you to create a Curie Engine with a little bit of temperature difference.

Gadolinium

This is the first song of my "Nullanon" series, which kind of correlates to a depression section of my life.  Little bit of funk at the end.  If you like the funk there is an extended version of that called "Turbulence Of The Nullanon".  The Nullanon is an anthropomorphized nothingness.

LYRICS:
Behold unto, O gentle love,
The nothing, Nullanon.
'Tis said on many scroll
He knows neither fate, nor reason.
Shall his will be evident?
His image sung through gifted tongue,
(Shall his will be evident?)
A voided hope and without shame,
(Shall his will be evident?)
Regardless of his coming seen,
Bring us to thy empty shell,
Shall his will be evident?
To others, an evil anathema,
Nay man is he, nor solid Earth.
Apathia, athambia, aphasia.
Man is but self-serving.
In hobo form, or merchant storm,
A wanderer o'er land and sea,
O Nullanon, join him now,
All nightmares expound from thee.

The Nullanon

This is the extended part of the end of my first "Nullanon" song.  Just some funky blues, that's all, moderately repetitive.

LYRICS (at the end):
Let there be something new?
No, it's all The Same.

Turbulence Of The Nullanon

This is a remastered version of my old Magnesium song that I improvised on my EWI4000s.
https://soundcloud.com/nostrumuva/magnesium
The old song was too quiet based on standard loudness normalization of -14db.  This version has more reggae feel to it.

Polished Magnesium

This is number 3 in my "Nullanon" series.  The point is there is this thing called "The Same" and everything is part of it.  No matter what you do, all of life is vain.

LYRICS:
The air we breathe is The Same.
The light shown on us is The Same.
The sounds we hear are The Same.
The ground beneath our feet is The Same.
It's all The Same.
It's all The Same.
The light shown on us is The Same.
The sounds we hear are The Same.
The ground beneath our feet is The Same.
It's all The Same.
It's all The Same.
It's all The Same.
It's all The Same.
It's all The Same.

The Same

When someone asks you "What's the difference?", now you know.  It's this thing that came down from the sky and changed stuff after the Nullanon disappeared for a while.

At this point, I started concentrating on generating album covers using artist mannequins.  This is number 4 in my "Nullanon" series.  Imagine a bunch of people used to doing things very unambiguously and then there is something that forces them to start making more granular decisions based on evidence.

LYRICS:
Softly, slowly, swaying in the wind,
The trees reveal a message to begin,
As if a random group of people broke into a song,
The natural and man-made objects start to play along:
What is The Difference?
The great and mighty Nullanon is nowhere to be found,
A wave of synchronicity unfolds across the ground,
The people all are silent and they open up their eyes to the skies.
There's a difference that flies.
What is The Difference?
The Difference descends in graceful hidden coup d'etat.
It suffocates the people and their will.
What once was unambiguous is now a rolling hill,
And though they're happy they will cry inside.
What is The Difference?
It shines so bright,
Look at it and love.
It came from above, it must be good.
Give it all your energy, feed it like we should.
Feed The Difference.
What is The Difference?
What is The Difference?

What Is The Difference

I love the organ melody progression in this song at the beginning.  This is number 5 in my "Nullanon" series which is depression stuff, mixed with some funk organ.  The lyrics for this song is mostly about accepting what happened already and moving forward (stoic philosophy).

LYRICS:
Everything that was is now undone.
Every time we lost, we thought we won.
Everywhere we went is just a memory that fades,
Everything we said was just a promise that we'd made,
And now those promises are broken.
It took us way too long to figure out.
We didn't seem to start,
When we did, we never carried through.
We had a chance, but didn't try.
Pick up our mess, and collect ourselves,
Gather some hope, move forward again.
Rusted old tools in the dust on the shelf,
Moments before it's the end.
Might as well give it our all,
Nothing to lose,
One final attempt.
Maybe we're spent,
But that's how it went.
Might as well give it our all,
Nothing to lose.
One final attempt.
Maybe we're spent,
But that's how it went.

That's How It Went

A very very long psychedelic ambient drone rock song with multiple sections, some choral, some tribal handpan with didgeridoo, some funk, some blues, and some jazz.  Took me forever to make this one, lots of post filter work and manual audacity adjustments.  Trying to really get a continuous drone feeling across multiple genres.  I had to "Paul Stretch" the ending if you know what I mean.  Long Saturday and I'm not done yet and it's 4am.  Gonna start making a composite music video of me playing multiple instruments in a new song to add to Nullanon series.  I enabled this entire song to be free download and creative commons, meaning you can mostly do whatever you want with it.

The Long Drone

The Long Drone (Free Download, Creative Commons)

The image artwork for the album cover and waveform were created in watercolor by Rachel Rodgers, my sister.  This piece is a classical drone/ambient, where I attempt to have a constant lower drone noise behind a high pitched dissonant lead.

The accompanying video with effects is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2eHw1aFOP0

Watercolor Life

Collaboration with Brendan Dempsey.

https://soundcloud.com/brendan-dempsey-3

Bass guitar, Korg Radias.

No Preconceptions

The 11th song in the Path Of The Nullanon.  Starts out with some drone into some heavy rock, then some soul hammond b3, then some reggae to close it off.

LYRICS:
Remember when it was simple?
When everything was hit or miss?
Now it's all just ups and downs at every turn.
Did we ask for this?
One moment you're above it all,
But then you fall.
Then you wake up,
And you're back on top.
Sometimes we just want things to be the same,
But things keep changing.
Chromatic game.

Chromatic Game

Brendan Dempsey on bass, NOSTRUMUVA on TE OP-1 Keyboard.

Never Bare Your Soul To Fools

Brendan Dempsey on bass, NOSTRUMUVA on TE OP-1 Field keyboard. Psychedelic Rock.

Chromium Catalyst

Educational song about the Periodic Table Of Elements.  Starts out with some hiphop and dubstep, then transitions into progressive trance.

This is the REAL list of periodic elements, by atomic number (so it goes into the lanthanides and actinides properly).  Also has a list of the families of elements, and a summary of what the human body consists of.

P3r10d1k 37ement5

Multi-artist project of April 2025.

LYRICS AND ANNOTATIONS:

(Morse code for "we are just like you we promise. settle in.")
(birds)
Bones chilled in the old ghost forest,
Where the tide came in took the land away.
Hollow trees, still standing.
Knee deep in swamp water is where I stay (is where I stay).

Living lives of quiet desperation.
The haters, they just follow the herd,
Wearing masks of false inspiration,
Their festering wounds left undisturbed (undisturbed).

Running towards the pain,
The wicked voice of their disdain,
On that edge - the tired eyes reflect:
It’s only the first time we fear what’s next.

For those who live in risk,
In a society whose promises won’t stick,
Is this the end of the line?
Have we used up what’s left of our time?

In the old ghost forest, I stand tall
Like a stubborn oak tree that refuses to fall.
Empty cans and bottles lie nearby,
Artifacts from a past that will not die.

In the old ghost forest, I kneel to pray,
Confess my sins, wash them away.
In the old ghost forest, I scream aloud,
"Lord, gimme the strength to stand proud!"

(birds)
Our future's found: four circles deep.
Come slosh around; more misery, reaped.

What’s woes occurred: cursed, fate foreseen.
What does the word "worst" even mean?

A fitting gloom: stark, rank and sour.
A fetid tomb: dark, dank and dour.

We should have known how ends begin.
This is our home now; settle in.

Settle in.

(city street chatter)
We should have known how ends begin.
This is our home now; settle in!

Settle in!

We are just like you.
We promise, we promise.
Settle in…
We promise, we promise.
Settle in…

Black tar rains from a sky long dead,
We chew on rust, drink molten lead.
No dawn breaks through this crawling haze,
Just grinding teeth and static praise.
This is the hymn of bone and sin—
The sludge within did settle in.

Our tongues are ash, our limbs decay,
We march in place, still rot away.
This is the hymn of bone and sin—
The sludge within did settle in.

This is the hymn of bone and sin—
The sludge within did settle in.
(ocean sounds)

Settle In

Morning song to wake up. It's melancholy but that's how most days are anyway. Starts out with some organ drone which continues through most of the song, a bit of soul, then into some trance then metal, and ending with some dubstep to get you fully awake.

Wake Up

Collaboration between Keys from Neptune and NOSTRUMUVA.
Keys from Neptune wrote the main piano. NOSTRUMUVA added some more piano layers (TEOP1), Akai EWI4000s (electronic woodwind), cricket sound effects from a white water rafting trip.

Le Verrier is known for predicting the existence and position of Neptune using only mathematics.

Crickets Of Verrier

So this is an avant-garde dubstep song.  I began with TEOP1 and intentionally tried to be slightly offbeat and a bit random and to drag it out, then get it all to come together and pull out a primary melody with an electronic lead ("dimension" instrument on TEOP1) with a few piano sections ("pianistic" instrument on TEOP-1) and add in dub bass.  I went through 2 cycles of adding it to the 4-track on TEOP1, copying it out from COM to laptop, filtering in Audacity, copied it back, added more layers, then back to laptop again.  Normalized to -14dB with -1dB soft limit.  This song represents how I felt in the middle of the night at 3am while soldering random circuits for a supercapacitor experiment I was doing, and likely breathing in too much of the lead solder fumes.

Late Night Garage Experiments

Ambient soundscape of being inside of a heart.  TEOP1 keyboard with multiple really low modulated wumps, then a few lead layers mostly triplets of dissonant 2nds and 7ths, intentionally with no rhythm.  Then simple Audacity cleanup to -14dB normalization and -1dB soft limit.

Inside The Heart

I'm going to start doing some live looping performances on TEOP1 so this is a random practice session that is kind of Jam Band / Scat / Funk.  There is a 4-track on the TEOP1, so I can start out with drums or scat and then hit a key to end the loop, then just keep playing live and kind of overdub onto the other 3 tracks, and then also add in breaks by holding on one of the tracks while playing a B section.  I just live improvised the bass loop and then improvised the organ and keys as I went.  Random mood today, sorry to my dubstep and ambient fans :) This one is weird.

Bow Meow

Attentive

Some basic ambient jamming out on Tidal Cycles with simultaneous TEOP1 keyboard at the same time.  If you want to watch me code in Haskell and play the keyboard at the same time, watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g_n5ztNvvk

Multitasking

For reasons unknown but time will tell...
Multi-instrumentalist, all types of music, all types of methods.
Occasional collaborations with other artists.
Sometimes I post the sheet music if it's piano.
Lately, my favorite instrument is a TE OP-1 Field keyboard.