QUEEN IN BLACK (Bishop's Wife)
Composer: Rocky Mountain, 1970. Recorded at De Lane Lea, Soho, February 1971

Our manager Terry Baker’s contacts in the film trade somehow managed to swing us an overnight session at the vast De Lane Lea Studios in Soho, usually reserved for recording feature film scores (with full orchestras) and therefore quite an eye-opener for a band whose 5 members had never been in any kind of recording studio before.    

‘Twas not the way she drove her eyes right through my soul
‘Twas not the way she loved me in her bed last night
‘Twas not the way she made my cold life oh so warm
‘Twas just the way that she took my heart

I’m a mean man, my love’s not given easily
I’ve seen the world, I’ve lived with many cruelty
I’ve fought and won, hurt women, laughed to see them cry
But Queen in Black you just grabbed my heart

(CHORUS)
Queen, she came in black but swept the devil from my thoughts
My nights are now like days, my days are glorious

I need her good, she owns me muscle, blood and mind
She got the power to crumble me back to the earth
My brain go dead if she told me to leave her be
Oh Queen in Black do you need my heart?

CHORUS

I’m jailed for life, my wandering days I’ve left behind
You earn reward, I win a cell inside your heart
Freedom’s no good, I’m warm and where I want to be
Oh Queen in Black you have took my heart

Brian Reeves:  Lead Guitar
Derek Harley: Rhythm Guitar
John Palmer: Bass
Terry Mitchell: Drums
Gary Reeves: Lead Vocal

Queen In Black (1971) by Bishop's Wife

This track is from the album “Another Pun,” which is a collaborative re-envisioning of our album “Pun.”

This track the work of §teinberg. (Thank you so much, §teinberg!!!) If you would like to listen to more of his music, please visit his SoundCloud profile here: https://soundcloud.com/teinberg-1

If you would like to hear more tracks from “Another Pun,” the full mastered album is free for download on Bandcamp, including two bonus tracks: https://graphicsontelevisions.bandcamp.com/album/another-pun

Thank you for listening! :)

⬇ Full Album ⬇

§teinberg - Icicle (From the free collaborative album “Another Pun.”)

I hadn't really done anything musical since the Caligari soundtrack with my friends in December.  Made the time; I needed the outlet.  About ten hours work I think? 

A glimpse into my mind-state, me always being the inward-looking type.  Here thinking more about connections - long thoughts and conversations lately about what kind of person makes for an effective counterweight/partner.  Vacillating between optimism and self-doubt.  I want to believe. 

Technically, I tried to refine certain ideas I had already been exploring - rhythms fading in and out of each other - building sounds that might work together in a pleasing way per my tastes.  As the critic said about Reich:  it's not the destination, but the journey.  Music is a way of conveying myself to a degree not otherwise possible.

There's a kick drum reversed and programmed, run through tons of effects that are constantly varying - this is to me the "heartbeat", it sounds tribal - although there is also an actual forwards-played-kick bouncing between channels that may be a bit more subtle outside of speakers with lower frequencies.

There is another kick with a high-pass filter and grain delay.  Again, I make the frequencies/rates/etc. vary as much as possible, parameters following hand-drawn curves, making for interesting combinations over time.  I listen to make sure they work well-enough, if it needs tweeking I do so, but prefer it to sound organic, not a perfect sine-LFO.

Saw-wave synth, chorus, delay, LFO envelope filter, slow attack and release, shimmering but slightly abrasive ambience.

Little two-note triangle-wave synth melody, also filtered and panned at a fast enough rate to give a scatter-shot effect that blends with the grain delay but not as random that you can't still pick out the rhythm.

Couple of voice samples reversed and cut to sufficient size as to be unidentifiable texture.

Textures, overlaying of mind/heart/body.  Collected, a melancholic desire and hope. 

Counterweight

https://soundcloud.com/markapierce found my page early in my time at Soundcloud and has been a wonderful source of encouragement for me. Mark's also a damn fine roots musician with a shared penchant for the intersection of Appalachian and British Isles traditions; he is a master of tone, his ear is impeccable and his recordings are a class in audiophilia.

So it is with apologies to Mark's sensibilities that I present our year-in-the-making collaboration on his arrangement of the Carters' East Virginia Blues. As soon as I heard Mark's version I knew I wanted to add my tub bass to it, and couldn't resist doing some harmonies and dulcimer as well. All of which is patently unfair to Mark, as a) ripping it to my 4 track caused a significant amount of hiss, and b)  my engineering skills still stink, but were even worse a year ago when we got started on it.

At any rate, I sent Mark the files, but our variances in recording rates or some **** I don't really understand made a fine tuning of the mix untenable; Mark had a mix up for a while but neither of us was thrilled with it. I'd burned my rough draft to a CD however and somehow the scratchy, lo-fi quuality of it grew on me; it reminded me of catching a live interview on the AM radio in my mom's red Pontiac wagon with the vinyl seats that you stuck to when it get hot (no seat belts in the way back, of course). Not that I remember catching live interviews, though I do remember being in it for the announcement of Elvis's death, and of course the mammoth trip to my step-grandmother's on the far side of the state, near Pittsburgh. The soundtrack for that trip included Jim Croce, and  Paul Simon's Slip Slidin' Away, but the tune that really stuck with me was Blood Sweat & Tears 'You Make Me So Very Happy.' You see, my step-grandmother (Mamach, we called her, with a hard 'c' sound on the end) was an early proponent of a macrobiotic diet, and what my brother and I were singing in the way back of that red wagon was 'You make miso...'

At any rate, I've been toying with the idea of upping my scratchy AM radio mix for much of the past year, and just asked Mark for the OK and got it. Then I re-ripped it to my 4 track, causing further indignities to Mark's sense of fidelity, and sang even more bad harmonies into the machine before ripping it back. So I hope you enjoy it and hope it brings you back to a time when your legs stuck to the seat but it didn't matter because the windows were rolle down (manually of course) and it was a beautiful day and you weren't out of range of your favorite station on the AM dial just yet.

Mark Pierce - East Virginia Blues (Dan's AM Radio mix)

Wanted to do something more accessible, but quality work.  Also a place to channel my feelings/joys/sadness, which were in sore need of an outlet.  Pour vous.

Content-wise, palindromes had been a recurring theme in life and conversation, making it an obvious thematic focal point. The more typical of my musical output serves a diaristic function, and this is certainly the case here - the artistic side in me looks for synchronicity, meaningful coincidence, as these tend to serve as the "themes" for a given period of time - I look for a device in which I can layer and represent different real-life events symbolically through the filter of aesthetic and musical concept. It is a diary-of-the-unconscious. Influence-wise, you can hear the strange weaving of Brazilian, funk, electronics, etc. that permeates a lot of what I do.

I built the percussion kit from two sources: 1) Gary McFarland/Peter Smith track "All My Better Days" - the open percussion at the beginning allowed for varied kick and snare sounds that I used for naturally varying accent/velocity (as opposed to one kick, one snare sound throughout and adjusting volume on individual hits to compensate); 2) Chico Hamilton snare/brush hits from "Strange" on the album Chico Hamilton Quintet with Strings Attached. None of the patterns you hear in my track are sampled, just the individual drum sounds which I then filtered, adjusted attack/decay, adjusted volume, panned to specific locations in the stereo channel field, etc., and then sequenced/programmed into patterns - adjusting any of this as deemed necessary during development. There are two basic layers to the percussion, one is the snare/brush hits that are separated out in the stereo field and create a constant bouncing, clicking patter. The other layer is the kicks and snares that are also bouncing between specific spatial locations - representing stronger hits and allowing for a better sense of rhythmic anchor. Syncopation is sometimes about what you don't hit - a feel for the sense of space - and this variation is an important component of the overall structure. Rhythm is king.

Guitar. Harmonically, there is a main "verse" alternating between the two chords of Bmaj7 and Bmin7 - three hits alternating at the beginning of each measure, providing an additional rhythmic accent in addition to the more direct emotional stab suggested by the subtle chord change. Effect-wise, there is a sine-LFO allowing for small variation on a low-pass filter - mostly dry in terms of reverb to allow the quick succession to have more rhythmic impact. During "chorus" the chord changes become more significant, eight non-repeating chords (although within related harmonic areas), each struck one time at the beginning of each measure and allowed to decay naturally - this subtle rhythmic variation contributing to the sense of a shift in structure. Effect-wise, a chorus effect and reverb on the guitar are allowing for a more expansive sound.

Vocal samples. These are chopped from various youtube users who are singing acapella, adjusted for pitch and length so that they can reasonably match the existing harmony and structure. The chorus voice is run twice for each eight-bar segment - except for the first four bars of the second measure, when it is run forwards, then backwards again (allowing for one of the internal "palindromes" incorporated into the structure). Delay is used subtly/judiciously. Just before the second "verse", we hear an anticipatory count-off, and then a different female voice bounces between channels - a higher amount of reverb allowing for a more "distant" sound.

Palindrome

Inspired by Aldo Leopold and Henry David Thoreau, may you connect with the wonders and beauty in nature wild when you wish to receive it

Graphics on Televisions writes:  "It is so cool to hear a collaboration done by people whose music i know so well. It kidna feels like different parts of my brain are getting to meet for the first time. :D :D "

Thanks to Mayor of Donutville for reaching out and getting this project started. 
Thanks to Weighty Tree for always being so down to throw down some sounds. 
Thanks to both for being so patient with my process. 
And thanks to my man Ivan Wizard Ill Shoes Dub for breathing the final breath of life into this song. 

I love all of you on SoundCloud. 

Mayor of Donutville: trombone, piano, vibrochime, glockenspiel, synth, vocals, lyrics
https://soundcloud.com/mayor-of-donutville
The Weighty Tree: bass and guitar 
https://soundcloud.com/theweightytree
Ill Dub Productions: final mastering
https://soundcloud.com/ill-dub-productions
The Couch King: production, arrangement, vocals, lyrics 

Song art by Mayor of Donutville

Lyrics:

verse:
In quiet places, the hush of dawn waiting, there we will hear you sing
In the clouds, in the mists, in the dark, shadow lined, we will hear, hidden songs

chorus:
Sing
     to the blushing wind
by the river's edge
     'cross the rolling hills
through the valley, dim
     to the hollowed oaks
by the meadow's edge
     in the waking morn  

raps: 

praise be to the falling of the leaves
praise be to he who has faith and believe
in the planting of the seeds and the harvesting of the yield by nature ye receives
from the all hallow's eve through the months that we grieve to the vernal equinox
i sing praise to the bees
i sing praise to the infinite in me
praise be to who wants naught yet seize
the glory of each day from the seas all the way to the mountain breeze 

sing praise to the ripening of the fruit
sing praise to the infinite and the absolute 
the ever changing and the resolute
the dreams we're in pursuit 
the visionaries and astute
the peace makers and those of good repute
live life, find your path, and follow suit 

Mayor of Donutville, Weighty Tree, and The Couch King - There We Will Hear You Sing

Fizzi Fuzzi Bleeps

9 epiphanies

From the album 'Delirium in Hifi', Basta 3090312

Perles de Cristal - André Popp

Under bright white camouflage
Tears stream down 
The silent, battered face of innocence drowned
Under torn, bloodied camouflage
Pillaged, naked, and alone
Her life is not her own

Music by J. Bougard, C. Hinojosa, and M. Gohlke
Lyrics by M. Gohlke

Porcelain Dreams

OFAS SovietRailways

We're working on new stuff, but haven't been on this account very much lately, will be back in action shortly I hope! Thanks friends! - Leighton

OFAS SovietRailways

O'er Field and Stream