This track is a short experimental confection resulting from messing with some of my (perhaps) less conventional music gear. It's named Babel-17 after the book by Samuel R. Delaney, where a mysterious alien language is intercepted from space -- it seemed appropriate. I ran some instruments (including PO-32 Tonic, acoustic guitar, Korg NTS-1) through my Bastl Microgranny and granularised them before making samples. I also made samples of things going through the Gecho Loopsynth (particularly the 'trance' sound). The opening undulating sound is a sample of the Elettrorama Weird Sound Generator - I thought it was interesting to play this sample at different pitches - I don't know if anyone else does this with a drone synth. The bass is the (free?) Steinberg Model E bass VST. Drums are some samples I've bought  played through the drum sampler in my DAW (which is the relatively unpopular Waveform 10 Pro).

Babel - 17

This was something I was messing with a couple of years ago. I liked the vocal samples that I got from a black and white film (can't remember which, oops). It was mostly motivated to see if I could get the side chain working. I can't really call this complete, but I'm purging my laptop of old tunes. I should mention that the piano is the excellent Keyzone Classic VST. Also, I like Drum Pro VST which was used here too.

A Padded Cell

This is a remix based on Sir David Attenborough's field recording of a Gender Wayang made several decades ago. I remixed this for the Songlines Competition some time ago, but unfortunately I came second to last out of more than 10,000 entries and am now prohibited from entering any more competitions by Songlines and their affilliates (just kidding). 

For my 'remix' I thought it would be cool and amusing to recast the strange clangy instrument as a member of a jazz quartet: Piano, Bass, Gender Wayang, Drums. The GW tuning is questionable, but close enough for jazz, as they say. I took a section of the original recording wholesale, then I added a swing beat (Drum Pro VST) though it's in some weird timing, and the tune speeds up as it progresses. The bass (sforzando VST -- jazz upright bass 1 lite) mainly echoes the recurring motif first introduced by the GW at the beginning. The piano (Keyzone Classic VST) plays some jazzy chord progressions and licks, or mirrors the GW. Post competition I added some reverb (NI Raum VST) to the GW.

P.S. The image of the knitted bear in snazzy garb (knitted by my Mum) was used in my competition entry.

Sir David Attenborough's Gender Wayang Field Recording - pygstone remix

This is the another track that I was working on for the Songlines Remix competition based on Sir David Attenborough's field recording of a Gender Wayang. Although I chose to enter the first (jazzy) remix, which took hours of composition for the jazzy piano chord progressions and riffs, this is perhaps more original as I took slices of the GW sample and sequenced it into a new tune (or rather two tunes stuck together). I borrowed some dialogue from a speech that Sir David made when launching his new NetFlix series. I hope he doesn't mind.

Gender Wayang - pygstone remix - version 2

Practice 18th Jan 2004 - Wigan. Written by Max.

Tonsilitis

Practice 18th Jan 2004 - Wigan. Written by SGL. Not necessarily our best recording of this song.

Bitter Shanty (don't play this first, try Cthulhu or the playlist order instead!)

In 1818, the genius John Keats wrote a somewhat apologetic preface to his poem "Endymion", describing it as a  "feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished". In a similar way, I present my tune for your entertainment. Behold... "Dub Scat Bagatelle No. 1 -- Featuring Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club Orchestra".