Dedicated to the memory of Peter Freeman, 1965-2021

For Peter

An experiment in digital feedback. A piano/string loop is used to excite several parallel extreme feedback loops, kept just under control.

Reflections #19

From the forthcoming album, The Descent, by Mage of Machines. Release date 19th September 2013.

Inanna (Dorian Mix)

Gina challenged me to do a dubstep remix of one of the tracks from The Descent. Most likely this will find its way onto the remix album, Kingdom of Shells.

I'd actually say it's more dub than dubstep, though it does have a dubsteppy bassline. I like it, anyway.

It's not very subtle. No apologies for that. :-)

Descent Into Dub

Now my studio rebuild is finally complete, this is a first quick track/mix as part of getting everything configured and working.

This actually has REAL BASS on it. Gosh, shocker.

Initiation

Initiation 1

This is a very early demo for a new project (my first non-Mage of Machines thing other than soundtracks in decades). I may remove this version once a better mix is available.

The New Enlightenment

Non Serviam (Demo)

Both these tracks are likely to find their way onto Kingdom of Shells, my next (third) album in some form. In the mean time, here are a couple of bootlegs to keep you going. They were recorded directly from the outs from Ableton -- everything was improvised (or generatively inferred) live, no multitracking was used.

Alpha

Omega

From a live performance by me (aka Mage of Machines) at City of Refuge UCC in Oakland, California, on April 19th 2014.

Three Hours Agony

Just a quick demo made with Push 3. Everything was played into the Push3, rough arrangement done there, then loaded into Live 11 on my Mac Mini. This is just a quick demo with minimal mixing and mastering (UAD SSL channel strips, UAD pultec, brainworx masterdesk)

Around the Exposition

Around The Exposition (Demo)

I was bored in a mostly empty post office in Ireland, and left unsupervised.

In these times of darkness

A weird chromatic thingy based on a scale of 12 tones taken from 17-EDO. My first ever microtonal adventure. I nearly typed microtonsil there, which would have been funnier.

I can hear the sound of green (17-TET)

A (very) rough WIP track written in 19-EDO with vocals

Vocal experiment in 19-EDO

Hit record, then figure out what to play.

Titan Lakes

Per the title, this track was insipired partly by Brian Eno's Music for Airports and by Steve Reich's Piano Phase. That said, it doesn't really resemble either of those sources. And then the drums come in and everything goes batshit.

Airport Phase

This is 3 tracks from an album I recorded in the late 1990s that was later lost -- I recently was given a copy by a friend who still had the files after all these years. It'll be released in full shortly via the usual iTunes/Spotify/Google Play/etc. suspects.

03 Breathless in Silence

02 Along the Way

This is what you get when you rip Debussy apart into millions of pieces then glue them back together again.

Cloud Debussy

OMG, my modular synth thinks it's a guitar hero! Send help!

Patch notes:

The guitar lines (clean, distorted and reversed) initially came from a Mutable Instruments Rings, sequenced by a Makenoise Rene. The X axis on the Rene was synchronized with the beat via a signal sent from Cubase via Silent Way, one of my Apollos and an Expert Sleepers ES3. The Y axis was clocked by the burst output on a Wogglebug. I was playing the sequencer, rings and Wogglebug via their controls. Audio was recorded from the modular via an ES6.

As for the rest of the track, some of the drums were programmed in Cubase, the rest played by hand (djembe, congas and extra kick/snare fills) on a Roland HPD-20. The bass is actually me playing a Chapman Stick (for realz! Gosh, the shock of the thing!), plugged into the HI-Z ins on one of the Apollos. The synth pads are a custom patch on my Roland JP-8080, noodled real-time.

The mix uses a metric assload of UAD plugins -- SSL channel strips pretty much everywhere, a couple of Shadow Hills mastering compressors (ab)used for various things, several Lexicon 224 instances gave us all the reverb. Delays were just the simple ping-pong delay that ships with Cubase by default. This isn't really a properly mastered thing, it's just the UAD SSL bus compressor into the UAD precision limiter.

This was all a bit of fun, mostly just testing new (and very old) equipment. And the first time I've played bass on something in years, particularly in terms of Stick. :-)

One Ring

Part one of 3.

The feeling of standing on the shore of a lake, feeling the wind, tasting the air. Wondering.

Lakeshore EP

Lakeshore Part 1

Just a quick shakedown demo. I was driving myself more than a little crazy trying to get my studio build to the point where I could record something, so I thought that the obvious thing to do would be to attempt the workflow I'm intending for my new album end-to end. Specifically, this was tracked into the MPC-X, taking advantage of its really quick workflow, then bounced out as audio tracks and arranged and mixed in Logic Pro X. This is just a rough demo, nothing fancy, The drums were all programmed on the MPC then messed with. Keyboard sounds are all Waldorf Quantum (new patches, not library sounds).

Finally!

3 tracks from the forthcoming Mage of Machines album, Ritual Machinery. Please download, share, play loud and often!

Ritual Machinery

The Broken Tower

60hz hum jamming signal

A 50hz simulated mains hum with a random continuously varying phase shift that would effectively jam any attempt to authenticate time of recording by analysis of background ambient mains hum.

50hz hum jamming signal

A quick demo recorded one Sunday under COVID lockdown in Zurich, Switzerland. Moog Matriarch + Logic Pro X + UAD Apollo.

Freedom Dream

This came at the end of a really, really bad week. It's a reminder to myself that there is always, always hope.

At The End, Hope

However things seem, something always happens next. And another thing. Hope in a minor key.

More Happens Later - Mix

A small piano piece from a desolate Sunday in January.

Lament for Prepared Piano and Far Too Much Compression

Every track on the forthcoming album, The Descent, all at the same time.

Could this be the weirdest album promo ever? ;-)



Sarah Thompson 29

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