Mistakes aside, this is my all-but definitive version of the Fast Extended Amen Voodoo Mix of Visions of a Delphic Priestess, that is, at least until I work out the right speed for the lady again, because I accidentally deleted the sample, which left me with the slightly slower version that I had to sample if I wanted it without any background music. Mustn't grumble about that though, at least such a version existed for me to borrow.

So, when recording this, I accidentally turned all the music off way way way too early. I can't remember why it happened, and I got all in a tizz at the time and didn't know what to do, so left it playing the breakbeat for an eternity, while I regained my composure.

Anyway, ignoring for now, the extended break, the mistimed introduction of some music, the realisation that I can't turn one knob down with one hand and usefully twiddle another with the other hand, all of that and much more, I think this is a fair enough version. The mistakes add to the charm, right?

So, what we basically have here then, is my original tune, Visions of a Delphic Priestess, with the drums removed, and a sample of the Amen breakbeat in their place. It's not all of it, as you'll notice if you've heard one of the seven zillion tunes that use it, but it is just the right amount to fit. Plus, the lady from Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald. I figured since this is about a mystic, and a female mystic at that, it would benefit from a nice-sounding female vocal, but not actually one saying real words. I thought that the Ooh-ooh-hoo ahh-ahh-hahh yeah from Voodoo Ray would be perfect. It took me a few goes to get her at the right speed to not sound completely silly. Some lucky camper downloaded a good example of her not fitting on a previous attempt before it got deleted.

The name therefore, is "Fast" because at 135bpm, it's 25bpm faster than the original, "Extended" because it's longer, "Amen" because of the drums, "Voodoo" because of the source of the vocal and "Mix" because that's what you call things like this, I guess.

By the way, if you're familiar with Voodoo Ray, did you know that the other lady vocal, the Heyy-yahh hahaaah one, is this one reversed? I reversed it out of curiosity and though not exactly, it was almost certainly it. Gerry had different equipment of course, which probably accounts for it.

Visions of a Delphic Priestess (Fast Extended Amen Voodoo Mix)

This is my new tune. Ostensibly, it's in a major key for once... That was the plan at least. As I might've said before, I tend to get drawn to the minors. I blame that on the guitar. I must've spent so long back in the day badly noodling around in aeolian, harmonic minor, minor pentatonic et al., that I just can't escape them any more.

So this was a conscious attempt to do something major. I'm not musically clever enough to know whether the tonal centre wotsit actually dictates majorness. In fact, looking at the notes, it seems to be that melody is Lydian; then again, it sounds kind of minor to me afterall. Oh, I dunno, it's all the major scale shuffled about a bit anyway.

So that's why I called it Desperatey Seeking (something) Major. I decided that something should be a girl's name in honour of the film title it's ripped off from. I decided years ago that my daughter would be called Millicent, which is why I'm not allowed to reproduce. Our heroine Millicent Major, for whatever reason, gets called Mandy by her friends; apparently she doesn't like Milly.

And the Terence McKenna samples? Well, I honestly can't believe I'd had a sampler two weeks and hadn't done him yet. Indeed, what was wrong with me? For the record, this was a bit from the latter part of his recording of the book True Hallucinations. I was actually looking for something from the "you're wearing my knickers" story (at least that had a girl in it so I could claim a tenuous link with the title), but chanced upon this bit instead, which I always liked. I'm sure there's a better quote about the 20,000 years to the starship somewhere, but I've listened to so much Terence in my day, I can't honestly say it was even in this recording. Nevertheless, he lends himself perfectly to all that's cool in music, as always.

Anyhoos, this may change soon, knowing what I'm like. But for now, after eight or so attempts at recording it and doing something wrong with the samples each time, then thinking I'd finally cracked it minutes before heading out with Kim to be two of the only four people in screen 7 of the Odeon to see The World's End (which ruled; too bad the people of Huddersfield felt no need to go and watch this. I bet they went to see that Seth Rogan film instead), only to find in the cold metallic light of a Monday morning two very slightly different bits that should've been in it near the end. I doubt the difference is even noticeable, but I'd know and it would really bother me, so it had to be redone. Luckily, thanks to my many failed attempts at recording half a day earlier, I actually got it first go. More or less.

Long live the new flesh!

Desperately Seeking Millicent 'Mandy' Major

This is one of my favourite tunes.

If I ever get invited onto Desert Island Discs on Radio 4, it will certainly be on my list.
This was made using the sheet music and a recording of the tune. Maybe some of its wrong, certainly most of it's missing, but still, it sounds all right. That Brass Ensemble PCM is wonderful.

If you're reading this, it's more than likely you stumbled here by mistake much like the hugely disproportionate number of people who have listened to my Depeche Mode bit. I'm sorry for wasting a minute of your life. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Fanfare for the Common Man - Aaron Copland

Many years ago, I bought an album in HMV called New Trips in Acid Trance. It was a 2-CD goaey, psyey trance compilation by a whole bunch of unknown (to me) artists. Not bad at all, was it, for the 4.99 or so I paid. However, the only track that really sticks in my mind is the first one "High Energy" by Mekhala. Oh, actually, another one does too called "Acidity Level Increase" by Acid Trip, but that's more because I one day spotted that the sample used in it was from Inner Space.

Anyway, luckily for me, the cool sample of a girl at the beginning was music free, so perfect for borrowing. This then, is a tune built for two reasons. First and foremost, to give me an excuse to use that sample, but also, because I made a really nice (though fairly unoriginal) multisaw wave sound, and put together a few bars from it yesterday, and thought it was as good a basis as any to build a tune on. As you'll notice when you hear her again later, I slowed the voice down somewhat at the intro, but also pitch shifted her up at the same time, for a kind of DIY time stretch.

Originally in this text, I apologised for a bad join somewhere around 1:45; I can't actually hear that now, so maybe I fixed it already. If not, I will be sure to review it again when I'm retired and have a lot of time on my hands. Probably by then the technology will be around that I can just use my mind to think of how I want it changed and the computer embedded in my skull will do the work for me.

You'll also notice it ends suddenly. Sorry about that; wifey was getting home from work soon and I was also beginning to overheat sat here, so I figured I'd quickly wind it down. Shame really after the super-long intro I gave it. I had every intention of tapping into my inner Jean Michel Jarre and turn that little melody that makes an appearance at the end into something much more substantial (as well as switch it for a better instrument), but time it was a ticking. 

But it goes practically without saying that I will revisit this very soon. If my recent track record is anything to go by, we'll be on version three or four by the end of the weekend. Then again, I also have two deadlines to meet by Monday, so that might not actually happen this time. We shall see. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy.

Thank you Mekhala. Hopefully you are still getting the success you deserve. I've listened to that track literally hundreds of times over the years.

Tell Me About the Buzz Young Lady

This is one of my favourite tunes: Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland

If I ever get invited onto Desert Island Discs on Radio 4, it will certainly be on my list.
This was made based on a recording of the tune and the sheet music from online (and just as well too; I'd never have worked out the proper timing). Maybe some of its wrong, certainly most of it's missing, but still, it sounds all right. That Brass Ensemble PCM is wonderful.

If you're reading this, it's more than likely you stumbled here by mistake much like the hugely disproportionate number of people who have listened to my Depeche Mode bit. I'm sorry for wasting a minute of your life. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Start of Fanfare for the Common Man

Here's version two of a tune I've been working on, with an acid house kinda bassline.

Those with an attentive ear will note that the 'movement' on that bassline stops around half way; this is because of the introduction of the robotic lead, which took over my attention. Some day in the long-distant future I may go back and add some more variation, but not for the foreseeable, since that's what I've already been doing for the last hour in other areas... most specifically...

The samples. Those who've spent years trawling the psychedelic backwaters of the Internet are likely to recognise this lovely-voiced young lady. Its from a clip of an old program on LSD. She may be pretty old these days, but she was very cute back in the day.

He'll probably never read this but I should thank the user, Lousy Facelift for his guide on YouTube for getting 303-like sounds out of the Electribe. Especially the stuff about gate time and EG, which I'd never have worked out. This'll have to do until Volca Bass comes out, which I am very much looking forward to, for fulfilling bassline duties (update: it is out now I think, but I'm going to save my money instead). I do have to stop getting Korg stuff all the time though; I'm starting to look like a proper fanboy (maybe I should buy an Akai Miniak?)

The name, well, it's supposed to be a play on words, in that certain Known and Loved alkaloids can be extracted by the so-called acid-base extraction. So, well I noticed it would be a nice pun to write it's "bass" instead, you know?

Sorry that it's a tad long, and as a result, quite repetitive. Hopefully, LSD Lady will keep your attention. And also, that robot-like instrument that comes in has some random modulation, which makes it a bit more varied than it would otherwise have been, at least.

As usual. Blah blah blah. There are mistakes. Sorry. Etc. Etc.
Have a nice day!

Acid-Bass-Extraction

Though forgotten by society at large, the mythos of the Jewelled Lizard harks back to a distant age. And yet the all-powerful beast has lain but dormant in his mystical lair these untold aeons, for the moment a lowly human would come forth and distil his essence into musical form.

There have been countless past attempts. Men and women with the audacity to dream would strive, sometimes for years to achieve this most lofty of goals, and yet always was it the case that none would succeed. Time and again, the result was failure to capture the ineffable essence of his reptilian majesty.

My own previous efforts have been equal in vain. Futile albeit valiant endeavours to prove to the Jewelled Lizard, that it was I and I alone, who could weave together the notes and rhythms required to create the perfect tapestry of sound, to satisfy his desire for musical amusement. Alas, like those who came before me, it was all for naught.

For naught that is, until today (and yesterday), when I found myself enveloped in an aura so powerful, so consuming, that I surmise that it must have been the radiant spirit of Lizard himself. It would be folly to believe otherwise. My mind was not my own, my fingers the same. As though enraptured in an out-of-body experience, the notes assembled themselves before my eyes, dancing a waltz of pure creative beauty.

Okay, that's enough talking like that. So yeah, it has long been a plan of mine to create a tune based on this little-known mystical reptile, known variously by the disparate groups of believers as the "Jewelled Lizard" or "Jewel Encrusted Lizard." For the title of this tune, I went for the latter just because it's longer.

Actually, it has been a labour of love making this, because truly, I do care that a tune about the Lizard lives up to his mythical expectations. Hopefully, it does, if only in some small way, capture a glimpse of the wonder surrounding this glorious beast. The length, extended intro and tempo change are to try and you know, capture some of that majesty mentioned above

It's in Dorian mode by the way. I'm fairly sure I actually managed to do that, as planned.

When I finally get that MiniAK (assuming that's what I choose, but the same applies if I get a microKorg), it'll be vocoder time. Oh yeah. Excited doesn't come close! It'll take this to a whole nother level.

P.S. The idea of using two different synths for the high and low notes at about 5:15 came from Your Face in My Brain by German dark-wavey star Sara Noxx. I didn't do it half as well, but still, it's a cool trick. Thanks Noxxy!

Jewel Encrusted Lizard

Hello once again, dear visitor.

After a very long-feeling week since I last uploaded a tune, finally here is one.

I had been suffering a kind of existentialist crisis vis music. After the way my Jewel Encrusted Lizard came together over a day or so with total ease, and my opinion of it as being somewhat my magnum opus, nothing I ever did seemed good enough. I have a whole bunch of started tunes which I just abandoned when I thought "well that's never going to be as good as my Lizard tune!" It was most frustrating. So, seemingly burned out of creativity at such an early stage, I needed to reassess.

I decided to have a play about and take the opportunity to get my head around some of my less used oscillators, and was intrigued by my manual saying that the additive oscillator (where you have three oscs, the second and third of which are set at "harmonic multiples" relative to the first) is good for making bell sounds. A moment of fiddling later, and lo, I had a nice bell synth. Cool, I thought, now to do something with it.

I quickly got a nice little pattern together, with a few interesting (in my opinion) other sounds, and took a moment to consider my creation. Alas, once again, it failed to live up to the lofty height set by my beloved Jewelled Lizard. Damn! 

Then I thought, sod it, why don't I just see this through to its end? After all, I had made a few tunes I was perfectly happy with before and didn't just stop when I thought they might not be absolutely outstanding. So I soldiered on. Today, I completed the tune in question, and you know, it's not that bad. The initial pattern kind of dictated that it would be slow throughout, so I didn't fight that and made a nice slowly developing tune.

I'll let fate decide how it fares in the long run. And even if it fails to hold up, it has served a purpose in teaching me to not just abandon things because they might not be as good as something done prior. What if Pink Floyd had felt that way after making the epic Echoes? We'd never even have had The Wall. Lesson learnt!

The tune is named "Gradual Ego Reintegration" to reflect the gradual development, as if the ego has been shattered by some heavy spiritual experience and is slowly piecing itself back together.
For a while, it was called "Weirdness Ensues at La Chorrera!", but as I wrote here originally, it didn't suit the music, so it was just a place-holder. Now that I've made something more deserving of that name, this one had to give it's name up. 

In a way, they could be viewed as sister tunes I suppose, since it took a few weeks for Dennis (and Terry) to get back to normal after the experiment. 

Gradual Ego Reintegration

Bonjour Internet!

And so it came to pass that I finished another tune. Well, it's almost finished at least; I really want to get a nice sample to put over the part near the beginning where it is main riff and bassline only, since that's quite a long time with not a whole load going on. Personally, I think it's fine, but I should probably make the effort, if nothing else because its been a while since I sampled anything. Nevertheless, I was happy enough with it to upload it as is.

Per my original intention, It has stolen the title of the now-renamed "Gradual Ego Reintegration", because the name "Weirdness Ensues at La Chorrera!" did not suit that one very well.

The title is based on the experiment conducted in the Amazon, at La Chorrera, Colombia, by the brothers McKenna back in the seventies using sound, the local flora, the I Ching and a load of wacky ideas about DNA, the 4th dimension, so forth and so on. The younger McKenna, Dennis went totally weird for a while after. But then, weirdness was par for the course on that particular expedition. It's all totally fascinating stuff, which I don't really understand, but then, reading something Dennis wrote about it recently, it doesn't seem that either of they completely did anyway.

Regarding the above-mentioned desire for a sample, something of Dr. McKenna himself talking about the experiment, either from True Hallucinations again, or some YouTube I was watching recently. I'll get there eventually.

Weirdness Ensues at La Chorrera!

Well, hello there.

In my ever-changing opinion, this is the best tune I've done. It's not fast, there's no tempo change like my old favourite, the Jewel Encrusted Lizard, and no mad arpeggiator bits, but I am really digging the ethereal instruments in play, and the various melodies seem to work very nicely together. I've also taken the time to work better with motion sequencing, although I could use a bit more for consistency.

I'm hoping the stereoness made it through the recording intact. The snare oscillates around from left to right in a cool way, and through headphones, there's some very interesting sound positioning: in particular, the bit where I manually waved the cut-off up and back down three times sounds (to me) somewhere above and left of my head, which is a rather weird but nice effect).

The BPM is back down to Old Faithful, 120. This is because that's the default and I'd made enough of the tune by the time I considered using a different BPM, that it sounded too weird to me at any other speed.
 
I think the volumes need adjusting a bit, as it seems that the sound gets louder (beyond the intentional) as it goes on, but it'd be a lot of effort to work out exactly where needs to be changed, and by how much, so this is it. 

I was also considering a nice female sample, like a bit of Winona Ryder in A Scanner Darkly for the lead in (of course, along those lines, I'm sure there are plenty of candidates in Waking Life, but that has really been sampled to death in psy and ambient - not that this is either of course). Ultimately though, I simply couldn't be bothered.

I have three versions of this. The first other one is four patterns shorter (the four that are repeated at higher pitch near the end are missing in their first, lower incarnation, but the higher one has a bar-later echo that isn't on the version here). I added the extra bars in because I wanted to break seven minutes, which I consider to be a nice length.

The other other version has a different instrument for the one that survives the mute-out at the end. The instrument was too similar to the other one that survives almost as long (and similar to another too), so it was just too much. I'm confident that the best version made to the finishing line (Soundcloud). 

Not a lot else to be said really. I started this one about a week ago, but after an initial burst of creativity, I lost interest in favour of sitting around with the dog and wife to watch films and telly. I eventually got back to it on Sunday and more or less finished it on Monday. I've tweaked it here and there since, until we get to this version you hear here today, and thought "no more!"

The name... well, the swirling ethereal synths lent themselves to a swirly name. And I like Nag Champa. Nothing deeper than that really.

Enjoy (please)!

A Swirling Haze of Nag Champa

Freelance translator, sometime juggler, wannabe mathematician, and more to the point, bloke with a couple of Electribes and the spare time afforded by working from home. One part of the electronica collective Happy Accident with Quatermass, adding the hardware-side synth and knob twiddling to his software-side conjury, remixing and general ability to draw things out to ten minutes without making them boring.
I'm not overly musical, but I recall enough of my scales and theory from my stint playing bass around the millennium and a few periods of learning guitar since, that I can hum up a nice melody in the shower, and turn it into a few minutes of music.
Be gentle. I'm not serious about this; it's just for fun.

Sierpinski Triangle