This song is inspired by a place in Turkey I have not been fortunate enough to get to visit. Nemrut Dag is a mountain 2,134 metres high, with a lot of statues on top. I’ve heard it described as a Turkish equivalent to Easter Island. The statues are built around what is assumed to be a royal tomb from the 1st century BCE.
   
I was listening to a lot of the Turkish band Altin Gun, particularly their album Yol. It’s got a very strong eighties influence and a lot of drum machines, so it gave me the idea for the hi hat and kick pattern on this song to be played on an emulator of the Roland TR-808, one of the all time classic drum machines. The snare is me playing my electronic drum kit, but through different effects pedals on each part of the song. Occasionally I play the toms through effects pedals also.
   
For the first section of the solo, I put the saz through an Electro Harmonix Slammi Plus pedal set to harmonizer, I was going for a microtonal equivalent of the “Owner of a Lonely Heart” solo. The second part of the solo is through the Slammi also, but it's set to pitch shifter, I was trying to imagine a microtonal equivalent of Tom Morello’s playing.
   
During the mastering stage I added quite a lot of bass to the track, I wanted that wonderful kick on the 808 to be as prominent as possible.

Nemrut Dag

This song was inspired by a Canadian man named Markus Pukonen, who is travelling around the world without any form of motorized transport. He’s been travelling for six years at the time of writing and is now in Zanzibar. He mainly travels across land by bicycle and across oceans by sailboat. It’s such a fascinating story that I knew I had to write a piece of music inspired by it.
    
This was the last song I recorded, and around that time I was listening to Baba Zula, who use the darbuka, a Turkish drum, a lot in their music, and I realized it was a terrible shame that on my album that was so inspired by Turkish music that there wasn’t a single darbuka! I don’t own one so I had to settle for programming darbuka sounds into some of the pads on my electronic drumkit. 

This song is mostly in 13/4, but the funny thing is I didn’t know that until I was finished recording, I didn’t even know I was able to play in 13/4! I think I will record another saz album some day, and when I do I think there’ll be more songs like this, very sparse songs with very few overdubs. This album was mostly songs that were absolutely bursting with overdubs, it would be nice to explore the other extreme some day.

Without A Motor

Well, we did it right this year. We had our entire song finished in the morning, not leaving it until the last minute like we did last year. Luckily in our simple village we found an ancient drum machine called the Roland TR-808 and an ancient bass synthesizer called the Roland TR-303. We really think the Goat Child will be happy with this one, and we'll be safe for another year!

Appeasement Of The Goat Child (Year Three)

Also on Bandcamp: https://colmphilpott.bandcamp.com/track/the-wonder-of-space-and-time?fbclid=IwAR1tX5ogAaqp5d7-4EaAhbwWuxYchJsp5qyUw5hTg5rpX-fLldK_ukLgQts

As I'm sure most of you will already have heard, the James Webb telescope has captures an image called Webb's First Deep Field, which shows thousands of galaxies, previously too faint to see with other telescopes, and the image is the furthest back into the universe humanity has ever seen. No human who ever lived before this time got to see this image, but we did. What an amazing time to be alive! This is my musical tribute to this wonderful image. And more images from James Webb have been released, as I was recording this song! Truly this is going to be an amazing week!
Image Source: James Webb Telescope

The Wonder of Space And Time

I just got the Yamaha Reface YC, so just to baptize it I put up a recording of me improvising on it and testing out the sounds. It is a thing of beauty. The drawbars alone make it unbelievably versatile, but on top of that it has five types of organs, the Hammond, the Continental, the Farfisa, the Acetone and the Yamaha YC-45. I needed a keyboard with some very good organ sounds in order to finish the album I'm working on, and what's just as good is it's small enough to take anywhere, can't wait to bring this out to the wilderness!

I Got This New Mini Organ Hurray!

I got the Earthquaker Devices Data Corrupter a few days ago, so I decided to do a quick improv where I play the saz through it. It's definately not one of those pedals where you get good sounds right of the box, almost like you have to fight the pedal, but in the end, that can also lead to some very useful sounds.

A Saz through A Data Corrupter, Because Why Da Fudge Not?

This is the first track off an upcoming album of mine, and by upcoming I of course mean I have no idea when it'll be out. The track is called 2244, and the album is called Neurotypical Empire Vol 1: 2244. The album is the most complicated musical project I've ever worked on, and it's inspired by the fact that two years ago I realized I was autistic, so the album is a sci-fi concept album, involving quite a lot of time travel and quite a lot of multiverse, about the treatment by society of autistic people. I wish I could give a more definite timeline on when the rest of the album will be finished, but thanks to a lot of good friends of mine who gave me really good advice on the production and vocals (I'm very new to singing), the first track is now complete. So here it is, 2244!

2244

Today the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or Juice, launched successfully, on its way to explorer the Jovian moons of Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. So this is part one of a tune I wrote to celebrate that. Where is part 2 you ask? Well, the next part will be called, Part II: Arrival, so I'm not going to start writing it until Juice reaches the Jovian system! So, if you liked this half of a song, I'm afraid you'll have to wait at least eight years for the second part! (There may even be more parts after that, I haven't decided yet, I'll be about forty five when I write the second part!)
(Image courtesy of Wikipedia Editor Saggittarius A)

Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer I: The Journey Begins

So, ESA just launched its Euclid Space Telescope, to explore the dark universe, ie., to find out what is dark matter and energy. I will usually do a piece of music to commemorate any big news in the world of space, and usually these pieces have a bright and hopeful sound, but this time I tried to do something a bit different, I tried to focus on the fact that "The Dark Universe", sounds like the name of a horror film, and see what kind of tune that would get me! Despite the scary sound of this one, I'm sure the Euclid telescope will tell us things that aren't scary but instead will bring us a lot of joy!

The Dark Universe

So the album I've been working on for quite some time Neurotypical Empire Vol I 2244, is alas, still nowhere near completion. So I've decided to release a second song from it that is fully complete, called Memories Of The Invasion. In this song, we are introduced to the Neurotypical Empire, and how they will stop at nothing to make everybody identical to them and destroy all individuality and difference, and the terrible sacrifice that had to me made to stop them.

Memories Of The Invasion

Well we made a mess of it this year, the Goat Child says he'll let it slide this year but we really have to do a better job next year, this is what he said, "This is the most atrocious song I have ever heard, singing out of tune and off tempo, that tin whistle was just a bunch of squeaking, and that shred solo was completely out of place. I have turned people to stone for less than this disgusting insult you call a song, but you will be spared this year, because I have just come back from the Realm Of A Thousand Sorrows, and am quite tired after my battle with my sworn enemies, the Horse Teenager and the Sheep Adult. So you will be spared this year, though not because any of you deserve it. Do not fail me again next year!"

Appeasement Of The Goat Child (Year Five)

Guitar Used: Epiphone Sheraton II 
Pedal Used: Mr Black Eterna Gold Modified 
Amp Used: Roland Cube 80XL 
Tuning: DADGBE 

I spent some time on Cape Clear last August (2017), I got to stay in a yurt and the weather was fantastic. I improvised this music while looking at a slideshow of my Cape Clear photographs. Here is a you tube video of this track along with the slide show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uwl0Y-FKAA

The Cape Clear Improvisation

Guitar Used: Schecter Diamond Series Omen 8 
Pedals Used: Boss DD7 and Red Panda Raster 
Amp Used: Roland Cube-80XL 
Tuning: GCEGEGCF

Lifespan of Bristlecone Pine: Over 3000 years.

Of the four songs on Lifespan this took the longest to write. Unusually for me of the four solos on it three are composed as opposed to improvised, and I think this worked really well so there'll definitely be more composed solos in future. This is also the saddest piece of music I've ever written (don't worry the next one is much happier!)

Bristlecone Pine

Guitar Used: (Well this is going to be difficult to explain), it's a Marlin Strat copy that I removed the frets from a good few years ago. I stuck a fingerslide under the strings, so it was like a Japanese koto. Hope this makes sense!
Pedals Used: Mr Black Eterna Gold Modified and Digitech Freqout
Amp Used: Roland Cube 80XL
Tuning: (Didn't have the best tuning stability but I'll try!)
Left hand side: ABEABFsharp
Right hand side: DEADFB

So I decided to turn my guitar into a Koto. It was cool being able to treat both sides of the neck as two seperate guitars and I was able to get huge strings bends, but a guitar really doesn't have enough strings for this type of thing!
   Eta Cassiopeiae is one of my favourite double star systems. One of the stars is way smaller than the other, so it kind of reminds me of the Earth and its moon.

Eta Cassiopeiae

Guitar Used: Epiphone Sheraton II
Pedals Used: Boss DD-7,Red Panda Raster and Roland EV-5 (expression for Raster)
Amp Used: Roland Cube 80XL
Tuning: EBDGBE

Had to include Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. SHINE ON YOU CRAZY, eh, STAR!!!!

The Brightest

Guitar Used: Cheap Badly Maintained Fretless Guitar
Pedals Used: None
Amp Used: Roland Cube 80XL (with tremolo setting on full)
Tuning: Standard

This instrumental is inspired by the Andromeda Galaxy. While this was the first galaxy I ever saw and so was very significant, when you first see the Andromeda Galaxy it looks very, well, underwhelming. You get so used to seeing things like Jupiter and Saturn which look amazing through a telescope, and in time you can train your eyes to see more detail in the Andromeda Galaxy, so now I think it looks great through my scope, but I can still remember my reaction to seeing it for the first time, "That's it!?"

The Blob

Guitar Used: Epiphone Sheraton (on all tracks)
Tuning (EAEABE) (on all tracks)
Amp Used: Roland Cube 80XL (on all tracks)

Pedals Used:

Track 1 and Track 2: Boss Phase Shifter PH-3 and Mr Black Eterna Gold Modified
Track 3: Red Panda Raster used to pitch an octave down (also amp tremolo used)
Track 4 and 5: Marshall Jackhammer JH-1, Boss Phase Shifter PH-3 and Mr Black Eterna Gold Modified
Track 6: Red Panda Raster used to pitch an octave up (also amp tremolo used)
Track 7, 8 and 9: Mr Black Eterna Gold Modified and Digitech Freqout

(Maybe this is why I generally don't use multiple tracks, more writing involved!)

Located at approximately 1300 light years from Earth, the Orion Nebula is one of my favourite objects to look at with my telescope. It is a brilliant green colour (most objects you see in space are greyish), and located within it is a stellar nursery, where new stars are born. It’s also a good object for beginner astronomers as it’s very easy to find. I’m always a bit sad when we move into Summer and it’s no longer visible, but at least I’ve something to look forward to as we move into the coldness of Winter when it becomes visible again.
    This song is very unusual for me, usually I use just one track of guitar while this contains nine tracks. I wanted to have a simple, repetitive melody with more and more guitar tracks gradually being added throughout the song. I found it difficult because I’m not used to recording this way, it’s the first time I ever had to use a clicktrack, but now that I’m used to it I don’t think it will be so difficult to do the next time. 
   The image is a drawing I did of the Orion Nebula while looking at it through my telescope.

The Green Nebula

Guitar: Ibanez Acoustic
Tuning: I'm afraid I've forgotten, I altered the tuning and capo position several times!

Some fun with various tuning changes and a harmonica, pity I'm so out of practice on the harmonica though!

Guitar And Some Harmonica Improv

DADF#AC#

Another from my album, "The Telescope." I really wanted to work this out on acoustic, but the original is so dependent on the Digitech Freqout pedal I was wondering was it even possible, but as is often the case, an alternate tuning came to the rescue. I found it sounded better with a fingerslide aswell. 

The original track:

https://soundcloud.com/user-429211267/tiny-neptune?in=user-429211267/sets/the-telescope
Fingerslide "steel" used

Tiny Neptune

Drums Used: Yamaha DD-75 through Roland Cube 80-XL (amp flange used)

Bass Used: Volcano Rockateer through Roland Cube 80XL (through Red Panda Raster), amp reverb and delay also used, tuning: DADFsharp

Guitar Used: Squier Jazzmaster through Roland Cube 80XL through Pro-Co Rat 2, Red Panda Raster and Digitech Freqout, amp reverb and delay also used, tuning: one string tuned to D.

I watched the Perseverence Rover land on Mars yesterday, I can't wait to learn what new information it teaches up about Mars. It's also carrying a helicopter called Ingenuity, so we will soon witness the first time a helicopter has ever flown on another planet!

Perseverance and Ingenuity

I have a great distaste for not making music.

Here you’ll find all of the songs I have written , my improvisations, as well as a good few weird experiments. I aim to keep changing my music, hopefully never getting stuck in a musical rut or staying in the same genre too long. When I started it was all one guitar stuff (no overdubs), and very bad sound production (i.e, no sound production!), but since then I’ve started adding more instruments such as drums bass and saz and I’m slowly but surely getting better at sound production. And last but not least, I am slowly but surely getting into singing. I welcome all feedback whether good or bad. Or indifferent. I also want to hear from those who are apathetic about my music! I recorded three albums:

Lifespan (2018):
soundcloud.com/user-429211267/sets/lifespan
The Telescope (2019):
soundcloud.com/user-429211267/sets/the-telescope
On these first two there is no sound production as such because I didn’t understand that stuff at the time, then I recorded this one:

 Argentavis Magnificens (2021):
soundcloud.com/user-429211267/sets/electric-juniper-saz
at which point I was finally starting to get my head around the sound production thing. I’m currently working on an album called Neurotypical Empire, Vol 1: 2244, the first song of which I have released:

https://soundcloud.com/user-429211267/neurotypical-empire-vol-1-2244-edit-1-export-1

All are welcome here, except of course bigots. If you are racist, homophobic or transphobic, I respectfully ask that you go away.

Colm Philpott

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