Music For Paintings

Composed using the Soma Lyra 8 and Korg NTS-1

Crisis Fatigue

Phantom Oscillator - Crisis Fatigue

Composed and performed on the Soma Lyra 8 synthesizer with additional effects processing via the Korg NTS-1

Phantom Oscillator - Head Full Of Bees

Phantom Oscillator - Resolve

Composed and recorded using the Soma Lyra 8 Organismic Synthesizer, the Korg Monologue and Korg NTS-1

Daring to hope

Phantom Oscillator - Daring To Hope

Single-take improvisation on the Soma Lyra 8 Organismic Synthesizer

Phantom Oscillator - Defiance

Live improvisation performed on the SOMA Labs Lyra 8 Organismic Synthesizer. Reverb courtesy of Korg NTS-1

Phantom Oscillator - Impulsecontrol

Composed and performed on the Soma Lyra 8 synthesizer. Additional effects processing via the Korg NTS-1

Phantom Oscillator - Music For Blurred Visions

Getting back to Industrial roots with a Soma Lyra 8/Uno Synth Pro duet.

Phantom Oscillator - Factories Have Feelings 2

Another track made entirely with the Korg Volca Modular.

Phantom Oscillator - Oscillator Complex

Another track inspired by the late great Vangelis and the soundtrack that made so many of us fall in love with the synthesizer. This piece was performed exclusively on the IK Uno Synth Pro.

Phantom Oscillator - The Light That Burns Twice As Bright Burns Half As Long

Drone improvisation performed entirely on the Soma Labs Lyra-8 Organismic Synthesizer. Reverb courtesy of Korg NTS-1.

Phantom Oscillator - Drone Painting No. 04

A long dry spell ended recently with the storm recorded for this piece. As you can hear toward the end, no one was happier to see the rain than the frogs. I recorded the storm and frogs with a Zoom H1n, all synth on this track comes from the Korg Volca Modular with additional delay and reverb via the Korg NTS-1.

Phantom Oscillator - Drought's End

This track is all Soma Lyra 8 with the Hyper LFO cranked up to over-caffeinated.

Phantom Oscillator - Caffeine

An extended improvisational piece using only the Soma Laboratory Lyra-8. This is the second in a series of pieces exploring the Lyra-8's Hyper LFO and the "Organismic" way it interacts with and influences the rest of the synth.

Phantom Oscillator - Improvisation For Solo Lyra - 8 Synthesizer,(Love Theme For A World Gone Mad)

I haven't released anything under the GASGIANTS alias in quite a while, but it seemed to fit this stuff. I'm working on an album for relaxed concentration, music to listen to while soldering synths. I guess most artists create, at least to some extent, for themselves, and this track and the others that will make up this album, definitely fall into this category. I hope others will enjoy them too of course!  This track is all Soma Lyra-8, with the Korg NTS-1 providing the reverb.

So, I have been slowly building a Eurorack modular system, mostly from DIY kits, and some music lends itself to the sort of relaxed concentration and methodical care required when soldering tiny electronics. That is the music I am attempting to produce for this forthcoming GASGIANTS album, which will be released on Bandcamp soon, and might even be available as a limited edition cassette tape!
Stay tuned.

GASGIANTS - MUSICFORSOLDERING PARTONE

The second track for a proposed album of dark ambient-ish drone-heavy music intended to lend itself to tasks requiring relaxed concentration, such as soldering Eurorack synth modules. This one is a slowly evolving drone piece performed entirely on the Soma Laboratory Lyra-8 Organismic Synthesizer, with a little help from the Korg NTS-1 for loads of reverb!

GASGIANTS - MUSICFORSOLDERING PARTTWO

The new album by William Elliott's GASGIANTS alias is out now and available as a short run cassette edition on Bandcamp! If you have been following me this year, you may recognize some of these songs  from earlier mixes posted here under different song titles. I renamed some of them to fit the synth soldering theme, so each track is named after a common component or chip that goes into the making  of a typical analog synthesizer module.

GASGIANTS - 01 VACTROL

This piece combines "Improvisation for Solo Lyra-8 Synthesizer" and "Drone Painting No.2" with a touch of dialog provided by Espeak, a rather primitive, command line speech synthesis program. I am starting to compile another Phantom Oscillator album for Bandcamp that will probably be called Orphans. As the title hopefully suggests, it will consist of songs recorded over the past two years or so that didn't fit with the mood or aesthetic of whatever album I was working on at the time.  Utopian Death March will be among this eclectic group of orphaned experiments, which will hopefully see a small cassette tape edition like last year's Music for Soldering. Stay tuned! BTW, the quotes spoken by my robot are not my own. The quote at the beginning of the track is by Peter Hitchens and the one at the end is by Bertrand De Jouvenel.

Phantom Oscillator - Utopian Death March

The modular synth I have been soldering together, module by module, is finally coming together, and this track is its first fruits. I have incorporated a couple of semi-modular modules in my system, as it saves money, space and patch cables. There are some really intriguing ones out now including the Elmyra 2 by Neutral Labs which does most of the work on this track. Neutral Labs was inspired in part by Soma Laboratory's Lyra 8 when designing this semi-modular synth, which is obviously why it had to become part of my system! I plan on channeling most of my purely modular synth work to a new alias, Occam's Raygun, but this particular piece sounded more GASGIANTS to me. Let me know what you think. P.S. the image for this track does not depict my actual synth, it is entirely AI generated.

GASGIANTS - Aurora Borealis

This is the first track to be credited to my latest alias, Occam's Raygun, the alter ego I plan to use for strictly modular synth work. This piece showcases the Moog Mavis module for both the drum and melody line patches.

Occam's Raygun - Cannon Fodder

Another track in my Sine wave series. This one cheats a little, as the 4ms Ensemble Oscillator, a sine wave oscillator, is joined by the more standard Erica Synths.edu analog VCO for the blurps and burps heard throughout the track.

Occam's Raygun - SINES #3

Wasps is an unedited jam recorded direct from a small AE Modular rig to my Zoom H4n Pro, warts and all, so to speak. The only effect was delay from the AE modular "Delay Lofi Type" module included in the system. The AE Modular VSYSTEM-1 also includes a Wasp style filter module which is a big part of this jam, hence the song title.
Happy Jamuary 2025, I hope you enjoy my first post of the new year as much as I enjoyed playing it!

Occam's Raygun - Wasps

First in a series of pieces commissioned for forthcoming YouTube series. It will be one of those relaxing and fascinating video series where you watch an artist paint a picture with music playing in the background. This track is an improvisation recorded in one take on the IK Uno Synth Pro.

William Parks Elliott - Alizarin Crimson

Second  in a series of pieces commissioned for forthcoming YouTube series. It will be one of those relaxing and fascinating video series where you watch an artist paint a picture with music playing in the background. This track is an improvisation recorded in one take on the IK Uno Synth Pro.

William Parks Elliott - Phthalo Blue

Third  in a series of pieces commissioned for forthcoming YouTube series. It will be one of those relaxing and fascinating video series where you watch an artist paint a picture with music playing in the background. This track is an improvisation recorded in one take on the IK Uno Synth Pro.

William Parks Elliott - Cobalt Violet

Fourth in a series of pieces commissioned for forthcoming YouTube series. It will be one of those relaxing and fascinating video series where you watch an artist paint a picture with music playing in the background. This track is an improvisation recorded in one take on the IK Uno Synth Pro.

William Elliott - Vermilion

William Parks Elliott - Gold Ochre

Another in a series of pieces commissioned for forthcoming YouTube series. It will be one of those relaxing and fascinating video series where you watch an artist paint a picture with music playing in the background. This track is an improvisation recorded in one take on the IK Uno Synth Pro.

William Parks Elliott - Payne's Gray

Another in the series of pieces commissioned for forthcoming YouTube series. It will be one of those relaxing and fascinating video series where you watch an artist paint a picture with music playing in the background. This track is an improvisation recorded in one take on the IK Uno Synth Pro.

William Parks Elliott - Sepia

William Parks Elliott - Chromium Oxide Green

Melody played on the Moog Mavis, surf-like sounds produced on the Korg Arp 2600m. 

William Parks Elliott - Undertow

Melody played on the Moog Mavis, background textures produced by the Korg Arp 2600m

William Parks Elliott - Telomeres

Exploring the charms of the Nystrom Crum Hum digital synthesizer. Recorded in a single take, no overdubs, delay and reverb are from the Crum Hum's onboard effects. 

William Parks Elliott - 10,000 Fireflies Light Her Path

Another track exploring the Nystrom Crum Hum digital synth. This one leans into the Crum Hum's delay, reverb and drive circuits, taking it into sonic terrain akin to the Soma Lyra 8.

William Parks Elliott - Some People Are More Brittle Than Others aup3

William Elliott makes experimental synthesizer-based music under a number of aliases, including Phantom Oscillator, GASGIANTS, Interferenzmaschine, and Occam's Raygun. His uncompromising improvisational style has led him to embrace hardware synths such as the iconic Soma Laboratory Lyra-8 and Eurorack modular synths among others.

William Elliott

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