Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

I recorded this song for one of my Audio Production classes in college, I think in junior year. Greg Shear helped out with recording while I played bongos and then played the acoustic guitar tracks. Leah Scarpelli sang it a couple times, allowing me to create the overlapping chorus at the end. It's always been one of my favorite Bjork songs, and it was really fun to collaborate musically with people I hadn't created with before.

Audio Production

Hyperballad

Akira and I wrote this when I stayed at his house in Yokohama in the last weekend of October 2004. We went to a practice space (I think called "Ya-ya studios") and jammed until we came up with this song, then we recorded the drum and bass track and our guitar parts. The title literally means "hot song" but (at the time at least) "atsui" was slang for "awesome".

鎌倉 週末

熱い唄 (An Atsui Song - 2004/11/01 mix)

This is one of my favorite things I’ve ever recorded that I sing on, half because I wrote the melody so it’s within my range (mostly) and also because it’s a Bison Bison song so the vocals don’t have to sound great. I recorded this in one take, vocals and guitar at the same time, during the summer of 2003 when I lived in the Terraces on campus at Ithaca College doing research on recording of infrasonic elephant calls. I liked it so much that this version ended up as a secret track on one of the next Bison Bison albums  

I changed the whole song to Em (the original is in Dm and changes to Am in the bridge). Doing the bridge in Em made that part sound like “Yr Letter” and I sang Blink 182’s “A New Hope” as part of it and then sang part of The Smiths’ “Ask” at the end. No “Porcelain” though.

Nothing Can Kill The Grimace

Get Clear Wedge (Acoustic Take 1)

20 years ago today, far's "Water and Solutions" was released. About 17 or 18 years ago, this cover of "Wear It So Well" was recorded during a blizard, with a bunch of friends who got snowed in at my parent's house. 

Chojin had been recording "Flowers and Wind Glasses". Victor had to go somewhere, so we tracked all the drums immediately and he left, and Nick left because he was super-allergic to my cats. Evan was there doing vocals and him and Dan were finishing up guitars. Sarah and Kenny were over to sing their parts on the album and Aric was there... hanging out?

There was a snowstorm so the Chojin couldn't head home to Connecticut, and everyone stayed over. We decided to record a cover of this song. Evan and I sequenced the drums, Dan and I played the guitars, Aric played the bass, and I played some keyboards. Evan, Kenny, and Sarah all sang the vocals. I was kind of in a meta way our imitation of far and deftones covering "Savory", which was a b-side for this album. We couldn't figure out the chord for one part of the song so we bugged Shaun Lopez on AIM about it, but he couldn't remember how to play it (or at least claimed to). It was a lot of fun and came out messy but beautiful.

Alex Williamson

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