Jodo's song, from the oratorio: Dr. Homeopathic Doses O'Doom. An hour of too-mellow-to-be-techno electronica, with lots of textures and variations. Not minimalist, self-referential but not repetitive for more than a couple of minutes. For working, for socializing, or for intensive listening through headphones.

Arbeitslied

Work Song (Arbeitsleid)

Over an hour of rapid 15/8 arpeggio variations. Influenced by, but not: minimalist, gamelan, change ringing, new age. Too annoying to be ambient, but too slow in development to be anything else. Warning: worrying can be useful in daily life, and one may not want to completely remove one's ability to worry.

Dismantling the Subtle Mechanism of Worry

Dismantling the Subtle Mechanisms of Worry

Originally composed on paper in around 1978. It turned out better (and less like prog) than I thought it would.

Yfsserretteffa

I Wished To Give

Jazz?  Naah, it just smells a bit like jazz. It could be jazz, I suppose, if one treated it as the head and improvised over the bass/chords.

Moonless

A collection of 1980s/1990s works, from two different studios and a home computer/soundcard. All mellow, some more minimalist and some less. Sax on Green To Gold by Rick Haykin. All other instruments Ken Whitley.

Changing Colors

Constantly Amazed

Alsarasa

Slow melodies over simple harmony. Electric guitar tracks and Emu analog modular synth tracks. Crying angels and meditation on the paths not taken.

A House, Not Yet Lived In

For Aurora and Chaconne Diehl, wherever they may be.

A chaconne for Aurora, an aurora for Chaconne

A variety of things that don't fit elsewhere, from spoken word with piano to atmospheric weirdness to straight electronica. Everything but Continuum is from about 1984.

Continuum

The Bird and the Lion

A straight-up instrumental, but not in any known or recognized style. Like space-age bachelor pad music from another dimension. Utterly conventional but twisted and different. As goopy and maudlin as advertising music.

If I See You

Forty-five minutes of very slowly moving harmony and dissonance.

The Voyage of Rainfall

Blood

Guitars, percussion (guitar body, Discwasher handle, plastic garbage can), and Arp Axxe synth, recorded to 4-track reel-to-reel in about 1985. Guitar effects (phase shifter, distortion, spring reverb) all built from recycled parts and e-waste.

One Short Summer

For Aurora and Chaconne Diehl, wherever they may be

Guitar, Arp Axxe synth, drum loop from a possibly familiar 12" single, and voice. The big crash is a reverb spring, shaken and heavily processed. Recorded about 1984 to 4-track reel-to-reel. A protest against protests.

The Invisible College

Allegory - Ken Whitley

An atonal piece for Emu analog modular synth. Automated mixing provided by dbx noise reduction reacting to dirty tape heads.

Prehensile

Instrumental synth rock. Ten minutes long, but not really prog. All performed on Emu analog modular around 1983. Inspired by walking from Moscow, Idaho, to Seattle, Washington in an antinuclear protest, with someone whose food request, every time someone was going to a store, was for figs and cashews. Minimal and cheap but excellent trail snack food.

Figs & Cashews Too - Ken Whitley

Instrumental rock. All guitar, including the percussion. A sketch or demo, for a not yet existing fully formed recording. A fun song to jam on in the classic guitar soloist sense. The guitar melodies in the beginning should be a raunchy, greasy saxophone, but I didn't have one. Recorded first to two-track reel-to-reel, then moved to 4-track and overdubbed. The first part basic chord structure was improvised by me, Mike Strassberger, and Mark Turner. The second part was written by me, years later.

Happy Herman

Synth-pop, more or less. Guitar, Emu modular synth, and guest vocalist Eric Barcus. The first song I wrote from the perspective of the royal "we" - trying to address the differences between the people I was in college with and the people who had made the music I learned from (i.e. 80s vs. 60s). More overt influence, in this case OMD, than my songs usually show.

Responsibility

Guitar, Emu modular, and guest vocalist Eric Barcus. A small song about a cabin, a wood stove, and an experience.

October

Guitar, Emu analog modular, Yamaha PS-200 Portasound. Inspired by the Aleister Crowley book of poetry, the Bible verse it is rooted in, and by Robert Anton Wilson's hilarious misuse of that book in the Illuminatus! trilogy.

Clouds Without Water

Inspired by the work and suggestions of Neal Benton Davies - both the second ostinato created by delay and EQ, and the theme of the work as a whole. Emu analog modular synth and voice.

The Dissolution of Dead People's Anger At My Refusal To Join Them In Their Graves

A collaborative experiment. A friend sent me a synth clank loop, made on a Buchla synth. I dubbed it to 8-track and built a song around it. The lyric is written from the perspective of the New Mexico desert observing an early atomic bomb test. Guitar, Korg M500 monosynth, Emu analog modular, voices, Buchla modular.

Welding

Inspired by both pre-internet urban explorer newsletters and personal experience. Guitar, trashcan bass drum, Thomas combo organ, processed combo organ, bamboo flute, voice.

Breaking Into Buildings

Told from the perspective of, perhaps, a quark, or some other subatomic entity. Guitars, bass guitar, Emu modular synth, and voices.

And More

Musician, instrument builder, tinkerer, artist, weirdo with a bad attitude.

Yfsserretteffa Studios, home of Ken Whitley & more

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