Constructive Interference

The final push. Six songs left. Will it be uphill or downhill? If today’s track is any indication, maybe neither. The production break doing the covers was a nice mini-reset, and I’m feeling halfway between “write things for me to listen to” and the experimental day trips that started a couple of days ago. Constructive Interference is exactly in that halfway point. It’s part normal electronic thingy, and part production experiment. My primary digital audio … Continue reading

Last Sad Day / Henry James

If you’ve read any of my past-year accounts, you may remember that the 22nd is Cover Day. I’ve done a few, with mixed results, at least for my own satisfaction. I’m of a mixed mind when it comes to this tradition – on the one hand, I think it’s a huge compliment to have someone cover something you’ve written just days earlier; I’ve certainly taken it that way. On the other hand, I’m always nervous … Continue reading

So Are the Grains of Our Lives

Well, here we are at the end of week three. It’s been a somewhat frustrating month so far, with me wishing that I had a few more songs in the can, but I’m not unhappy with my overall output. I am, however, feeling like I may have reached the end of the ambient arc, or at least want to try doing things that may be a little less listenable, but which give me an opportunity … Continue reading

The Wire Heart

An area of sound that I’ve been really enjoying for several years now are “broken” things. Normally, I do this with distortion or granular synthesis, or sometimes by adding randomness to some element of a sound. A few years ago, I bought an expansion pack called “Beautifully Broken” and many of those sounds capture exactly the character I’m talking about, even if I haven’t used the patches in many tracks that have gone beyond the … Continue reading

Big Bend

Ugh. Middle of week three and I’m simultaneously feeling like I’m struggling to find ideas and not having enough time to do the ideas that pop into my head. Neither of those things is true, and I know that, which makes it worse. So am I just being lazy? What’s the hang-up? I don’t know. The last several pieces I’ve done are ambient, dark ambient, melodic electronic, what have you. Part of my own mental … Continue reading