Stonking Week!

 Do people still stonk? Anyway, I've reached Friday morning and I'm actually buzzing at the prospect of an absolutely typical afternoon's drinking and making music. I recorded a thing yesterday that was all ambient mush and shifting noises - I wisely left out the two drum loops I'd made as it really doesn't need them. Reckon I conjured up the atmosphere of boggy moors where the paths are all surrounded by inverted commas. I even have an idea for a section that will come next, which my two bottles of Desperados will help summon. 

Anyway, last night the single was played by Marc Riley.  and I really don't mind that he assumed any Nagle involved had to be Chris Nagle. (No idea, I had to Google him too.) Previous delights in the week were watching grandson boogying to the single, walking to the Halo (but not waiting quite long enough to see it against a truly black sky), getting a cautious thumbs up from the vet re: Jasper and finding a tiny bag of weed on my morning walk today. OK, Jasper's dirty protest while I was walking on Wednesday introduced just a small glimmer of reality but I can cope with those. And the bag of weed isn't enough for even a modest pipe full, but still; feels like a victory.

At some point soon I'll have to power up the Mac and import all the Zoom stereo tracks, which are really finished BB jams. I think the consistency of instrumentation is helping bind them together - that little Reface CS is delivering some great stuff and I've even dropped the 0-Coast for now as I've realised it involves too much thinking. As long as the pieces are all built around the Digitone, GR-1 and BlackBox, I reckon I can move things freely in and out just capturing stuff as I go. Shame the Digitone MIDI thru doesn't appear to pass controller or PB stuff though, or it wasn't doing yesterday. That's where the P3 was better.  

I tried a new formatting program supposed to help get more from SD cards but not 100% sure I trust it yet. I only had three 5-min-ish loops going and thought I heard crackles. Same spec card as the original too so will be monitoring closely. Not sure they show on recording? 

Anyway. here's some pix from Wednesday's muddy trek. 

Onwards! 

Our first single release!

 It's rather exciting - especially as I will soon be able to talk publicly about Another New Thing. I think it's out on Friday so I should maybe not post this until then. 

Here's the video, which is pretty fab and hopefully we'll get some radio play, Radio 6 I'm thinking of you!

We're on Instagram as https://www.instagram.com/another.new.thing/

What else? That'll do for now.

I put another weird/ambient track on Bandcamp, mostly because my soundcloud is full. It's the kind of thing I'm doing right now, although I feel I should move around and play with the gear in another corner. Still no interest in faffing with modular, suspect that's not going to change. 

Major problems with Jasper's arse this morning. Spent quite a while easing out a nugget from a very swollen hole - not really how I'd imagined spending a grey thursday. Poor thing was very unhappy and so was I. Some poo excreted in the brief time I was shopping. Slipped him an extra half steroid but afraid I may have to face the hard truth that it isn't fair to him to carry on for too much longer. I'm not good with hard truths though. 
I bought a large amount of curry from RK Dining yesterday, which will be my lunch for the next week, except tomorrow when we're walking somewhere near Rossendale, I think. Dreading leaving Jasper though, let's hope that steroid does some good...

Two people told me how well Jasper looks this morning. 

Well, the single is available today. As I don't like to post too much, I didn't put up this week's walk pix anywhere, so here will do:

New Week but rather familiar.

 But the weather is mild. We both heard a mouse in the kitchen last night. I have been watching the pile of rotting bird seed Pat constructs draw ever-closer to the house so it's not a huge surprise. Why she always overdoes the fooding is a mystery. Today I will be digging out the traps - and implementing a cleaner regime, with the back door not left open so freely so often. 

An evening walk and a Scrabble game. I had hoped to slip 'quagmire' in there but never got the g. Not one of our better games as we missed too many triple word scores due to tactics creeping in. 

Hmm, it's Saturday morning and rather an odd one. We got a lie-in. For some reason Jasper didn't wake me up at 07:30 as usual so I slept through for another hour. Poor old git slept until just before nine. Guess he must have been tired after a long day fast asleep yesterday. 

Friday afternoon's thing was uploaded and deleted a few hours later. The two long looping sections worked well but I think I recorded them as a single piece later and forgot to copy over. In theory they could run together for an hour or more as each lasts over 5 mins but isn't the same length. They roughly keep up with each other too - different sections beginning and ending and played together. That relationship will change on each loop, assuming I did it right. Eventually instead of, say, two piano sections playing against each other it'll be a piano with a weird choir. 

Anyway, here are a few of the photos from this week's walk, hopefully ones not used on farcebook.

I plan to do that last section of the GR-1 interview that doesn't hang together today. Needs simplifying really as the menu stuff only needs a brief mention, not the detailed gibberings of my notes. If I get chance I'll do another mix of yesterday's track without the weird high string sequence (which must have sounded great at the time!). 
I decided to play Neuland for the first time in ages this morning. Not sure why I keep trying to find something good in it. Amazing to think two really talented dudes could have produced it actually. I suspect I won't get to the end... 

New albums and a walk up Pendle

 Yeah, got the new Roedelius Selbstportrait and it's a real return to form. Lots of old instruments - shows to me that he's a splendid organist. I think I maybe prefer to hear him play the organ rather than piano. Also got Schulze's Trancefer - many years too late. It's another great one too, helped by real drums and cello. 

In the week we went up Pendle. I shall paste in a few photos here for completeness.

I recorded something coolish - but did the good version to Instagram and the iPad mic. Will try and recreate at some point. Quite feasible with that Digitone/Blackbox setup I now have. 

 Anyway, it's Sunday and I'm about to feed Jasper. Pat's gone to do the horse but she's pretty down at the moment. The whole Covid thing seems to be eating away at her, probably compounded by lack of access to little William, Caspian's condition and whatever else. She was throwing up over night again, which is worrying. We had fish & chips so nothing spicy or odd. Had a nice walk but marred by her cystitis. Another things that hits her when she's stressed. Must think of ways to cheer her up. 

Saw mum today, played Scrabble which seems to have been a good idea. It's her face op Wednesday morning early so will be there for that. Mum like me in that she doesn't let things really get to her. Probably others see that as unfeeling or impenetrable. 

Have got the review going nicely now, struggled for a bit to put the notes into a coherent order but happy with it now. Just a bit of time required to knit it all together. May get it later if Pat goes to bed early. 

Right, stuff to do. 

More Blackbox fun

 A happy offshoot of the Blackbox's ability to record long files of a custom length is for collaborations. Tim came round yesterday and we did a bit of that kind of thing, one recording something then the other taking over and recording something else while the previous thing(s) play. Given you can do that 16 times and choose for each recording what you want to listen to of previous recordings AND given they all loop according to their own length, well, it's fab for making things that can shift and move around against each other, never quite the same. I left the bar synchronisation on so in theory things start from common places regardless of their length, but will experiment with that off too. Still couldn't find the power supply for the theremin - however as I type that I remember that it doesn't have one. It's one of those wee square batteries, duh!!

This morning I did some more draft #4 fixes. I'm now contemplating work on the GR-1 review but think I'd rather play in the studio instead. Discipline, that's what I lack! 

Have now listened through the album test pressing twice and it sounds magnificent. Still pinch myself that there will be an album and singles of this quality and I'm on them!

Oh, and any Cirklon users really should view Splitradix's video about Cirklon patterns - showed me something I didn't know - makes me think I should go and check the manual since I'm fairly sure I didn't see it in there or think to add it. Anyway, yay for the CC view! Maybe I should start using Ck patterns a bit more. Usually it's just a process of recording and either keeping or redoing until I get it right. 

Blimey it's Tuesday evening now, which is later than before. Today I finished applying the edits and tweaks to the novel. Draft #4 should be the final version - seems OK to me now. Hopefully I didn't introduce any last minute errors but will await Ben's cover before doing a final proof copy. Almost there.

Shooting the video for our first single this week - rather exciting. Some lass Dean knows is doing it for us, yay!

I listened through Parrots that poop at Twilight, the TD boxed set. Hard going, I thought but most people seem to like it. Tomorrow we're doing Pendle so hope it doesn't pee down. 

After that I'll finish the GR-1 review. A new version yesterday addressed two of the things I hoped would get done (the duff loop handling and display of voice pitch for the 4 voice triggers). I inevitably asked for more almost right away. 

I contributed to this tribute. They included more of the email than I expected but I guess I should have been more precise.