Well, it hasn't yet but it is doing. It's Wednesday morning and I'm itching to get into the studio and try the new Cosmos Drifting Memory Station. Alas, the only times the studio is cool enough for a few hours of fun are the times I'm out horse walking. I'm off to Paul's tonight, back early in the morning though so might get a chance then. Will clear that SK20 out of the way, although I'm sure it's not posh or lovely enough for his amazing studio. With it gone I think there is floorspace for the air cond I have still yet to decide on. I have a list though, just need to understand all the specs and read a zillion reviews.
At least yesterday I stocked up on curry from RK Dining so ate well last night. And tonight and Thursday night too, yay. Would have been nice to get some music done - especially as I have promised a track to Sequences and there's that remix to do. Oh well.
Got a message on Twitter from someone who likes my books. Kinda amazing but lovely, especially as I have no idea who it is. She's even recommending me to her friends which possibly explains the improved Kindle sales lately. Astounding but very cool! Doesn't take much praise to get me going.
Went to Paul's and did, indeed, really like the Super-6. They only cocked up with the lack of continuous keytracking for the VCF - switches for that suck imho. Its digital waves sound brill too, which was a real plus and the oscillators and filter are superb. Played a few other things including the Moog, which sounded nice but, I dunno, somehow lacking in terms of the effect an envelope could have over the filter. I suspect it was my unfamiliarity though rather than any issue with the synth. Drank too much.
Pat's home tomorrow. Will have to get my shit off the floor, clear the painting stuff away, do some tidying up and see what I've broken or dirtied. She'll be glad to see me though so all will be well. Tim coming later to do album cover photo. Insanely we're gonna do it in the attic against the oil lamp backdrop.
I mean it. Saturday again and we did another good track. Pat will be away next Friday for a week and I'm already getting in the mood for long studio sessions. Bejaysus! Today's was called Rodrup.
Another of these appeared:
What else? It's Monday again, raining; I doubt I'll be walking anywhere this week as Tony's away and I need someone to prod me or I stay home.
Sequencer guy came and took away his baby. Showed me the progress so far and we talked strategy and direction and this and that. I hope I helped him, although at this stage in the project I think he might need Bjork posing with it on some TV program to help it take off. Or a video from Vlad. ;) Which reminds me, the Cosmos should be on the way soon - hopefully not incurring lots of tax for it to enter the country. Today (Wednesday) we're off to an ambient pub afternoon - hope it's not crammed and unpleasant. Tim contemplating some live stuff so we should at least show our faces.
Having agreed with Ron about the CD release, Matt's not sure about the Species Gap title and reminded me the original story was called something else. I'm sure we'll come up with something.
It's stupid Pat's been gone less than 2 hours and I'm missing her. Consoling myself by listening through recent Headshock tracks and writing down my thoughts. We should do something with this stuff.
BTW when we went into town we had a nice thai meal. The thing at the Ferret was broken though as Joe was self-isolating and it started at 8pm. not the 4pm Facebook claimed.
Monday morning, still hot and it's becoming clear I'm not going to get a lot done this week. Morning horse walk cancelled but I'm off to post office soon to send the modules from this week's eBay sale. Meeting John at lunchtime and will get some RK Dining food in to sustain me until Friday. Still looking into the whole studio cooling thing but I feel reluctant to go the whole hog and get air cond, while I worry about the damp/mould effects of evaporative cooling. Simon Posford has one of the Dysons but he says it's little better than a fan, as I kinda suspected. That said, my mum has bought one of the small ones and the air it expels does seem cooler than the ambient temperature, although its effect on the room is more about airflow than cooling. Oh well.
One thing that occurred to me is I could find something completely different to do when it's too hot for the studio. And, indeed, I've been writing again. Did the first decent square in my trip-tych, and I reckon the idea of small patches and the fewer brush strokes is starting to sink in as a good thing. We'll see.
Yeah that's me in a kind of pot-bellied greek god pose. I was sorta hunched over the painting and catching my reflection in the mirror leaning against the bookshelf. Hence the lean and the moobs.
Right, almost post office time, should find some pants...
Yeah we did! Tim was here and we did groove-type stuff in the studio of light. Football is on later and I'm pleasantly chilled, ready for being more chilled and watch more Godzilla if Pat heads off to bed early.
Yeah baby!!! That's a selfie, I've done one!
I remembered this morning that I'd promised a track for the Sequences anniversary edition - so I'm making myself listen through recent things and rating them. There's quite a lot of it!
Last night (Sunday) we sat through Prime's The Tomorrow War - utter nonsense that made me pine for the three hour Godzilla King of Monsters that I watched, in sections, over the course of the week. Definitely one of the sillier time travel movies with a plot so full of holes we stopped even thinking about them. Godzilla, on the other hand, turns out to be some kind of Earth Policeman, along with other Titans who wake up when humanity need culling. Alas, they can be misled by a giant, three-headed flying dragon alien. I think that was it and not a million miles from my lizardy overlord theme, I guess, so obviously I rather liked it. Did need a fair amount of magic smoke though.
Got an email from Herve Picart this morning saying he was taking my advice and putting his album on bandcamp (was formerly on Youtube as he has had bad experiences with record labels). Just playing now and it's great that he's back after more than 40 years!
Yesterday I began a track the random word generator called Ctesiphon. Ooh look it has the power to change my font! Anyway, it made me think, a little, about structure and why my stuff sounds so odd and why, to an extent, the BlackBox is helping me curb some of the worst excesses. I *think* it boils down to my long history listening to classical music and looking to make some kind of new electronic classical music that's slightly more unusual than 4/4. My polymetric stuff has always been a deliberate attempt to make looping material more of a brain-fuck. I don't count bars; or, if I do, I count them strangely.
Free from the very obvious vertical slices that DAWs have displayed since the first Atari Cubase, I like to have bars that don't always go in regular chunks. I did it way back when I used Korg SQ-10 sequencers, ARP sequencers etc. but really found my way with the P3's playlist function in which I could lay out patterns that could be (e.g.) a 3x7, 4x8, 5x9 type looping structure on one track running against something quite different on another. The BlackBox is currently limited in its loops to regular 4/4 multiples - but you can fool it in a number of ways. For example, if you aren't bothered about changing tempo, you can make a loop of a manually-set length that works fairly well. You can take liberties with that too - so for example if I recorded a drum loop of 37 bars and then went back to treat it like a clip, you can specify a length or allow it to be 'auto' which has some very peculiar effects, especially when combined with the quantize parameter. But generally I've been using more normal lengths and just shunting the starts around during playback until I find combinations that loop in fun ways. I can hear that this is rendering my stuff more like 'normal' music in places but I don't feel like it's screwing my process too badly. I occasionally listen through the ANT tracks and there are places where a playlist shifts around and perhaps isn't suited to the short song pop type format. Another influence, I just remembered, is Bo Hansson as some of his albums have a surprising, jazzy start/stop nature that you have to hear a few times before it sinks in. I always liked that kind of thing - the need to work at listening until something clicks. I suspect this kind of requirement infuses my music and my novels and leads people to think, rightly, why the hell should I put in the effort? Perhaps it's a good thing that, with the BB, I can do more normal things, if I want.
Hmmm, not sure why I launched into that pointless explanation/justification. I've had my first coffee so that's no excuse. I also realise I didn't leave the house yesterday and wonder if I will today. Right, coffee #2 then maybe I'll get back to Ctesiphon and see where it's at. Iraq, that's where it's at, or where it was at; yeah it's a place. Sorry, end of entry.
Hey it's Friday again. Stephen McKeown did a vid to one of my tunes.
Actually, now I look there's another too:
So that's nice.
Anyway, just taken delivery of hamster for a 2-week stay, which also means no walking for two weeks - so here's pix from yesterday.
Finally, this, from the other day, seems better than I first thought. Might do a finished version if I get my shit together. https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/ctesiphon
The year has peaked and so did I, apparently in the 1980s. Good walk this week, further afield around Buttermere. I guess next week will be similar.
We just had a painter guy in all week who made a good job but now things look rather zen-like, at least until we move everything back. I can see the beauty in minimalism, at least until I clutter it all back again. Pat has booked both cars in for services and I have that bloody tax bill next month. Hopefully we'll get through all that without begging Gary for more cash!
Yesterday Tim and I recorded 'Smooms' - an ambient, droney Synthi piece with respect to Peter Zinovieff who died in the week. I think it's rather good, but then I usually do.
Well now, more time has passed. It's been an expensive few weeks, what with the painter guy, the cars, the credit card bill and, to come, the tax bill. Cost over £800 to do the cars - mostly because of my brakes being screwed but not helped mad cost of a service for both. That was basically £300 for changing the oil and air filter, if I understand the concept of a car service correctly. Hoping PRS will cover tax bill which at least is only due at month end.
Yesterday I recorded 'Eocine' which I'm listening to as I type and thinking it's not bad at all. More of the sort of thing I was doing for the Gas Giant album - indeed I probably have enough for a second one already. Sounds like a dodgy connection somewhere though, hopefully a lead and not another channel of the new mixer. Will have to do another mix anyway, which is annoying - hope the dodginess wasn't recorded as I didn't save any of the 505 looping..
Cooler today, might get something done. Still feeling very productive (note I resisted writing 'super productive' there). Here are photos from this week's walk - almost 11 miles in sweltering humidity; we gotta be daft.
