Category: Rock

Earthrise

December 2nd, 2012 · · Albums, Earthrise, Electronic, Jazz, Music, Rock No comments

It’s been a while. But it has not been for nothing. Fresh off the shelf is my latest album, Earthrise. It’s a 40 minute solo concept album entirely produced with free/libre software (Ardour, JAMin, Audacity, fluidsynth, Rakarrak, and various libre plugins). Download high quality FLAC’s and Ogg’s below or get ‘em MP3′s from Jamendo where you’ll also find the album listed.

If you happen to dig the almost screaming instrument/sound in ‘Drowning Electric Angels’, then you are definitely not alone. But it may not be exactly what you think it is. It is, in fact, a theremin run through a wah-wah pedal, autotuned, compressed, and, of course, followed up by a ton of reverberation. Not only does it make the instrument way easier to play, it also makes it possible to play it in a different, and in my opinion, far better sounding manner.

So, give it a whirl!

We Are Gonna Fight That War Tonight

September 22nd, 2012 · · Music, Rock No comments

“I am gonna fight that war tonight, ’cause if I don’t try, I am gonna die.” — Someone

I was playing on my djembe whilst scatting, and at some point I realised that I wanted to say something other than just random mutterings. So I wrote the lyrics and in a very short amount of time, I knew exactly how I wanted the track to sound. This is a rough approximation of that ideal — but then again, isn’t everything?

The Broken People

September 19th, 2012 · · Music, Rock No comments

“We are the Broken People; we have no hearts and we’re evil.” — The Broken People

I’ve been toying with the concept of “broken people” for a while, and somehow it managed to manifest itself. This song draws on some of the stuff I did back in April in its own slow, dark sense, though this time with the addition of the guitar. Enjoy.

Mad Man’s Mugger

August 11th, 2012 · · Music, Rock No comments

“I keep on rolling downhill from here; None of my enemies are afraid to come near me.”

And we’re back on the Rock side of Music. I’ve been learning the guitar these past few months, and since I couldn’t possibly do a flawless solo improvisation on it, I decided that I wanted to make a song with a distinctive trashy, out-of-tune, distorted, not-perfectly-timed sound that I would still find interesting to listen to. As you can probably tell, the lyrics aren’t perfectly sensible, as I paid more attention to the expressive alliteration of the lyrics rather than the prosaic content. So here it is. The Mad Man’s Mugger song.

Note: It has been pointed out to me that it may sound like I digitally altered the vocals to make it sound deeper, etc., but I actually didn’t use any effects on any of the vocal tracks other than an equaliser to ensure that the voices were as “clear” as possible in their respective ranges.

The Prophecy of the Machine

April 14th, 2012 · · Music, Rock 4 comments

“I don’t mean to be mean, but you’re a broken machine!”

Exams are finally over, so, I’m back! I have a couple of partially finished tracks that I’m working on, but I felt this one was ready to go. I have tried to retain the same atmosphere as in “Surrounded by Strangers”, using piano, organ, bass, and drums. But I couldn’t resist adding a mean sax solo. I played on an old, used reed to get those screechy sounds that you normally don’t want, but I thought they fit into the style quite nicely. Definitely not for everyone, but the music everybody likes is typically quite boring IMHO.

(Remastered, 16 April 2012)

Surrounded by Strangers

April 6th, 2012 · · Grunge, Music, Rock One comment

“Their faces seem familiar, their eyes seem fixed on me. What do they want? What do they want from me?”

I must confess. This recording was not entirely done in one go. The ending features a high-pass filter and some sound effects which were added later in Audacity. This time I wanted to do something a bit darker and slightly more poetic. The tempo is a bit slower, and the chord changes aren’t Dorian at all, in contrast to the previous tracks. I was thinking of adding a really grungy guitar, but since I don’t play guitar, and guitar synths just don’t capture the sound properly, I decided to keep it as it is. (If you play guitar and would like to provide me with a nice sample, I might consider doing a new version, though). Hope you like it.

Dear Juno

April 4th, 2012 · · Music, Rock No comments

“Dear Juno, did you know that there’s so much snow when you go? And I don’t know how to say no?”

Dear Juno is actually the first time I have ever recorded myself singing vocals. I didn’t originally plan to add vocals, the plan was to have a long solo with a classic Juno-106 soundfont, hence the title, but as I was playing the solo I suddenly played this one line, which I was really digging, and decided to just loop it over and over again. And shortly thereafter the vocals emerged as the natural next step. The style is a bit more pop-rock than I normally like, but I must admit that I truly adore this track myself, despite the somewhat shaky vocals.