Trent's Coffeehouse in Narrandera

Here's my remix of Trent's Coffeehouse in Narrandera for #bringtolightproject15.

It was great to see instant interest in the installation. This little guy watched the video a couple of times and then discovered the percussion laid on top of the television, which screens sound-activated visuals and is going to Burning Seed this afternoon.

Disquiet Junto 0194 Clock Play

The Junto this week to make a track from a clock was a great prompt to try an idea I'd had. Last week I recorded a drum part that I thought sounded good but my family thought sounded like all my other drum parts.

Undeterred I thought it'd be interesting to make the track into a round. So I duplicated the drum part and staggered their starts by a bar each. Then I got stumped by the idea of composing a melody to also be a round with it.

When the Junto instructions arrived I was disappointed that I haven't recorded this amazing clock at my new workplace. It's a German grandfather clock from the 19th Century that came to Griffith via an auction in Melbourne. It looks amazing with numerous bears carved into the case and large chimes.

Instead I thought of my alarm clock which makes a horrible bleating sound. I've heard a bit of it since starting my new job. It was recorded using my Rode VideoMic. The drums had been recorded using a Rode NT4 stereo mic.

Once I started manipulating the bleating alarm in Ableton Live, I found it sounded keyboard-like when dropped an octave. For a while I played around with different pitches and speeds, then I went back to an early attempt and gated it with the Beat Repeat effect.

A bassline was made using a VST, then Valhalla Shimmer reverb was employed for that octave above and below effect. Then I went to bed.

When I returned to the draft this morning I began thinking of a guitar part. I experimented with a few chords and then, when time allowed in the afternoon, recorded a part and layered it four times to create another round.

Then I added a bassline, which seemed way too murky multiplied by four, and raised the VST bass part an octave to sit behind the alarm clock. The reverb on the drums smoothed out some of the parts which drift out of time, which is something the delay on the guitar does too. I panned the guitar parts from left to right.

If you listen you can hear the round go 'round your head, which is kinda cool given the circular representation of time on an analogue clock face.

This is my 40th Disquiet Junto video.

Disquiet Junto 0193 Semi-Parallel Lines

I think I might've misunderstood the Junto this week. Seems like I've ended up with a sketch I meant to record but a different feel than what I wanted.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up the guitar and spent a while riffing around E7 before settling on the chord progression here, E A# D C. For the parallel part it goes to G.

I recorded the drum part so that I'd have something to keep me in time. Then the guitar part, then the bass but these two were recorded independently of each other with just the drums in my headphones.

Lovely warm day today, it's starting to feel like spring. I've been busy working on a soundtrack, so it was good to be motivated to record this riff although I think I could do it better differently.

Gentle Borrower

John Oswald's essay Bettered by the Borrower: The Ethics of Musical Debt inspired this song about inspiration and copyright, Gentle Borrower. This is a new version using the vocal Jo recorded in 2008, as part of the album VISCERA recorded for the RPM Challenge.

Dunno, the timing might need some work yet. And that keyboard during the first verse doesn't quite sit right. I think I'm still to get a definitive version of this song.