Title: A Hole In The Floor
Artist: Noggin
Album: From Inside the Furnace
Date: 2011

A 13-bit Ensoniq EPS sampler and a Jobim record make up the bulk of this ambient tune. Drums sampled from an R&B remix 12, whose artist I will not mention for fear of blind RIAA lawsuits trying to make a point about sampling.
This one comes to show yall a bit of a recent glimpse into my musical life. I recently was asked to participate in the Friendship Trail…a walk around Anacortes early in the morning during the Saturday of the final What The Heck Fest / Shipwreck day. For this piece, I had 4 copies of the tracks, left track, right track, both tracks, and a hard-limited mixed track, all playing at slightly varying times on 4 portable recorders taped to an acoustic guitar (thanks Rocky). Starting the recorders at different times kind of allowed the sound to move around the body of the guitar, and really started to sound wicked once the drums kicked in. Coupled with some awesome hardware switches for timestretch ranging from -60% to -75%, I was really able to adapt this song to a live environment….the snares sounded especially glitchtastic with that gnarly timestretch kicking.
Karl had me set up to play under a small ivy-covered archway off of 4th street. I misinterpreted the location, and arrived at what I thought was the location about an hour and a half early, to try and affix these things to the guitar (in the rain), and also record some vocal harmony to sing with on another track. Well, Karl shows up shortly thereafter and starts to do some prep of his own. Slowly but surely, the entire crowd starts showing up. What I had failed to realise was, I was NOT at the archway where I was to play. I got messed up because, the trail was supposed to start at the W.T. Preston, a museum of a paddle boat, but the night before, I had come across a smaller, steel-frame model of the same boat, with the nameplate “W.T. Preston” on it, and I incorrectly figured THAT was the starting point.
Blau eventually set me straight, and after the crowd walked on to the next performance, I stayed behind, under the bow of the boat, and finished my vocal harmonies. Eventually, I was able to find my archway and prepare.
This is the piece I had playing as the crowd arrived. Timing worked out great, because I was able to shave this 6+ minutes song into more like 2 by starting it later and starting it earlier than the crowd got there. When the drums hit, I knew things were ok.
Thanks to Rocky for the guitar, thanks to Karl for the invitation, and thanks to all those at Heck fest who got up at 9 in the morning to walk around in the rain and listen to some music in strange, new places.
Download: noggin-holeinthefloor (right click and choose ‘save as’)