Tag Archives: 2008

collaborations singles

Noggin + Spratt – Trampled

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Title: Trampled
Artist: Noggin + Spratt
Album: As Yet Unknown
Date: 2008

Bust out the samplers…
This is another one of those songs that really just manifested itself, whether we liked it or not. Kyle and I were spending some time in the studio, probably when we should have been studying for finals (though it could have been post-graduation), messing with the cassette deck and protools. Otis Redding really became our friend that day.
Download: otis-bounce-edit2011 (right click and choose ‘save as’)

As Yet Unknown collaborations singles

Ethan Master of The Hawaiian Ukulele – Party

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Title: Party
Artist: Ethan Master of the Hawaiian Ukulele
Album: As Yet Unknown
Date: 2008

EMHU goes Phil Spector…just kidding…but the amount of post-production this one endured is staggering. Ethan came out to Palo Alto and we tracked out a bunch of ideas one afternoon, this one got the most tracks recorded for it, so we just ran with it. I produced this one for Ethan during the summer of 2008.
Ethan is on tour right now with his band Spiked Punch, so definitely catch them if they hit up a town near you.
Download: ethan-party (right click and choose ‘save as’)

collaborations

Freddy Sanchez – The World As You Know It (demo 03)

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Title: The World As You Know It (demo 03)
Artist: Freddy Sanchez
Album: Acoustic Translations
Date: 2008

When I moved back to Texas from California, Freddy and I went on a musical madness fest. We played every open mic, we jammed the far corners of BCS, we moved magnets and turned them into binary data. He really wanted to record a set of demos to hand out, and I wanted to help out. With the help of his acoustically beautiful (though not sound proof) jam room, and some nice matched mics, we recorded a good few hours worth of material he had just been wanting to get out for a while. This is one of my favorites. More to come, for sure.
Freddy if you can, leave the name of this piece in the comments.
Download: fredro03 (right click and choose ‘save as’)

Homework

Jeff Cooper – 220b HW 1

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Title: 220b HW 1
Artist: Jeff Cooper
Album: Homework
Date: 2008

Synthesized from the ground up, FM style. I learned a lot about FM synthesis since I went to school for a while at the same place where FM synthesis was born…they’re pretty into that over there. This piece was a homework assignment, of which I cannot recall the premise or rules prescribed to it. I say this is synthesized ‘from the ground up’ because not only are all sounds synthesized by code that I wrote, but all sequencing as well is running off of code that I wrote.
If I had to (I don’t), I’d call it a cross between Paul Lansky (maybe Chowning) and Autechre.
“Paul Lan-who?” you say? Radiohead, Idiotheque, guugle it (it’s good).
And there’s your fun fact for the day.
Sounds + programming done in Chuck.
Download: 220bhw1 (right click and choose ‘save as’)

collaborations Live Bootlegs

Bananahat – On Looking Live Score

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Title: On Looking Live Score
Artist: Bananahat
Album: Live at Terman Engineering
Date: 2008

After successful recording sessions and promises of international touring, Bananahat regrouped for their first live work. We were commissioned to provide a live score for part of a modern dance act who were doing the finale of their dance suite in the fountain at Terman Engineering building.
Boy did we piss the cops off with this one. Besides the dronetones and feedback at high volumes, we actually had permission to be making said noises, and the authorities couldn’t do much but let us go on and try to enjoy it.
We practiced a few times, felt really good about it, and then did the show in late May.
This recording is missing a few things, namely the entire first movement, all the signal that Max was making (running a couple underwater mics [read: good mics in condoms], and some pvc tube contact stuff), and of course the general atmosphere of the whole event. It worked really well. The three of us really tuned into the dancers and they really fed off of the speakers as well.
It starts out with the part where the dancers started stripping off clothing, then moves into more ambient, watery territory, and it’s awesome in headphones (god bless you Cobi), then stick around for the drone at the end. We had it timed with the fountains and everything. A+ drone fool.
Big thanks to Cobi for organising this, and to both her and Max for being in this thing with me.
Really appreciate all the comments, as always.
Video and photos here: Bananahat Live at Terman Engineering with Red Rover Dance Troupe
Download: bananahat-redrover080528 (right click and choose ‘save as’)

collaborations Listening Room singles

Cooper and Spratt – Heptadecimal ER1

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Title: Heptadecimal ER1
Artist: Cooper and Spratt
Album: Listening Room
Release Date: 2008

(this one is long and I have to leave, so once again, the upload will be completed later tonight once it is done)(EDIT: It’s live now)
A tribute to Tsutomu Katoh, founder of the Korg corporation. Korg has made some really great synthesizers in their day, and, via the second hand market, I’ve come to work with a couple. First was an original ER-1 drum synth I picked up in Eastern Europe from my DJ partner. This is a really great synthesizer, geared for rhythm and drum lines. However, when it’s your ONLY synth, you can start taking it into territory other than clicky drums (clicky describes the overall character, but that bass drum is phenomenal).
One trick I got really into was using the audio ins to process other gear via a send. It didn’t take long before I started processing itself within itself, for some wicked, wild feedback loops. There have been open mics I’ve played with just this machine and a patch cable patched from one output back to the audio in. For drones, it really excels if you can manage to tame it.
This is a piece Kyle and I recorded early summer in Palo Alto, CA, using nothing but that one piece of gear and a cheap mixer. It almost feels like all the digital knowledge we had gained in such a frantic, short period of time, just came exploding out in one 45 minute speaker rape. We never intended to do this piece, much less record it, but once we got into the Hexagon, it wasn’t hard to get the ‘tapes’ rolling. This is largely untouched, minus a small section at the beginning where the gain pot started scratching. I don’t remember much talking between us during the practice, but communication definitely was going on as we both tweaked minor changes that would explode into much larger sonic metamorphosis.
It’s long, noisy, and droney, and loud enough, it will get the cops called.
Download: Cooper And Spratt – 00 – Heptadecimal ER1 (right click and choose ‘save as’)

singles

Noggin – 192c

Artist: Noggin
Title: 192c recording
Album: As Yet Unknown
Date: 2008
Part 1

Title: 192c recording
Artist: Noggin
Album: As Yet Unknown
Release Date: 2008

Mellow house track written / recorded / mixed in the middle of the night for a school project. Not mastered in any sense so you will have to turn it up. It gives you better bass that way.
Entirely MPC2000XL.
Download: Noggin – 192c Recording (right click and choose ‘save as’)