Category Archives: Spaceship EP

eps Spaceship EP

Noggin – Spaceship EP

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Title:
Album:
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Artist: Noggin
Album: Where is our spaceship, and how did we get on this planet?
Release Date: 2001







The Spaceship EP was conceived of, and produced, in about a weeks time, right around September 11. I had just started a new, somewhat menial job, and it allowed me lots of time to let my mind drift. The entire time I was there, I just wanted to be making music, so I kind of pieced this album together in my head during the day, then I would go home and execute later that night.
It’s my first real ‘concept’ album in that it has an underlying theme and/or narrative that I tried to stick to, or at least fabricate to tie the music together.
Imagine, for a moment, if you will…..two explorers drifting in a small space cruiser through deep space. No particular destination, merely a ‘push the envelope’ type mission a la Planet of the Apes. Eventually though, a malfunction (computer or human?) allows a rogue asteroid to collide with the ship. It’s not violent, direct hit, but it’s enough to throw the ship off course and lose control, plummeting towards the nearest planet/moon/heavenly body. At this point, one of the astronauts starts going crazy (space madness, anyone?). The other astronaut now has the delicate task of trying to save the spacecraft from destruction, and keeping his maddening partner from turning this into a kamikaze/suicide mission. One intense struggle and a forced sedation later, and the ship crashes into a desert climate.
Bloody bodies crawl from the wreckage and, after some rest and yelling and screaming about how stupid/crazy the other one is, they take off together in search of basic resources. Not long after that, they encounter life. Think furry-insect-alien-snake-with-huge-eyes, like you would see in the sleeve of some one-off 1960’s tripper album…barely classifiable as an animal, dusty and faded, but with an obviously present sentience. Not much conflict here as the being appears friendly and takes the astronauts to his colony (think more telepathic communication, a la planet of the apes pt. 2).
The mind-blowing-ness of the encounter, coupled with the beating of the landing, and the bleakness of space madness, and our happily deranged partner flies completely off the deep end. In a very short lived attempt to attack the friendly lifeform, he fails, begins to run off, before falling dead from ………..
Human and alien (relative terms, right?) continue on somberly, and eventually encounter the alien civilisation. Awe and wonder, wonder and awe. Technology, peace, music, all that utopian BS. Astronaut starts to catch wind of the maybe less than favorable intentions of the alien race, gains unequaled power / access to alien technology (due to security and status quo not being set up for such a different outsider), yadda yadda yadda, struggle for power, nuclear explosion, black hole forms in the ‘town square’, envelops all, the end.
It aint meant to be a real ‘story’, per se, and I’ve said too much, for sure, but that’s what this project is about.
Music produced in Buzz.
Download: Noggin – 01 Drift (right click and choose ‘save as’)
Download: Noggin – 02 Crash Landing (right click and choose ‘save as’)
Download: Noggin – 03 Organiform (right click and choose ‘save as’)
Download: Noggin – 04 The Soldier (right click and choose ‘save as’)
Download: Noggin – 05 Emergence (right click and choose ‘save as’)
Download: Noggin – 06 Collapsing Vortex (right click and choose ‘save as’)

Spaceship EP

Noggin – Drift

Artist:
Title:
Album:
Date:
Part 1

Title: Drift
Artist: Noggin
Album: Where is our spaceship, and how did we get on this planet?
Release Date: 2001

The opening track for the Spaceship EP is a long, ambient, eventually glitching exercise in deep bass and atmospherics. This track is intended to set the mood for the rest of the album.
Music produced entirely in Buzz.
Download: Noggin – 01 Drift (right click and choose ‘save as’)

Spaceship EP

Noggin – Crash Landing

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Part 1

Title: Crash Landing
Artist: Noggin
Album: Where is our spaceship, and how did we get on this planet?
Release Date: 2001

Get the impression that I love jungle? Freaking an amen break in Buzz is endlessly gratifying. I know that hardware samplers led, inadvertently, to a lot of the techniques/sounds we now associate with jungle styles, but the shear power of a tracker, and the ability to alter every parameter at every step of the sequence (in Hex, too), opens up a world of possibility to the beat surgeon.
Music produced entirely in Buzz.
Download: Noggin – 02 Crash Landing (right click and choose ‘save as’)

Spaceship EP

Noggin – Organiform

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Part 1

Title: Organiform
Artist: Noggin
Album: Where is our spaceship, and how did we get on this planet?
Release Date: 2001

Produced for the most part in Buzz, but I might have got the piano line out of cakewalk.
I’m personally proudest of the beats in this one. People seem to like it.
Lots of vocal samples so if that kind of thing freaks you out you might enjoy this. The melody should hopefully keep you grounded.
Download: Noggin – 03 Organiform (right click and choose ‘save as’)

Flotation Device Spaceship EP

Noggin – The Soldier

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Part 1

Title: The Soldier
Artist: Noggin
Album: Where is our spaceship, and how did we get on this planet?
Release Date: 2001

Pretty blatant sampling on this one, from a nice rendition of a civil war tune. This tune was originally put together for my first mix album, ‘Flotation Device’. Beats constructed in buzz, all edited together in Cool Edit Pro. I was doing all my mixes timeline style like this back then…then was just a section with a bit more personality thrown into it.
Download: Noggin – 04 The Soldier (right click and choose ‘save as’)

Spaceship EP WIP20040920

Noggin – Emergence

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Part 1

Title: Emergence
Artist: Noggin
Album: Where is our spaceship, and how did we get on this planet?
Release Date: 2001

So I’m going to post this album, track by track, in reverse order, so it appears in the correct order when sorted chronologically descending.
This is one of my favorite drum n bass tracks to have ever worked on.
Contains a few mangled samples, but they will remain anonymous for the sake of the internets.
This track appears in screwed / house tempo form on the original Work In Progress mix.
Download: Noggin – 05 Emergence (right click and choose ‘save as’)

Live From Tiki Island Spaceship EP

Noggin – Collpasing Vortex

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Part 1

Title: Collapsing Vortex
Artist: Noggin
Album: Where is our spaceship, and how did we get on this planet?
Release Date: 2001

This was the track I wrapped up 2001’s Spaceship EP with. I came up with this concept album while mindlessly stuffing envelopes at work (I think I totaled 10,000+ when I left), and when I got back to the room that evening – and for the next week or so – I worked relentlessly on getting this EP put together.
I will explain the concept of the album in the posts to come.
Vocals by Koral North aka DJ Fro, but you wouldn’t know it and I doubt he even does.
This also appears as the last track to the mix album, ‘Live From Tiki Island’.
Download: Noggin – 06 Collapsing Vortex (right click and choose ‘save as’)