and, i think the argument of comparing my general competency test score (which is off the charts, just unheard of, nobody gets 90% on these tests) to my inability to pass the workplace behaviour test is compelling. apparently, i'm a genius. but i'm also apparently incapable of behaving in a work environment.

i can write an essay in an hour (see: this thread), but i need to get going on this. i bought a pack of smokes to keep me up all night, it would be stupid for me to waste that. i need to eat first, though. and i need to read over some old posts, first.

i've been toying in my mind the idea of being systematic about it by looking at the following three options: inability to work, inability to find work and unwillingness to work. i kind of want to explore the intersectionalities of these three ideas. but i need to look at the precise essay question a little more closely and make sure i'm actually answering the right question.

again: let's just see what i can come up with, and go from there.

i actually think i should be able to reconstruct most of the first one. the bigger question is whether it's going to be interesting as an instrumental work - and i think it mostly will be. it's the second one that's a little more up in the air, partly because it was constructed largely from the outtakes from the first one. but i'm going to just go through each of the files in the order they were recorded (not the order they're sequenced), finish them in every possible way i can think of and then figure out what i want to do with them.

see, the thing is that each of the first three tracks already have three or four versions, so they're already naturally "singles". and if i end up with ten singles, i have nowhere to put them.

i might explore the idea of putting them in as inri04a, inri04b, etc. that's kind of crappy.

or, i might crack and renumber. i've sold three discs so far, and they're all to the same person. it's not the most profound problem if those discs end up renumbered. i don't like this idea, but it's more important that the discography has it's proper shape.

so, i could end up with anywhere from 10 to 60 more tracks out of this. *shrug*.

i mean, my analysis of this period is that it's actually interesting music. i just don't like the vocals. at the same time, i want the period documented properly. again: i wish i had checked the tapes, because i would have realized the tracks are not at all "lost" and i would have completed it in sequence. i kind of thought i only had two or three tracks to work with (the ones i kept sequences for), not 22 of them.

but i may add things, if i think it's an answer.

i was putting this off because other things were more important. but i'm actually done the phase i really wanted done, and pretty much everything left is some kind of big project or another. it's as good a time as any...

of course, one of the things i'll have to try and figure out is just how much of it actually stands up as instrumental music. a lot of it was written as verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus, which can sometimes work, but sometimes doesn't. the vocals are mostly lame. but there's no point in replacing lame with lame. and i'm not rewriting 20 year old vocal parts...

i can't predict how long this will take, or how long it will be until i'm back to where i was. a month, maybe. it depends on how much i do. but whatever i do is the end of it.

there's 22 tracks from the tapes; the rest of the tracks from this period (98-99; inri and inriched) are purely digital. these 22 tracks are digitized across each channel on the four-track. for starters, i'm going to want to strip the vocals out of almost all of them (excluding the ones that are already instruumental). then i'm going to want to see how closely i can reconstruct the records, as they were. if i can do this reasonably well, i'll probably just turn inri and inriched into double records, with the original vocal versions on the flip side. that will take care of the bulk of it. then i'm going to need to chew on whether i want to replace the remasters i did in 2013 with the original mixes.

some of them, i'm going to want to compile together into electronic soundscapes that just include the drum machine, some synths and maybe some added vst synths. i'll no doubt crack on some guitars. this may require some rewriting; i'm letting myself go in reinterpreting them. this is what i was planning on being it's own release, sequenced some time in 2016. but it needs to be on this aleph-release, so i need to do this now. i'd have to sequence this to about march, 1999, which means i may turn inricycled B into a double or just replace it. anything else, i don't know. further remixes could conceivably end up on inrimixed.

see, i was thinking of doing this in singles, though. if it turns out that that makes sense, i may have to drop the two demos into negative territory. in truth, i don't actually consider either of them real releases, so i'm ok with doing that, although i obviously don't really want to...

i could convert some of them into doubles. or i may just leave it specific to the dvd. but it has to be dealt with now.

so, inriℵ0 is not complete, after all.

i won't have this problem with the other alephs.

ugh.

basically, when i looked at rehabilitating the inri material as the process of completing the discography almost two years ago, i fucked up. i just let what existed exist as it was. since then, i've taken a more comprehensive look at what i was doing, creating all these singles. that wasn't the initial plan...

i wanted to put a few of the tracks aside for a "chiptune" disc. that became the thru record, composed of material written from 2001-2003. however, it was initially supposed to also include material written over 1997-1998. after some mental gymnastics, i decided to put it off to a future release.

but, now the chronology is all screwed up. what i should have done was finish these files in 2013, and create singles for them.

i also didn't realize that the tapes were in such good condition. i should have checked that...

now that i'm closing the first period...i want everything contained.

i have a few options - i could append them to inrisampled, inrimixed, inrijected or the second inricycled. but none of it's really sitting as well.

i'm going to have to think this through carefully. but whatever i end up doing has to end up on this aleph-0 disc. otherwise, it's sitting open for who knows how long, when the whole point is to permanently close it.

i have to write my odsp essay first, though. but when i come back to this tomorrow, it's going to be with the aim of looking at each of these old song and figuring out exactly what i want to do with each of them. and that's probably going to mean just doing it, in sequence, and then figuring out how to present the material afterwards.

i've been playing with these aleph discs for a few months and turning various ideas over in my head. a rough concept of period discs for $100 and album box sets for $50 has stabilized, but the contents have fluctuated quite a bit.

as i'm currently finalizing the end of my second compositional period, these aleph discs need to be permanently finalized and put away.

after experimenting with various ideas, i've decided that there is no way out of a comprehensive period one disc. these pieces are too integrated to split at any rational point without splitting ideas across the set. nor does it make sense to put it in a 2xdvd due to the html front-end. rather, it must exist on a dual-layered dvd.

this is literally everything i recorded in the 90s, and the compilation is comprehensive - both mastered & unmastered mixes of everything i can find, unsequenced mixes, outtakes, discarded remixes, used remixes and anything and everything else from the period. it also comes with detailed liner notes - both distributed across the front end and in standalone 130 page documents, in word and pdf formats.

this was a lengthy process because it required cleaning off hundreds of pages of writing on my facebook wall and converting the necessary parts into a front-end. the next couple of these discs will happen much more quickly, as they really mostly just needs to be formatted. it appears, however, that it will take a few more weeks to completely finish this period.

for now, this is inriℵ0 - finally, permanently and irreversibly finished. so, i'm finally permanently moving on...

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/period-1-2