Saturday, January 9, 2016

war (final album mix)

this segue was also more time consuming than i expected, and i have to interject a few words about it. i want to point out that the unmodified version is still available on inrisampled - along with multiple remixes elsewhere. i'm tempted to put together a little ep, even.

sample art is what it is, and i do have a level of respect for it. because christianity is stupid. and communism is good. you can get a lot across through the form, and it can be as valid a means of musical expression as anything else. but, it can also be cringey if it's too heavy-handed. there's plenty of sample art in my discography, and quite a bit on this record even, and i'll stand by it against any criticism. i may be using existing sources of sound, but these are clearly my own creations.

the reality is that all music is created by recombining existing sound. i didn't invent the big muff, the minor chord or the guitar, either. nobody's going to get on me about recombining existing sounds in that context. it's just ludditism to treat technology as something distinct.

but, the version of this particular track that was initially on this record was a little too heavy-handed in the introduction. now, there was a thematic unity to it - it was meant to represent serenity, and was then smashed through by a goofy drum beat meant to represent war. the calm before the storm sort of thing. further, i *did* orchestrate it a little with backwards windows 95 samples (thank you, mr. eno). it wasn't a straight lift from...

.... i don't even know where it was from. bambi? the simpsons, maybe? i had a bunch of simpsons samples on my computer, because i had downloaded them from like a geocities site or something. i have to suspect that's what it *actually* was - some disney-themed simpson's skit.

but, it opens me up to some problems. i don't think it was a bad choice, in context. but, what i'm doing right now is pulling this record out of my kiddie pile (which is now restricted to those earliest 96/97 demos) and putting it in my collection of polished works. and, the idea is not sitting right with me at this point to put something that lifted in the center of the record.

so, i spliced the track up in a way that is similar to something i would have done at the time and have used that cut-up sample collage in replace of the reorchestration.

i've also brought the guitars back in, because i can. i kept them out more out of pragmatism than artistic intent. completing the record properly means bringing them back in.

so, i've got 11 & 12 up, now. progress. i really don't think that the next few will take nearly as much time to sequence, but we'll find out.

initially created in 1997. abandoned in 1998. reclaimed dec 8, 2014. rebuilt and resequenced on jan 9, 2016.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/war-2