publishing 9:46 outside of the magenta box (inri055)

inri036 is now complete.

there's two new instrumental mixes here, and three vocal mixes from 2002. overall, it's sort of a psychedelic folk release, which is a bit of an anomaly for me. it was never done, never felt right. until now...

i'm quite happy with the two instrumental mixes here, so do check them out.

--

my memory is a little fuzzy with this track, other than that it was constructed all at once in the middle of the night on a cold february morning in a basement that wasn't well heated.

i believe that sean initially brought in the a capella vocal that is heard in the acoustic demo under the request that it be developed in a folky style, and the track was built from there. we seem to have done the live version the next week, meaning i must have written it over the week.

there was some hard drive corruption as the demo was being recorded. i was in a glitchy mindset at the time and decided the skips ought to be interpreted musically. i'm not sure i'd make the same choice now, but i'm not willing to second guess myself, either. so, i skittered up the bass and organ parts to make the entire track sound glitchy to compensate for the skips. i also ran the vocal file through a musical algorithm that involved slowing it down and pasting it over itself to create a collage of voices somewhat similar to a robotic choir. as the track is otherwise rather pastoral, all of this glitch provides for an unusual juxtaposition.

as mentioned, the track was built up quickly, but it was always meant as a demo. that is to say that the vocal-driven 2002 version of the track was not complete, and was never completed.

i came around to completing it as an instrumental work in mid october, 2014. the removal of sean's vocals required some mild rethinks in terms of melodic content, but the real additions are threefold. first, it is substantially remixed to make it sound thicker. second, some sound design or soundscaping was constructed, mostly for the beginning of the track, but some guitar parts were also added throughout. third, drums were added. this converts the track out of folk (a genre i spend almost no time in) and back into psychedelic pop (my usual home) with hints of fusion, prog and idm. as it is, this can be viewed as the definitive (if non-comprehensive) third incarnation of rabit is wolf, which was being torn between freak folk and folk punk tendencies in it's general tumbling towards "folk".

written in early 2002 and recorded in early 2002 and late 2014. the final fuck boxes mixes were finished on nov 15, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, electric air reed organ, electronic drum kit, voice (1, 5), sampling, sound design, vocal manipulations, digital wave editing, production

sean - vocals/lyrics (2,3,4)

released february 20, 2002

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/9-46-outside-the-magenta-box

fuck boxes (overdub mix) and fuck boxes (final mix)

1) this mix removes the acoustic guitar(s) and integrates an electric guitar line into the end of the piece. it gives the track a very different, almost dubby, kind of glitch-hop sort of feel. written in early 2002 and recorded in early 2002 and late 2014. this mix was finished on nov 15, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/fuck-boxes-overdub-mix


2) this is the final instrumental mix of the track, encapsulating all instrumental parts written and recorded for the piece except for a guitar line that is unique to the overdub mix. written in early 2002 and recorded in early 2002 and late 2014. final mix completed on nov 15, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/fuck-boxes


3) the final mix is also on the j^2 record.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/fuck-boxes-2

on third thought, the dub mix can and will be done - i really want this, so i'm forcing it a little. the only thing i'm taking out is the acoustic, which makes it a universal overdub (that is, it includes the original overdubs). acoustic guitars are beastly instruments when it comes to the mix, hogging the whole spectrum. and i made sure the acoustic guitars really did hog the spectrum, mixing it through three separate eq paths. what that means is taking it out opens up immense room in the mix, and i'm able to get the feel i want for this.

merely ripping those out created three parts very quickly. so, that's what i need to do, here - mix these extra parts into the dub mix, then see which ones i can take over to the final mix.

i should eat lunch first.

forget it....the dub mix sounds goofy...the track has a glitch quality, and i thought it would be fun to exploit that, but it's too long and disconnected to the point that it honestly just sounds like a reggae band that's so stoned they can't stay in time. i'm not getting anywhere by blaring leads over this, or even releasing it at all. so, scratch that idea.

i think it's done, but let me mull it over first.

ok, i've got what i think may be a final mix done, but i need to experiment with some lead parts.

the problem is that the end of the track is a little boxy, and it's restricting what's possible in terms of lead parts. if i loop something, it's going to feel cluttered. if i do some flashy lead parts, it's going to become a fusion track, and that's not really where i wanted to take the song. so, i'm probably going to leave the end section void of those lead parts.

however, i wanted to make a dub mix consisting of the overdubs i added to the track, and i'd be comfortable taking that in a more fusion direction.

so, i'm going to finish that up first, then mix the lead parts into the main track and see what it sounds like. i'm not expecting them to stick, but i'll have to hear it before i make a final decision.

so, it may be a little later than noon, but i still expect to be done by the end of the day....

uploading already completed tracks to inri056

1) this is the rabit is wolf version. written & recorded in late 2001 and early 2002 and mixed in early 2002. track released march 2, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/time-2


2) this is the rabit is wolf version. written & recorded in early 2002. track released march 8, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/psi-2


3) this is included for thematic purposes, and otherwise has nothing to do with rabit is wolf. written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. further constructed, warped and appended to over july, 2014. track released july 19, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-time-machine-4


three of what is currently four tracks slated for inri037. there's nothing new here, but this timeline will eventually be moved to my own site, so i'm documenting dates.

tentative writeup:

time remixes. inri037.

time & psi were partially a rejection of the folk idea in favour of glossy, somewhat experimental pop. i realized that it was reasonable to move in a more commercial direction, but folk wasn't something i understood well, so it was a weird direction for me to be moving in. experimental or psychedelic pop, on the other hand, was something i had a solid grasp on...

time had been initially recorded in the fall and was remixed in late february to integrate a drum part. no original files exist. psi was recorded quickly in early march.

the track, as it existed in rabit, was a conscious pop compromise. i had ideas that weren't explored to keep it poppy and that will be explored in the remix.

the time machine is added here as a bonus track. it's based on an earlier classical guitar composition that was always meant to be reinterpreted as an idm tune and finally was in early 2014. the thematic overlap makes it relevant, but there is otherwise no connection between the two songs.

i started working on what would become my fourth symphony very shortly after the material on this ep was completed, and it really represents the point where i lost interest in rabit as a concept, under pressure to continue moving in a direction i didn't have any interest in. there are folk and psych versions of the track; sean never caught on to the psych version, and i never had my heart in the folk version. there were final folk demos recorded as late as the fall, but the disconnect was not solvable. the vocal version of the fourth symphony is in some way a corollary of but is ultimately too separate from these files to include here. psi & time, together, consequently comprise what is the fourth and final ("psychedelic pop") phase of rabit.

written in late 2001 and 2002 and recorded in early 2002 and late 2014. the final mix was finished on nov , 2014. as always, please use headphones.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/time

ok, i'm awake now. that was a lot of sleeping. i'm leaning towards noon as an eta for this.

i'm very sensitive to the weather...

i had set the condition on myself this morning that if i finish the song then i can go to the punk show tonight. i instead ended up falling asleep, and now i'm afraid to go outside. and i'm still sleepy.

it's only -10 with the windchill. but i'm actually getting the feeling that i may not leave the house at all until it's passed next week.

this is why i always have extra spaghetti.

the song is legitimately almost done. i want to add some extra guitar parts. it'll only take a few hours from the time i sit down to do it. but right now i'm still nodding off...

i'm putting the final touches on this. final instrumental name: "fuck boxes".

excerpt from catch-22

"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there's a catch", Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

i've never had an apple device in my life, but i should look into itunes/beats/whatever.

beats is worse for payouts than spotify.

it seems like only google is doing this in the right way. consumers may want their free lunch, but the artists aren't likely to give it to them.

give it a few quarters, and i think google completely cleans up on this by inking exclusive agreements. it's going to drive apple to adjust it's payout model, and probably close down spotify altogether.

....and apple is actually arrogant enough to demand you upload from an apple product, lol.

google is the right choice. i'll figure this out later...

grargh. not happening, i guess. back to post-production...

yeah. they'll let me link the account to paypal, but they won't let me use it for this purpose. it's not like i really want to pay paypal, but at least it would work.

gah...

i decided to give uploading to google play a shot. it's almost five cents a stream. that's far more realistic as a payout. i'd expect that what google is doing is undercutting the competition, and that they will eventually raise the price. i'm on the other side of this, and i'd have to argue this is the right way forward. spotify isn't paying the artists. if google is paying the artists, that's a start, but the price it's charging isn't sustainable, either....

it's $25 to sign up, which is what stopped me from signing up before. but i've got $25 in my paypal account from sales. that's how i want this to work.

they only take google wallet. ok. so, i go to sign up and they won't take my debit card. i'm using a canadian grocery store card, so i guess they don't have it setup. that's reasonable, but then why make it the only option?

that's not what creeped me out, though. realizing that i can't make this transaction, i went to delete the wallet account i'd created.

apparently, google wants to phone you.

i don't have a phone, either, but that's not the point. about the last thing in the world that i want is a phone call from google. i just about had a heart attack.

scary shit.

it turns out google wallet has general problems in canada.

we can't use their phone software, either.

it's probably a "regulatory problem". which means that the oligopoly doesn't want to let in foreign companies.

our regulatory bodies get praise outside the country, and there are some upsides, i'll admit that. but they're generally driven by the desire to control the market, to keep rates higher. i'm one to argue for other options than market liberalization, as i don't think that is beneficial to consumers, either. but when you're dealing with these big companies, conflicts develop - because they want to control the entire process.

as the united states is a large and close market, it's a problem for canadian businesses, in general. there has to be some kind of workaround...

i ended up tweaking the mix yesterday. i think i'm finally happy.

i'm going to have to wait until 10:00 before i'm comfortable hitting the kit. i don't think he can hear it, but noise carries differently at 3:00 am than it does in the afternoon, and i'm considerate about this.

i'm considering maybe soundscaping the drums for the third part, anyways. on the one hand, the section kind of screams "zeppelin"; on the other hand, i want to avoid the cliches. i've actually got too many ideas floating through my head rather than not enough and am having difficulty ordering them.

it'll happen.

things always take longer than i expect. but it's part of the freedom of not working with boundaries. i love the fact that i don't have a producer yelling at me to get things done before a release date, so i can fit a marketing cycle. i wouldn't give that freedom up for anything.

a friend of mine at the time heard the song and claimed it was stairway, which was wrong by any reasonable metric, but it's stuck with me and i'm conscious of avoiding the bonham cliches for that reason.

with all the electronic noises and glitchy beats and stuff, it's definitely nowhere close to stairway now. i do admit that riff is admittedly rather page in character, but it's a rock riff, and it's kind of true of every rock riff - if it's not page, it's iommi or clapton or mclaughlin or hendrix. they invented it, so, you can't avoid a comparison on some level.

if it sounds like an existing riff, i can't place it, it's a stylistic thing...

...but there's really a big sign in my head that states, quite clearly, NO BONHAM. and i'm obeying it....

ok, i've got my schedule cycled back around for drums, now, and a few days to get the last two parts done. i think i will...

uploading unintelligible to youtube

the track switches tonight at midnight (tomorrow night), but i'm thinking about it now...

not my most insightful track, in either the sense of being purposefully or accidentally insightful. it's catchy, though - fun as far as silly 90s punk rock goes.

the most substantial thing is probably the nwa reference, in the sense that it's something you wouldn't expect - and foreshadows me moving in that direction.

the drums were played by recording myself rocking out with a pen on a wood table.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL3knvasuwQ&list=PL3JSjmqp0cbsN9vZEYmFDghfz0V6hWbLI


well, actually, i should add a few more words because it otherwise seems rather pointless.

i was at the time talking about starting a punk band with a friend of mine, named matt. there was actually a song recorded with matt on vocals and bass and myself on guitar (i can't remember the name of it, and don't have a copy of it). the name of the project was meant to be "second class citizens", with an acronym stylized as 2CC. nothing else came of it.

but i had initially written this song for that purpose and demoed it out to show him. that kind of explains why it's different than the other stuff on these early demos.

eventually, it became clear that the project wasn't developing, so i just added my own vocals. as the song was meant for matt to sing on, i didn't have any thematic concept attached to it. so, what i did was take random words out of the dictionary. it was honestly just a close-your-eyes-pick-a-page-pick-a-word process. then, i added the chorus in reaction to the random dictionary process.

....except the bridge. that's the nwa reference.

i guess you could maybe pull something accidentally insightful out of it regarding my view of lyrics in mainstream punk (or grunge) at the time. it could be interpreted as a parody, but i wasn't consciously thinking of it like that.

actually, it's sort of not worth the time. the max i can claim on this is $4000 (for the year) for living expenses, or $10000 for "professional recording expenses" that need to go to a for-profit recording studio.

i have no use for a for-profit studio for what i do, and i'd probably just end up yelling at the engineer until he walks out.

or kicks me out.

so, $4000/yr is basically useless.

the only reason i need to be concerned about applying for the $10000 and then just pocketing it is that it might harm me to renew. i want to avoid that. but i don't know if i'll still be alive in may.

the way the calendar aligns kind of works it out, though. i could maybe...yeah....it does make sense to apply for this, even though it's small.

i'm thinking the jury is probably full of liberal "arts" douches, though, the kind that think that celine dion is a singular talent and a canadian icon, and they're just going to be confused by what i send them.

there's this whole nationalist bent to it. and i'm often not friendly to canada.

but i should do this...

again: this is why some kind of minimal income is ideal to maximize freedom. this jury is not an audience of my peers. this would be more likely to work out if i wanted to be avril or alanis or something - or if i were a local indigenous or francophone singer that was carrying on a "cultural tradition".

it's a fundamentally conservative system. every second sentence says something about heritage (and i'm kind of the view of "fuck heritage!"), but there's not a word about creating new forms.

it mirrors the society.

you have to expect that.

i have to try....it's worth failing for....and it's practice for something else next year, if i make it that long.

they want two audio recordings. i'm going to give them two fragments.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/introduction


https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/second-movement-part-1-rough-part-2


i think these are 'pop' enough to qualify, and yet also have artistic merit.

wish i had looked into these grants a few weeks ago....i'd never claim i'm an organized person....

there's one that's open. everything else is closed.

until may probably.

had i done this in september, i'd have more options.

the one that's open is for "popular music". that's a complicated, multifaceted and bluntly intimidating term.

i guess in the sense that it's "not classical" you could sort of call what i do "popular music".

except that a lot of it sort of actually really is better described as classical music.

again, it's the kind of thing i have to think comes down to the person making the decision. if i'm trying to get past of panel of american idol judges or something.....it's not what i do. i have no commercial potential. but, if they're a little more open-minded...

i lose nothing but time trying.

time is important, mind you.

it's the only truly quantifiable thing in our existence.

the only abstraction with any meaning.

time is not money. time makes money seem useless and worthless in comparison.

but i think this is worth it.

escaping the studio for a familiar blast of new york at trinosophes in detroit

looking at his biography, it's surprising that i'd never heard of virgil moorefield before yesterday. well, the name is vaguely familiar, but i couldn't have placed it to anything. however, the biography (along with a bit of youtube sleuthing) made it clear that i'd better show up, as that slice of the history of new york's music scene is really exactly precisely where my brain lives.

he was performing a new piece, and while i got the impression that the band might not be entirely into it yet, i have to point out that it was a little bit generic in terms of minimalist post-rock, broken only by the inclusion of a sax player. it swayed and rocked like you'd expect it would, but that's just it: very predictable. there wasn't really anything new to it. the melodic lines weren't anything much to react to, either. it's one thing to be predictable and be good, it's another to be predictable and sort of mediocre at it.

listen. it happens. there are beethoven pieces that flat out suck. i wasn't going to make too much of a judgment on the basis of one piece.

the second piece (apparently a reinstrumentation of "i wish i'd thought of it sooner") was a lot more creative. it definitely exists in the space i referenced, but it was noisy and erratic and just overall worked very well.

the third piece (the one posted) was somewhere in between, in that it went back to the predictability of the first piece while maintaining some of the excitement of the second. it was more along the lines of being predictable and good. but, there were also some jazzy curve balls in there.

overall? i didn't get the same kind of raw power i get out of swans, the atonal mess of zorn, the messy dynamics of branca or even the glacial harmonies of steve reich. what i heard tonight was kind of reaching into all these places and pulling a little out of all of them without really hitting any serious high points. i didn't hear anything to define virgil moorefield, so much as i heard a lot of bits of things i'm familiar with from elsewhere - none of it really put together in a way that really grabbed me. i'm sure there's far more to his work than i heard tonight...

....but i can't help but think it was a good explanation of how i could be so into so much of what came out of that scene without having ever heard of him.

that being said? it was worth the $10. i'm glad i went, and i'd make the same choice next time. maybe i'll check out some more of his work in the meantime hoping to find the best of it...

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2014/11/08.html

publishing rabit is wolf (inri057)

this is inri038. which is done. inri036 needs another week. inri037 needs some analysis before i make predictions about...time.

there's no new recordings here. it's not even remixed, it's just finally sequenced correctly.

--

this is the sum total of the completed rabit is wolf studio experiments, which wound through a number of paths on their way to the project's eventual collapse. while there would be further acoustic demos recorded with sean, i ultimately decided to abandon their folky underpinnings and finish all further tracks as electronic, instrumental recordings. there was some thought of completing an acoustic tour demo at the time; it will appear shortly as inri040 and contain those final demos.

the recording was initially sequenced as a demo in mid may, 2002 but i foolishly deleted the files (i was running low on hard drive space) only to find out that the burn was corrupt and that the result was skipping. i did eventually recompile an ep of material, but it was in a different order and made no attempt to mix the tracks together. in reconstructing the demo, i've decided to recreate the original sequencing. the only difference between this collection and the initial collection is that the last track now includes sean's vocals, whereas it was initially an (eventually rendered incomplete) instrumental recording.

i need to be clear that the decision in sequencing the material this way is unilateral on my behalf. during this period, sean had made it clear that he was not satisfied with the more experimental and electronic tendencies underlying some of the tracks; specifically, he wasn't happy with the first or last tracks on this disc, as he felt they did not represent his vision for the project. on the other hand, i was less interested in purely acoustic music and more interested in electronic music. i was envisioning the project as having a split personality between an acoustic live presentation and an electronic studio presentation. sean argued this would be disorienting; it's less that i disagreed with him and more that i thought that was a good idea. this divergence in vision is one of the factors leading to the project's dissolution.

while i feel this recording stands up on it's own, i've also taken the time over the second half of 2014 to reclaim some of the tracks as my own instrumental works. only tracks two and four exist uniquely as rabit is wolf collaborations; the other four tracks have been resequenced as completed instrumentals in my main recording sequence. please open the track pages for more information.

written and recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. resequenced to mimic the original sequencing on november 8, 2014. except to sequence the record, these files have not been altered since 2002. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars (electric, acoustic, classical), effects, bass, synthesizers, digital piano, electric air reed organ, flute, drum programming, drum manipulations, vocal manipulations, loops, sequencing, sampling, digital wave editing, production, cover art.
sean - vocals, lyrics, harmonica (1), ring modulator (6).

greg - drum performance sample source (5,6)
jon - guitar performance (2)

released june 20, 2002

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/rabit-is-wolf

so, i actually got quite a bit of filing done last night. they're things i have to do with this project, to make sure everything's ordered. part of the problem is that almost everything between 2001 and 2003 is dated to may, 2003 due to a wonky burn. so it's a careful process of reconstructing by memory because i don't have a lot of the exact dates. i'm almost over that hump...

i also jumped ahead to inri038 (and i'm certain it will be inri038), which has been sequenced and is being uploaded. this is the complete rabit demo, which has been expanded to a sixth track and is now nearly an hour long...

i wouldn't enumerate any rabit material in my list of official records. rather, i'd point out that there's instrumental mixes coming up on the sixth record. but this demo is long enough that i'm going to treat it as an unofficial record rather than an ep. the problem with calling it record is that 4 of the six songs appear in remixed form on other records. in that context, it's almost more like a remix record.

i jumped ahead to get it out of the way so i can just be thinking about the instrumental tracks. i'm still going to need to do some constructions for the acoustic ep, but this otherwise gets that dealt with.

i'll post it when it's done uploading and i have the info up and stuff.

ok, i'm coming to terms with the fact that i'm probably not hearing back from the psychiatrist and i'm going to have to wait until the 12th to get somebody to fill out the forms.

i'm expecting that the forms will not be filled out. if so, i will immediately attempt suicide in the doctor's office. so, you can pencil in the first suicide attempt for jan 12, 2015. i expect that this attempt will be stopped, but it seems as though i'm going to have to actually go through with it.

i'm also going to have to sit down over the weekend and explore artist grant options. it's not what i want. what i want is long term odsp. but if i get the grants, and it lets me live an extra year or two to get the work i want done done, then it's a better option for future generations. so i'm obligated to do this.

i mean, if the point of this is to save money, they may want to recalculate that because it's going to cost money and resources to pump my stomach and put me through all this processing. if somebody ends up dying in the meantime, i'd argue the doctors should be held liable for it. there's no reason to play out this pointless drama.

but, you know. world. stage. actors. yeah.

i just wish people had more foresight and were able to make decisions more rationally.

i mean, i don't want to spend the weekend in the hospital any more than the system wants to expend the resources on me for it....if i can find even one doctor willing to dislodge head from ass and get a grip on the reality of the situation, i won't have to.

i'm not expecting this.

so, you can pencil in an acetaminophen overdose on jan 12th at the windsor branch of the canadian association of mental health.

ok, the mix is done. that was an all nighter, i need sleep...

i'm not going to be able to drums this afternoon, i'm going to have to do laundry and things of that sort, so i'll be pushing this off until saturday. expect some jump ahead uploads for tomorrow. i may go ahead and sequence the rabit demo.

uploading 9:46 to the scratchpad

i'm going to be playing with the mix for a while, but i've got a temp mix of the first 6:40 uploading to the scratchpad. i'm actually happy this is finally coming together, of all the lost tracks this was one i always wanted to really polish up....

second section is basically done, but i want to sleep on it. it ended up polyrhythmic....

it's not really that i'm irresponsible.

i mean, i am. i can't really argue.

but it's really more that i avoid responsibility, so i don't have to be irresponsible - partly because i know i'm really not overly irresponsible, when forced to not be.

i mean, have you thought about all the conditioning that goes into this? if people actually desired responsibility, we wouldn't need to drill it into kids as they grow up. it's a type of socially enforced brainwashing, and it's arguably necessary to uphold the status quo.

but, if you don't like the status quo, it's collapse is not frightening to you and these arguments about the breakdown of society sound more like a goal than a disaster.

so, if you acknowledge that people don't really desire responsibilities, is it not rational to avoid them?

i got the snares in the second section done today. not completely mixed, but played and sequenced. that was the hard part for that section. i need some toms and kicks and crashes but it's less skittery and should be relatively quick to get in.

so, no temp mix tonight. maybe one tomorrow.

there's four sections. hopefully, two is done tomorrow.

did the package arrive?

jessica
hi..

just wondering if the package arrived?

i just want to comment on shipping, too, because it's been bothering me. the actual cost to ship from where i am in canada to the uk is $9 to ship one disc and $12 to ship two, so i did make a few dollars on shipping. i was considering sending you a bonus disc to make up for it, but i couldn't fit three discs in one package, so it would have cost me an extra $9 in shipping to get the third disc out. see, because the shipping gets me a deal on multiples of two it works out non-linearly to:

$9 - one   (flat 10)
$12 - two  (flat 20)
$21 - three  (flat 30)
$24 - four   (flat 40)
$33 - five   (it's flat 50, but this is where i think it gets unfair)

..and of course it's going to decrease further as more units move in the same order.

fairness is very important to me. i'm actually sort of neurotic about it, to the point that it's harmed my own interests at points. so, i've changed my shipping policy. it's flat for under five discs, meaning i will make a few dollars on shipping small orders but i think that's ok. five or more discs and i'll contact the seller about adding free items.

just thought you should know that, as i had increased shipping between the orders. you had paid more than the list price initially, and i'm glad you did because i would have otherwise lost money on shipping the first item (i had just guessed $5, which was an underestimate...).

but let me know if you got the package... 

primatemaster
Arrived yesterday, thanks.

Wasn't sure about emailing to let you know - in the end I decided that was a bigger deal for the first delivery and not so much after the efficiency of our respective postal systems has been established. Re-thinking, if I were in your position, I'd prefer to know that the package was delivered safely so apologies for any concerned pondering/ sleepless nights. I'll send notifications after any future deliveries, provided that I'm not sending them to a corpse. :)

Don't worry about the delivery cost (insert your own joke about the low value of Canadian currency here), s'not unreasonable given the size of the ocean. And it is more important that you don't lose out in the transaction. I'll confess to a degree of hesitation when the total cost appeared, but that's down to my inner cheapskate having a mental block where $[shipping] > $[stuff I want]. I grew as a person when I clicked the button to pay. Larger orders run the risk of being stung for the double tax of import duty and Royal Mail 'service' charge, so that must be avoided on principle. 

jessica 
don't worry about emailing me, i was just double checking...

ok, i'm going to try and mix a little more before bed. i had to turn the mixer off for an hour or so because it was getting glitchy on me. i think it's more to do with the operating system than the device, but it has a sweet spot.

cover art pretension fail?

maybe, but it works. i'll make sure this is good....

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/time

actually, maybe i should make a general comment about the cover art...

with few exceptions, most of it is lifted. i'd hesitate to say i have little visual art talent - i've actually been told there is talent, to my honest surprise, underlying the little bit of work that i've done - but it's not something i like to spend a lot of time with. i just don't get the kind of creative burst out of it that visual artists need to get out of it to keep doing it. i think it's no secret that paintings can fetch absurd prices, too - my insistence on focusing on the art form may act as a mental block in diving into it. that is to say that i'm not driven by the kind of profit motive that tries to pass off a picture of a soup can as a work of art.

to me, music is a purely abstract creative form, whereas i tend to interpret the visual side of something as trying to capture an idea or an expression. that is, i see the visual as something much more concrete. further, i'd never doubt it's power in doing that. visual images can be quite striking in that context. so, if i had unlimited resources, i'd generally rather make use of a good photographer than an actual visual artist. when i do fall back to actual paintings, it's usually going to be with the same kind of mindset. it's maybe a bit backwards to look for something concrete in the surreal or in impressionism, but it's how i'm going to approach it for album cover art.

so, i went with the dali for this because it's a concrete representation of the abstraction of the track; however absurd or surreal the painting may be, it's the concrete connection between a picture of a clock melting and the sound of time caving in that is the point, here.

there are a few things i tossed together in paint, often constructed from existing images - like a sample art project. they're pretty obviously discernible. and the dali there is one of a few paintings that i feel have that concrete connection. generally, though, i'm going to focus on trying to find a photographic representation of the album's content - something i feel encapsulates the sound on the disc.

none of it's credited. i'm not selling a lot of records, so it's not a problem for me right now. i come out of a plunderphonics background, and don't see a lot of problem with borrowing the images, so long as i'm not exploiting the creators. and, the truth is that i'm currently not.

i've long committed myself to tracking down the original artists if a time comes where there's serious pressings and serious sales. this will happen, if or when that happens.

for now, i'm just lifting, and i'm thinking of it in terms of sample art.

obligatory influential on the track of the day post...

the drum machine? well, yeah. i'd never really used one before, and it became a pretty important creative tool.

(relevant tracks: confused)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZzh0heyPtI

i was dumb enough to sell it. i use an electronic kit now, and i do prefer the flexibility of a pair of sticks. but if i ever happen to stumble on one again....

ah, this record...

this is an "obligatory influential on" post.

i couldn't get this version up here in canada, so i instead bought both sides of the digipack. i had 'em dubbed onto a tape for walkman use, and hours of total headfuck on the bus.

the song is kind of....not reznor's best work. it's taken on this weird fake underground ebm club cultural context. it's clear, on the disc, that it's a depraved statement from somebody that's losing it. but, i guess nobody asked the dj at the strip club for any type of analysis, and there consequently never really was much.

the density of the track gave the remixers so much room to play with, and (as he was doing regularly at the time) he really got the a list out on it...

i can't overstate the influence of this disc. fixed, also. even today, all these years later, it's still the alpha document that informs the way i structure sound.

(relevant tracks: everything)

uploading confused to youtube

track switches tonight at midnight.

this is the remake of the one about me chopping my penis off. i haven't done the write-up yet. i'm getting snare parts down on 9:46 and am happy about the progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNAYKj5qgO8

gah. not much more left for the day, nothing done.

but tomorrow i'm clear-headed and should be able to focus. hopefully the space gives me a bit of perspective. like, fuck, all i'm adding is a drum part and a yelp...this should be simple enough....

it's funny how you focus the least when you want to focus the most.

i underestimated the effects of stress. i'm useless under pressure.

it's not even a question of error, and it's not a conscious choice, but i seem to instinctively reject any kind of purpose.

if i have absolutely no pressure to create, i'm very productive. but, when i got deadlines - any kind of structure at all, really - i start procrastinating.

the more i'm pushed to better myself, the less i care.

strange? i don't think so. i think it's a coping mechanism and that it's probably common. it only seems strange if you begin with the error that we are rational and logical creatures.

but what it means is that i'm in a very bad spot. the stress isn't going to stop soon, and if i end up committing suicide it may be with less done due to the stress the process caused...

all they're succeeding in with this approach is making me less productive :(

i'm going to try and relax and get some mental composing done tonight, but i have another stressful day tomorrow....

so, the upstairs neighbour bought a new fridge, and he may have had the ice connected incorrectly.

it's a valid hypothesis, let's hope that's all there was to it. if so, i should be happy that it hit the counter rather than fall in behind it.

again, though, it's not confident-inducing regarding water damage in the structure.

after haggling him a bit to check under the sink, i'm pretty sure he found the connection that was leaking and stopped it. he was trying to convince me the window was leaking from the rain...

it hasn't rained in days. he's a little slow. but, hey, i'm used to living in a kafkaesque world, so i can deal with this...

"it could have been the rain from on friday"

"but it just showed up out of nowhere and then stopped."

"maybe it took a few days to seep down."

"ok, maybe. but can you look under the sink for me?"

"ok."

burst pipes...

jessica
hi.

we know the plumbing down here is aging; unfortunately, i think something may have blown deep into the wall.

i left around 11:00, was back around 12:30, left again around 1:00 and was back a little after 3:00. between 1:00 and 3:00 a significant amount of water appeared on the counter. there's none on the floor. the counters and cupboards are dry. the counter on the other side is dry. and the sink is dry. so it was initially very confusing as to where that water came from, to the point that i was worried about an unauthorized entry.

however, as i was cleaning it up, i felt a sprinkle come down on me from behind the cupboard. i need to be clear that this is very weird as a source - the cupboards and counters are completely dry, but something has sprung a leak behind them and is squirting out from a small hole in the wall.

here's the thing: with the flow rate i'm seeing, the amount of water that built up would have taken more like two days than two hours. that indicates to me that something likely burst and the sprinkle is just dead pressure. it also indicates that whatever's flowing through there is going to mess behind the wall when it gets turned on.

there was also a little bit of leaking coming out of the wall and the pipes. this seems to be migrating. in terms of the amount of water, is little more than condensation - not concerning. but in terms of the source it maybe is because it's right across the window.

so, i'm guessing that there's an exploded pipe behind the wall that can't be gotten at it without ripping things out. i can't provide any more information until i see more water. but i suspect it could be a messy situation fairly soon.

i've attached two files.

i know it's weird. i just need to reiterate that the inside of the cupboards are dry and under the sink is also dry. there just seems to have been a burst of water out of that crack...

(pause)

just to let you know...

it IS still dripping. it's not a lot, but it's coming down. i'm willing to accept the misinstalled fridge as a hypothesis, but if it's true than there's either still water in between the floors or it's still not set up right.

i'll keep monitoring.

(pause)

now, the paint or plaster is starting to peel and i'm getting concerned it might take the cupboard down or worse. wherever it's coming from, it's coming down beside the plaster and bubbling out of it.

so, we know:

1) something happened this afternoon which left a large amount of water on the counter.
2) it stopped.
3) something happened around 8:00 which led to it leaking again.
4) now it seems to have slowed down, if it not stopped.

i'm leaning towards an action-reaction relationship, which tells me it's plumbing related. it very well may be the fridge, but, whatever it is, i think the source needs to be determined and turned off...

the landlord
I found the problem, under my sink the connection was lose, it has been  snug up stop dripping, should be ok: stay in touch: Let me know if it stop dripping. It should dry up. Thanks for the info:

jessica
it seems to have stopped for now, hopefully it holds.

gah. the pipes in here are...ugh...

as far as i can tell, something busted when i was out. there was water all over the counter, but no obvious source - except that the space between the cupboard and the wall was wet. the cupboards are dry. it's dry under the sink. so it must be so deep into the wall that there's no answer besides turning it off. what i don't know is if i can turn it off or not.

i tested all the water sources in here and can state with certainty that, whatever the pipe is, it's not connected to my plumbing.

i emailed the landlord(s) and we'll have to see what i get back.

i suspect something upstairs froze and then burst when it unfroze. i wonder if it has to do with the switch to a furnace that happened over the summer, and if it's something i can expect more of this winter.

they've mentioned previously that most of the pipes are plastic, but there's obviously a bunch that aren't right above the counter. the end solution may be to swap them to plastic. but that's going to be expensive and annoying from what i can gather.

the other thing to point out is that moisture behind the walls is terrible news for keeping out bugs, which i feel i've been largely successful with.

it's going to be a piss off if that gives them the damp space they need.

(outside of obvious structural water damage issues, which i feel this place is pretty sketchy with - but i mean you get what you pay for when it comes to that)

there's no pipes anywhere near the gear, that's the most important thing.

this is a property that i'm more or less convinced *will* eventually cave in. the tub will go through the floor or something. it's a matter of time. i just hope i'm able to get what i need to get out of it before it does.

if somebody one day decides to sort out the cause, it's almost certainly going to be a combination of negligence with the pipes and negligence with the structural integrity of the flooring. i'm not thinking about this right now, i just want the pipe issue identified and turned off.

i mean, do i think this place would pass a safety? with much difficulty, and a laundry list of fixes. it's not imminently dangerous, but it's not being upkept, either.

but that's why it's dirt cheap, so i can deal with it...

this is the fourth or fifth time i've seen leakage this year. it always gets dealt with. this will get dealt with. but the sum of this - and all the damage that no doubt occurred before i moved in - adds up. like i say, it's a matter of time...

there's a half dozen places in the ceiling where you can identify the water damage. i initially decided it was probably just cosmetic. i don't think that's true anymore.

deathtokoalas
ugh. is that throbbing beat meant to represent the cheese congealing and exploding out of the screen? rocquefort incoming! cheddar at five o'clock - take cover!

i'm done now, but what a horrendous disappointment....

daniel tatro
The fact that she's consistent with it makes me think it's intentional. Yeah, her earlier work was more complex and melodic, but the name of this album is "Unflesh". Without flesh, so I think she's implying that she purposely "stripped" her sound to convey something more raw and psychological. I think she was challenging herself, and I respect her for that.

deathtokoalas
i don't think there's any question it's intentional.....

the way i'm interpreting it is that when she first started everybody was comparing her to fever ray. it wasn't that accurate a comparison, but it was everywhere. so, sensing an opportunity to capitalize on the misperception, she shifted her sound to try and tap into the audience she was being marketed to.

and, it seems to have worked on some level. but it's more than a little bit disappointing to hear somebody that is obviously quite talented stoop to that kind of level.

it's reflective of a set of broader trends, though. in the end, i suspect she'll snap out of this one way or another. in the meantime, i need to be hypercritical.

Gazelle Twin
"i'm going to let negative reaction of these videos stand as a reflection of the general inability of the masses to comprehend abstract art. go ahead and dislike it...you idiots....." https://www.youtube.com/user/deathtokoalas/about

deathtokoalas
i would agree that everybody should check my site out :)

it's not the right reaction to get defensive. i'm criticizing with the intent that you push yourself a little harder. your first disc had many layers to untangle - it was very carefully, intricately put together. your second disc displays no such subtlety. so, you'll have to forgive me for expecting a little more out of you than you provided on your most recent effort, and trying to get that across in hopes that you'll take the criticism to heart.

a critic has a social responsibility to push artists to their potential. i take this seriously. to a real critic, a review is not just a marketing tool - it's an evaluation, and feedback. ideally, there should be dialogue, so i like the fact that you're responding.

now, if you're trying to justify the nature of your recent release by turning my words around on me, i have to reject that from where i'm standing - and i know that you might not know where i'm standing, but that kind of argument is actually the nature of the criticism, rather than a way around it.

sgearry
I think every artist is especially vulnerable with their second album which is always going to face the criticism of either 'more of the same' or 'something different'. I say good on Gazelle for challenging herself to the latter as opposed to restraining herself to a certain methodology, and producing some very interesting results! I agree, the first album is beautiful but this is something completely different which I feel in turn deserves a completely different (and maybe a little more merciful!) angle of critique to that of the first album. I feel that this musical shift is more a product of the artistic concept of the album (a challenging exploration of the human body as I understand), than anything to do with marketing strategies, and I think it's a visionary achievement. Also, I really like koalas :) Why would you advocate their extinction?    

deathtokoalas
koalas must be abolished due to their perversely insolent cuteness.

i don't really think this discussion has an end point, as we're starting from opposite premises.

daniel tatro
I simply dont think it's fair to assume that she changed her style bcause of whom she is being compared to. She could have easily spit out another "The Entire City", but instead took  differentpath and did anequally good job. You cant trash an album just because it wasnt what you wanted to hear

deathtokoalas
well, she didn't previously sound very much like fever ray. then everybody compared her to fever ray. then she releases a record that is indistinguishable from a fever ray record (and is boring for all the same reasons that fever ray is boring). it's a deduction, but it's a fairly obvious one.

i'll generally criticize an artist for stagnancy more often and more acutely than i will criticize an artist for releasing a failed experiment. but, this isn't a failed experiment. it's just a hollowing out, a watering down, a pandering to the audience...

sgearry
By this premise, I imagine there are a lot of animals out there having the same existential crisis. Do you feel the same about cats for example, or just koala bears in particular? I'm genuinely intrigued by this rationale.

deathtokoalas
cats are a different kind of evil, always plotting to eat you as soon as they get the chance. that's a minor concern. the koalas are really the tip of something much deeper, something that threatens our very existence.

xTheOxx
I like that GT quoted you, then said nothing more. Everything you wrote afterward fell in one of two categories: assumptions about what she meant, and comments that invalidate your own feelings about people criticizing your work.

You feel like your criticism is constructive, or that she somehow doesn't understand what real criticism is for, yet people who criticize your work are, according to you, "idiots" who merely prove that the masses don't deserve your greatness. I've listened to a few of your tracks. My criticism to you is this: find a way to make your take on abstraction a little bit appealing. Better musicians have done it, but from what I hear, you don't. At all.

deathtokoalas
my comments are reflective of the like system, and what i've pulled out of the metrics. it seems to be common for people to listen to thirty seconds of a twenty-five minute piece and then click "dislike". this is all very clear in the context it exists in, and i would invite people to go to my page and read my comments rather than rely on this idiot's misunderstanding of them.

now, you're further suggesting that i sell out. no thanks.

art is challenging, not appealing. it reflects the viewpoints of the artist, who must be entirely disinterested in the public's reaction. nor is it malleable to public opinion.

once you start bringing in these characteristics and acting in this way, you are no longer producing art and are no longer an artist. you are now a clown producing a commodity.

deathtokoalas
the production is a little better than the last one, but it's equally boring. best case projected scenario from this point is that the singles are the filler on the record....

Azriel X
and what records have you made this year...hmm?

deathtokoalas
listen, elizabeth, i didn't mean to spam your video, but i think it's reasonable to answer the question.

i finalized a total of 28 bandcamp releases over 2014. that's not a sarcastic response. really, seriously. well, you've gotta expect answers you're not expecting. now, this is material that was initially written over the space of 1999-2002, but a lot of it was left scored in midi files or half finished demos. my goal over 2014 was to complete as much of it as i could, and this is continuing into 2015. i probably won't finish 28 over 2015, but i could very well finish around 20.

of those 28 releases, some of them are eps full of remixes (some are quite long; one is three hours) and a few of them are full records that i'd characterize as existing before i took my training wheels off as a composer. i was 18 years old in 1999.

to answer the question directly, i completed my fourth and fifth records over 2014, as well as the bulk of my sixth and seventh (which will be finalized within a few weeks). this was a process of compiling existing material, recording previously written material and writing around existing demos.

google's spam filters are a little overactive, and this would be spam if it weren't for the request. so the main site is at jasonparent dot bandcamp dot com. add the following to the end of that.

fourth record:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/deny-everything

fifth record:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

sixth record (to be finalized soon):
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2

seventh record (to be finalized soon):
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa

you could also take a look around the main site if you'd like, as there are literally dozens of other releases up there.

(deleted comment)

deathtokoalas
bandcamp is really the only half-functioning record label on the planet right now - pretty much the only way to seriously avoid the industry influence and release records independently, without interference from bankers. i just wish it had a better comment system.

is clarity witch house?

i've been struggling for a way to describe it, and it might be the right description. it's the right synthesis, although the ragtime section at the end is kind of not very witch house. keep in mind this is from 2002. i was listening to large amounts of coil at the time, and coming out of a near obsession with skinny puppy. while a fundamentalist atheist, i've always had an interest in "goth music". sean had roots in more of the goth-metal stuff like manson...

this is the unmodified 2002 vocal mix. witch house?

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/clarity-original-vocal-mix



my tags on this are sort of priceless, but it's the truth of it.

post-punk, goth, noise, synth pop, witch house, folk, industrial, noise rock, ragtime, Jazz Fusion,

i guess that's not completely out of left-field...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0GzEiZYJa0

this is why i'm being careful to date everything as best as i can. there's legitimately a lot of novel ideas that are before their time hidden in my work. if i get it all properly dated, hopefully somebody with the right ear finds it....

treatment

hi

i'm going to send a duplicate over facebook, as i hope to get a referral out by monday if i need to do it that way. however, i suspect it may be easier to simply book an appointment.

the purpose of contacting you is to get my hormone prescription renewed. i've already been through all of the mtf transgender diagnosis - and a very long time ago at that. i've been on hormones absolutely steadily since 2010.

i was previously dealing with a doctor in ottawa. about a year ago, i moved to windsor. last month, i had my prescription renewal denied due to the doctor no longer practicing. i've had *general* difficulties with the doctors in windsor - they won't take my odsp seriously, and they won't write me hormone prescriptions. i'm really at a loss of understanding.

i couldn't even contemplate how i'd react if i were to stop taking them. i've been on them five years! my entire life exists in a female identity. i simply don't understand why the doctor in windsor is refusing to prescribe, but it's forcing me to look outside the city.

i was able to get an emergency prescription to the end of december from the hospital ER room. that's an extreme step, but i had nowhere else to go to get the extension. what that means is i'm hoping to see somebody before the new year.

i'll have to take the bus down, which shouldn't be a problem so long as i have enough time to plan. again: my records are with the doctor in ottawa. would you be willing to see me?

jessica

so, drum parts and erratic sleeping schedules don't go well together....

i decided in the end that i can't use the parts i recorded yesterday, but i was working through the day. today, i lost due to sleepiness which i think is a combination of nicotine withdrawal and the frightful temperature outside. i'm convinced my ancestors hibernated, because the cold just slows me right down....

i can't record much tonight (maybe some simple kick parts), but i should hopefully be able to compose the drum parts for quick completion in the morning. i don't think i'm adding anything else to the track, besides a howl near the end. but we'll see...

the next track up is 'time', which i'm entirely rethinking and don't want to jump ahead into.

well, the curve got beat in the end (again), but this is actually kind of disappointing because i was on track to top 4000 until about the 15th. hits actually crashed really badly in the second half of the month. if they don't recover soon, november is going to be ugly...

...but, again, it's sort of meaningless. i watched my current front track (inertia) jump from 210 to 276 in one jump, then from 276 to 301 in ten minutes. under 300, it's real time. it was 100 hits in about a half hour. yet it took three days to catch up in the official tally, indicating i'm getting hundreds and hundreds more hits than are being recorded. i think this is happening because people, in general, aren't blocking the autoplay.

i've been through this before, and i'm not convinced the policy has remained static. it seems to swap back and forth more or less randomly. that's not really the substantial concern. the substantial concern, for me, is simply that the hit counts aren't accurate in measuring REACH, which is what youtube exists for. until youtube changes the way that it understands itself from a content provider to an advertising platform, that accuracy will never exist.

here's an example of the disconnect: while traffic was crashing at youtube (at least officially), it was soaring at bandcamp - which is where the hits actually matter. i hit 500 hits this month, which is the highest total in five years. i also got several sales, for the first time ever. given that 95% of my bandcamp traffic comes from youtube, it doesn't make any sense to think that bandcamp peaked the same time youtube crashed - but it's what the numbers suggest. again, it's not really that the youtube numbers crashed, it's that the metrics aren't even close to being accurate because of the site's policy in how they're being measured.

in the end, i have to conclude that what i'm doing is working. i'm driving traffic to where i want it to be. i'm selling discs - hopefully more soon. it's just that youtube isn't measuring it...

the psychological attachment i previously had into this is dissipated. sure, i'd like to see it keep growing. but i know it doesn't really mean anything...

this curve is far more important, and you can see that nice spike.

i guess i'm hoping i can continue to beat the curve for the year. we'll see what happens after that.

i mean, i'll also point out that i don't get to really promoting my first official recordings for another year. these are just introductory demos, where i was teaching myself how to do things. they're not really salable or presentable as anything more than that. so that's lots of time to go through those sorts of growing pains and figure it out.

my first really serious recordings won't enter the promo cycle until 2017.

late 2017...

it's slow, but i knew that was going to be the reality when i picked this and i'm sticking with it.

i'm not expecting it to bell on me. that would be horrific. i'm expecting it to hit a max point and stay flat. i guess there's some evidence that 3000 might be that max point, but there's also some evidence it's still growing.

i've wondered if it might even have something to do with the school schedule. it seemed to peak before midterms and crash during them.

if so, i might notice a yearly pattern work in that is fluctuating upwards. who knows, though, we'll just have to watch and see.

if you're curious for cost purposes...

the main heat is about to finally kick in - meaning it's about to hit 21 in here. meaning it's been above 21 in here without the heat on all fall so far. it's 21.3, so it'll fall within the next few hours. it's a little earlier than last year, but the temperature hasn't been very high. considering this is a basement, and it's been cold for weeks, that's actually sort of remarkable. had we not got these intense drops.....

the small heater in the bathroom has been on since the first week of october.

To Spin Inside Dull Aberrations

ganzonomy
Hello.

I was listening to "I am the Walrus" while working on a Master's Thesis (strange basis), and in the sidebar was the song in the subject line.  I was floored.  I cannot describe exactly what it is, but the entire song has been nothing short of amazing.  (Admittedly, it has served as a good "backdrop" for working on my Thesis about cyberwarfare.)  What inspired this absolutely incredibly frenetic work?

jessica
that version of the recording was written in late '01 as a stadium rock track for an unrealized rock project, but not constructed in it's existing form until about a month ago. there's consequently a set of influences relative to 2001 (it's half industrial, half no-wave/grunge) and a set of influences relative to 2014 (i've been listening to a lot of melodic hardcore recently), as well as a lot of stuff i've come in and out of in between. i've dubbed my work "blender rock", which means that it tries to take in as diverse a set of influences as is possible.

i have writeups for most material up until about 2002 at my bandcamp site:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/to-spin-inside-dull-aberrations

i should also point out that this is a reworking of what i call my fourth symphony. there are roughly ten versions of this track, and i will be compiling them shortly, but for now all i have is this, which is the version with the symphony title:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/trepanation-nation

ganzonomy
It's some of the wildest, most interesting, stuff I have heard in a long, long, while.  I'll take a look at those links when I resume my work on my MA Thesis, but from what I heard, I am thoroughly impressed.

I've been listening to a lot of late 1960s / early 1970s Miles Davis (The "Electric Era"), and I see parallels in it, especially the extent of keyboard and guitar work and the emphasis of such instruments.  (If you have a chance, I highly recommend finding a copy of Dark Magus - Live at Carnegie Hall, for me, it seems to be his "peak" from that era).  I've very often just sat down with a good pair of headphones and tried to pick apart each individual instrument and where it's going (or trying to go) compared to the others.  (I like doing that with a lot of works, be it King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Miles, anything that has a lot of instrumentation that's intertwined, or just something that can be ridden like a "magic carpet"). 

Again, great work :-)

jessica
davis is an interesting parallel. i've certainly spent a lot of time listening to davis, but the times i've sat down with any kind of emulation purposes are pretty rare. i'd say i get my mclaughlin pull more out of the mahavishnu stuff. the prog is key for me: i was sort of reared on crimson, genesis, zappa and floyd and it formed the basis of my musical understanding before kurt cobain smashed a guitar over my head and made me take notice of punk rock, which i suppose was a fairly normal experience for people my age at that time. that prog rock childhood was very formative, though, and eventually defined my interests in post-rock in the late 90s and early 00s.

i'm glad you're enjoying it...

ganzonomy
Davis' work from 1972 to 1975 (post-McLaughlin, his primary guitarist by that point had become Pete Cosey), is less smooth and more a mixture of Hendrix-meets-Parliament.  I got reared on what would be considered "classic rock", but one of the things I enjoyed doing was finding out where "the limits" were.  I became a Disc Jockey at WHRW Binghamton from 2004 through 2008 (I was a student at Binghamton University, hated it... wound up going through the City University of New York (CUNY) Queens College from 2010 onwards to complete my Bachelor's... but I digress, back to Disc Jockeying.  I found that era of my life to be the most musically expanding.  I would play anything ranging from Django, to Antheil (Ballet Mecanique being a personal favorite), to Zappa (the show was named Frankly... Zappa for a time), to spike jones, etc.,  The premise was "if it's been recorded, it's playable, and if it hasn't, I'll figure out how to turn the random things in the station into musical instruments".

Alas, the master's thesis is on cyberwarfare - which due to the lack of political science stuff (but a TON of computer science stuff) is kicking my brains in.  Thanks for making the research process easier.  PS: I read some of your works from when you were in college for law, they're actually quite good.  If you find the spark to finish, go for it.

jessica
i started off in theoretical physics and, after bouncing around quite a bit, finished a math degree in 2006. i went back in '08 to do a computer science degree for purely economic reasons and got to a half credit from finishing it before realizing that it really wasn't what i wanted to be doing with my life, so i mentally switched into law and finished up to the end of second year in it. i ended up concluding that i was arguing with the basic premises of the english common law and that there wasn't any future in continuing on with it outside of existing in some kind of purely theoretical space that is populated solely by anarchists. i couldn't possibly apply my perspectives in any kind of a real world context. i have loose plans on going back to school, but i think i'd probably want to focus on a master's degree in mathematics.

for the time being, i'm focusing on "completing my discography", which ran from roughly 1996-2011 and has dozens of half complete ideas. the track in question (as mentioned, from 2001 but finished last month) is a part of that process of finishing incomplete ideas. i've worked my way up to 2002, meaning i still have about ten years of musical ideas to finish before i start thinking about restarting an academic career.

ganzonomy
The basic arguments of law are some of the  most absurd things i've seen, i'm not a lawyer (my area, were I to enter it after the MA, would be international law), but there are some arguments where i'm just like "REALLY.... what was being smoked when this was argued?!" (and that's even taking into account historical contexts in supreme court cases).  I started out in Mechanical Engineering myself (discovered I couldn't do calculus) before going into psychology and finally political science.  Insofar as anarchists, are we talking anti-government sorts, or are we talking about the IR idea of anarchy that is chaos?

The idea of having a vault of unfinished music, is something that has fascinated me.  I'm a photography fan, and to see works that I've done years after they were made, I find interesting; particularly in seeing the things now that I could have improved, conditions that I could have changed (lenses, film type, etc.,), and I find I have very few that I'm like "Yes, this was PERFECT!".  Admittedly though this travels to my writing, where I'm always - after the fact - going into analyzing every little grammatical mistake that was missed. 

Side Question?  What exactly did "death to koalas" come from?

jessica
one of the (many) assumptions i found myself having difficulty agreeing with was the idea that situations should be analyzed by an objective criteria. i'd ultimately take the perspective that this isn't even possible - which is essentially the critical legal studies view that law is functionally defined by actors using the rules to justify enforcing their opinion, rather than the other way around. where i'd break with the cls people is that i actually think this is preferable to an objective set of rules, so long as the class relations can be abolished or minimized in terms of decision making (and replacing incarceration with civil/tort law in all but the most extreme of situations would ease a lot of those concerns) and the decision making is take out of the hands of elitist judges and put more into the hands of the community.

even something as seemingly black and white as "thou shalt not murder" is not really acceptable to me. i can come up with endless justifications for murder that go beyond the immediate need for self-defense. so, i don't think that a system that produces these static, immutable rules and demands they never be broken is the right approach - i think a system that looks at the situation on a case by case basis and determines whether the behaviour is or is not beneficial to the community on that basis - completely independently of past decisions - is preferable. adopting this approach would throw the concept of stare decisis out the window and completely abolish the authority of the existing common law in favour of the authority of the actual, existing community.

the general position in opposition is going to be that a system of clearly delineated laws makes it clear what the boundaries are in terms of what behaviour is allowed and what behaviour is not. but i'd identify this "liberal" mindset as the basis of most of the problems we have in front of us, from financial speculation to environmental degradation. if we want to talking about improving our social conditions, we have to shift society so that people are thinking about actively making moral choices rather than behaving as badly as they can with the singular restriction of merely avoiding the law. if your only argument in favour of a behaviour is "it's not illegal", maybe you shouldn't be doing it.

but, in taking this position, i'm rejecting the very foundations of english society. it may be an interesting exercise in anarchist rhetoric, but it's not something i can explore in a courtroom or in a classroom. and, i ultimately don't feel i need those pieces of paper to write on the topic if i decide to in the future.

ganzonomy
The first two paragraphs are mind-blowing to me (not in a bad way, but in a way that I had never considered viewing things and will have to research further, since traditional law is built on absolutes and to a great extent ignores ethics for "if it's legal I can do it, if it's not deemed illegal, i can still do it!".  Not to get too political-sciencey, but you are touching on the issue that existed between President Theodore Roosevelt and President William Howard Taft during the early 20th century.  Whereas Roosevelt's mentality was primarily "if it's not stricken as explicitly illegal, I can get away with it", Taft's mentality was "it is only doable if the law explicitly states it is doable".  (However both were notable for their "trust-busts" during the early 20th century as well as their presences in Latin America during that time period as well.  As far as law goes - admittedly I'm not a law student in the US (right now, I'm finishing my Master's in CUNY Brooklyn, I may go for International Law after), I will agree that law is a construct that is built from the norms of the society of which it exists in, but the issue I have is that while not having "objective rules" may be preferable in either a small state / municipality, "objective rules" need to exist in some capacity for the purposes of providing a structure - however decrepit it may be - for judicial purposes.

I do agree with a case-by-case basis for things, because of mitigating circumstances.  I find the allowance of organizations such as the MPAA and RIAA to act egregiously simply because someone's grandmother plays happy birthday from an MP3 download, to be asinine.  (Actually, the fact happy birthday is copyrighted, and that the copyright law in the USA allows for it to be continually renewed, is mind-blowing.  The recent movie, the butler, underwent an MPAA issue because Warner Bros. has a movie called the butler from about 1914, that is not publicly available (so it is not hostile-defended in a public market), but WB won the right to have that movie's name changed for "disambiguation purposes".  Although I'm a liberal thinker in terms of economics (ie: I do believe some measure of patent law is necessary to protect original innovation, but the extent that such things are protected, and even what can be protected... is insane (video yoga, for instance recently was patented in the USA; DiMarzio has a registered trademark on its double-creme pickups for electric guitars, etc.,).  Conversely, I do think there is a cost-of-service that comes with the rarity of the position and the ensuing difficulty (ie: an anesthesiologist should make more than a burger-flipper due to the level of skill that is required, but at the same time I have more respect for the working individual, regardless of whether he / she is a lawyer or a burger-flipper, than the welfare case, simply because of the effort being made).  As someone who's put himself through undergraduate, and now graduate, school, I do appreciate the value of working - even though much of my work was physical, rather than intellectual, labor.

I think, if you could take what you are thinking, grind out law school for the LL.B or JD (depending on if you go in the USA or Canada or elsewhere), and then go for an LL.M or S.J.D., your views and the research you have for them, will be very fruitful.  The first two paragraphs you wrote though - perhaps because i'm not a law student - were difficult to understand.  So if I need some clarification, I apologize.  The last two paragraphs though, I 100% agree.

jessica
i just want to clarify that i wouldn't align with either taft or roosevelt on this point. my position would be "as a sovereign individual, *i* decide if it's right or wrong". now, i'd give the community a sort of right to review the decision, but i wouldn't force any kind of a constitutional order on the community in their process of doing so.

so how do people know if something is legal? they answer is they don't and can't know by merely looking it up in a reference text - they have to work out those details and decide for themselves if the behaviour ought to be condemned (technically, behaviour cannot be restricted in a free society, so it's not a question of what is allowed or not allowed it's a question of what is censured or not censured) or not. there may be disagreements, but i wouldn't argue that this is a bad thing. i think the level of uncertainty is already inherent in the existing system and dismantling the facade of an objective system is merely being honest about it.

there are some obvious things: it's obvious that somebody that kills his neighbour for walking on his lawn should be censured. there are less obvious things: i would argue that somebody that kills his neighbour for raping his daughter is justified in his reaction.

ganzonomy
I'm going to ponder your argument a bit.  I do like sharp conversation (A LOT!) and I thank you for that.  (I'm pondering it because you have given me an incredible amount of info and i have to digest it mentally.)

I did see on your feed "He used to cut the grass".  That album (Joe's Garage), has my favorite guitar solo (Watermelon in Easter Hay).  That guitar solo was the first Zappa song I figured out by ear. I have the first part, and the last part, but I need to figure out the middle part.  (But that solo... puts chills down my spine.)

uploading 9:46 to the scratchpad

there, that's starting to look a little more like something that's fit to call my own....

there's a first-five-minutes temp mix going up to the scratchpad. that first five minutes (no death involved, here) is essentially done. what's left to do is imagine the drum parts and then find a way to create them.

i went with a glitchy post-rock idm approach with this - the drums are live, but they sound cut up. i've always liked that. i've mentioned a few times that what ended up writing this track was some digital corruption that happened in the demo, and caused the guitar to stutter. i glitched up the bass and organ parts (bass especially) to react to it, and now i've glitched up the drums.

it's a strange combination, as it's sort of a "nice" track, but all weird and glitchy. that's something i always wished glitch would have approached with a bit more zeal. i mean, the broken equipment thing was fun and all, but why not break an entire song? few people really did.

i'm leaving myself open to criticism from the dimwits on this, but fuck 'em.

ok, the drumless mix is fixed for now - maybe minor tweaks coming but it sounds good. i got practiced up on the drums...

it's not like i can't play the kit. for an intuitive player, i think i'm actually pretty talented at it. but i have no training so it's just sort of flailing around in these abstract breakbeats. i actually want to take advantage of that for this track....

i want to stop at 7:00 for the neighbours, so let's see what i can get done in two hours.

it's not that loud, really, i'm just being overly sensitive about it.

high school records are apparently shredded, but junior high school records apparently aren't? i think one of them is wrong. they always told me the file was permanent. hrmmn. i've got stuff being forwarded, will see how that plays out before i start calling to find out...

this is going to go in your PERMANENT RECORD.

well, listen, i'm not really one for the surveillance state and shit, but when you're dealing with information that suggests a pathological condition, i think it really should be permanent. if it's shredded, that doesn't help me - and if it was worse than it is (mild vandal-type pranks, mostly), it wouldn't be in the interests of society, either.

i mean, i was always very careful and very cognizant of the well being of people around me. there were circumstances where i stood in between things happening in order to prevent harm, but nothing where i ever put anybody's safety at risk. the overriding driving force was mostly that i found the vandalism comical. what the behaviour demonstrates is more a conscious desire to flaunt rules - and some political activism, actually.

i enjoyed defacing student council propaganda, for example.

unfortunately, the really nasty pranks were mostly never uncovered. the master prank was probably the time i blew up the school mascot (with military grade dynamite) and placed it back where it was, and nobody ever caught me for that. they installed cameras in the school afterwards, but they never busted me for the best of them.

i think probably the worst situation i got caught for was the time i took the screws out of the exercise equipment in the gym, so that when buddy six-pack football dude got on the exercise bike it fell apart underneath him. that's the kind of thing that characterizes the file, if i can find it. was it funny? that's up to interpretation. the dude that sat on the bike thought it was funny. it's certainly anti-social.

the reality is that it got to the point that the school stopped providing evidence. it didn't feel the need to require it. when a prank happened, it was understood i was responsible. nobody else would have done these things. i suppose i could have been badly framed, but never was.

so, it's less that i "got caught" and more that i was obviously responsible...

....kind of a "j strikes again" type of thing...

it's a huge file, if it's out there, probably with all kinds of things i've completely forgotten about.

and, in my defence, i often caught the principal suppressing laughter. most of it legitimately WAS comical.

it's actually the same school dan aykroyd went to, and that was brought up to me more than once.

apologies to huey lewis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1-NvLJFDsw

rap news 29

eek.

i'm pretty sure i don't have ebola.

just the pizza.

phew. for a minute, there....