cymbals eating stale, mouldy guitars in detroit

so, i've come to the conclusion that it's going to be a while before i get used to the fact that the magic stick really shakes when a band gets going. it's on the second level of a structure that looks like it was built a very long time ago and has been redone repeatedly since the 30s. the additions are quite obvious, and there's been a lot of them. there's this nagging fear that somebody fixed something with duct tape and it's just waiting to give...

on the one hand, an upper floor structure built to handle large standing audiences (that may get a little rowdy) and loud bass music should either be solid concrete or built to give a little in response. it's clearly not concrete. so that little bit of elasticity is hopefully actually a safety mechanism. a rigid structure is going to develop cracks and fall apart.

i don't know that it was engineered that way, though. nor would i have much faith in the architecture if i knew that it was, to be honest. all i know is it sways a little and it's unnerving and that i'm not likely to get over it quickly.

the show tonight was a little lacklustre. allow me to explain...

i knew it was an early show, likely to make space for a long set by bob mould, but i slept in a little late and missed the first few songs. so i need to be careful in the review of cymbals eat guitars' new disc, which i have yet to hear in it's entirety. i didn't hear the opening tracks...

...but this video is a decent representation of what i did see, and what you'll notice is that it's a little bit unadventurous relative to past efforts. the edges have been smoothed over a little, the excesses have been pared down, etc. now, the band seems to be being praised for this by the indie press, but that's what the indie press wants - predictability. what attracted me to the band was that they were a little different, a little rough, kind of coming apart at the seams...

it's not that it seemed dramatically different, it just seemed as though they cast out the parts that made them different and interesting and all that was left was the now ubiquitous generic indie formula. that's not something i'm going to be interested in or connect to.

so, i'm not going to comment on the disc, yet. i'm giving it a first listen right now. and i'm willing to accept that the kinds of things that make their records interesting may be difficult to transfer to a live setting. but i found the set underwhelming in it's move towards a more predictable sound.

this is a full set from a few days later:

i wouldn't have gone just to see bob mould, but i'd hardly skip out on him without giving him a few songs, either. i planned to give him a beer to win me over.

that may seem a little disrespectful, given his status in rock music history, but the truth is he's never really clicked with me and i'm really not familiar with or all that interested in exploring anything he's released as a solo artist. as for husker du itself, i put them on the fence in terms of holding up. i've spoken before of the 80s rock canon and the need to pare it down. i'm not going to forcefully argue against husker du's inclusion, but they're far from a lock within it the way that sonic youth or rem are. there's that one album, and not much else, really.

so, i wasn't sure what i was going to get or how i'd react. the bulk of the set was in the power pop variety, with minimal gazey excursions and really nothing approaching any kind of noise. it was a bit of a nice groove at first, but something became very apparent a few songs in: all his songs sound the same. a few more songs in and it just started getting monotonous. i got bored about an hour in and went downstairs to try the magic stick pizza.

i know his output is more varied than what he provided, and i'm not sure what kind of age-related crisis has got him playing power pop at this stage in his life, but i'd advise avoiding him until he goes back to acting his age.

here's an older tune...

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2014/09/16.html

so,i've been spending a large amount of time mixing the section between 3:30-4:00. i've got over a dozen string parts (two contrabass, two cellos, electric bass, electric guitar, several violas, several violins) ranging across seven octaves, all distorted and compressed slightly differently, and running three countermelodies simultaneously. finding that sweet spot where i'm able to get the overtones to blur just a little, particularly on the bottom, but can still hear all the different parts at the right proportion, has been challenging. that's a complex problem. every time i alter one channel, it puts something else out of balance. but i'm almost there.

i wanted this done this morning, but i'm hitting cymbals eat guitars tonight and don't want to be falling over so i need to get a few hours of rest.

it's very close...

that's the last one of these for this song. it's basically done. tomorrow...

so weird how sleeping patterns respond so quickly to the weather.

excluding a few nights where i was sick or mildly drunk, i didn't sleep much more than 4 hours a night all summer. that's normal for me. and it wasn't a hot summer. but as soon as the cold hits, i'm sleeping 10+ hours again.

feeling kind of floaty and brain dead. if coffee doesn't help, i'm going to have to do something else tonight....

i don't have the ending pizzicato in. everything else is in and should hopefully be mixed down by the morning. if it's fast enough, i might get the pizzicato in by the morning. otherwise, probably tomorrow.

i'm often slow with bass, but this is intense even by my own standards...

so, the grocery store is getting propertarian about it's shopping carts. it's kind of hard to blame them, because people in the neighbourhood aren't being good anarchists.

i was thinking about it on the way home, and it's actually a great topic to use in an introductory discourse. there might be this misperception that it's unruly hooligan anarchists stealing the shopping carts. the actual reality is that it's the anarchists that bring them back, because they understand them as socially owned property. but, the fact that people take them in the first place indicates a level of intuition towards the idea of social ownership.

and isn't it obvious that people ought to be able to take the carts home? i'm just not quite sure why it isn't so obvious that they should bring them back. laziness only gets you so far, here. i mean, i've walked by houses with four or five on their yard, indicating they're not even bringing them back when they get more food.

i might suggest it lies in the perception of property. that intuition towards social ownership may be overpowered by the enforced hierarchical guilt that keeps propertarianism in place. that is, they may be "stealing" the carts because they figure they ought to be able to use them, but then they can't rationalize it, and figure once they've stolen it it becomes theirs. then they just "steal" more. there could even be fear of consequence regarding being caught "stealing" them when they bring them back. but i'm just making wild guesses, and i'd really like to get a better understanding of this.

me? i'm a good anarchist, so i always return the public property as soon as i'm done using it, so other people can use it. that's the basis of a system of social ownership.

there's been a few times where i've been halfway home, realized my neck was sore, pulled a cart off somebody's lawn and then brought it back to their lawn when i was done. that's taking temporary control of a public good and returning it how i found it.

there's also been a few times where somebody has asked me for the cart on the way back to the store and i've given it to them - although i make sure they promise to bring it back to the store. it wasn't even for groceries a few times. one woman had a broken stroller and used it to get her kid home. another guy had a bag of soil. that's the way this ought to work.

the thing is that the level of social responsibility to make it work doesn't seem to be absent. people are taking the carts home, indicating they get it. but what's suppressing the responsibility to bring them back?

the answer to this isn't locking carts down or whatever other silly approach the store might come up with, it's talking to people and trying to understand why they're not being good anarchists.

success! there was actually a really substantial amount of hair in there, no wonder it was rattling. and i instantly feel a lot better about this mix...

hrmmn. turns out those phones aren't closed after all.

these are so old, i'm only going to get once chance to not fuck it up. but that hair must come out. deep breaths..

good news is i got the bass in the ambient section to sound perfect.

frustrating part is that i need to play it like a robot to do it. guitarists - even very good guitarists that are much better than i am - are actually sort of notorious for not being able to do this well. we don't spend hours of our childhood doing this like violin or cello players do because the instrument cycles around bits of syncopation. we even tend to put down guitarists that play perfectly in time by telling them they lack feel and have no soul. but this needs to be perfectly, mechanically precise.

i've done this before. it's something i'm capable of. you've just gotta give me 50 takes to do it...

specifically, it's because we don't count in our heads like orchestra players do, we just feel the timings. it's really the wrong way to play from a classical perspective, but it's a blues instrument, and if you're sitting around counting you're going to sound really dull. i mean, there's counter-examples. i bet fripp counts. but that's kind of my point - fripp sounds like a robot most of the time.

but i have a math degree, so i'm certified to count to 8.

i'll get this....

part 3.....

we all google ourselves sometimes. it's a proven fact.

i am proud to report that i have now officially made it to the advanced internet status of being the topic of random 4chan babbling.

incorrect gender notwithstanding...

uploading to spin inside dull aberrations to the scratchpad

ok, so i think i've got the bass for the first two minutes done. i know, i know - but i'm neurotic, i'm sorry. i actually ended up neutralizing the headphone buzzing by swapping the earpieces out. right-brain/left-brain discussions are not science, but my right ear is definitely stronger, so i notice the buzz less by placing it on my left ear...

i'm still apprehensive about it, though. so, i'm going to ask a favour of the 36 of you. if you could head here and download the track (it's just a file) and play it through as many systems as you can looking for a buzz or rattle in the bass, and then post the system you used to find or not find the buzz or rattle, that would help me chill out a bit.

http://googledrive.com/host/0B5JfVE9XTZikMS1zek9ER0xSU1E/scratchpad/

on second thought, it's not going to be a double :P

it's going to be volume 1 and volume 2, with volume 1 sequenced at the end of 2001 and volume 2 sequenced at the end of 2002. the writing period for volume 1 will be jan-nov 2001, whereas the writing period for vol 2 will be aug 2001 to nov 2002 (roughly). this will also allow me to continue with a "one record per year" output formula until '03, where the writing focus shifts to larger works for a few years.

official full lengths are therefore:

1) inri005 (1997-1998)
2) inri007 (1998-1999)
3) inri016 (1999)
4) inri023 (2000)
*5) inri033 (2001)
*6) inri0xx (2002)

the *s are the two jjjjjjjjjjjjj releases, although i may rename the second as it is going to mostly consist of instrumental outtakes and remixes coming from the cynicide/rabit period and the mostly unnamed and uncategorized outtakes that were left unfinished directly after it.

i could see releasing it one day as a double (i could see releasing inri005 and 007 together, too), if i can convince somebody to distribute it. but the conceptual differences are actually quite large and not worth maintaining for the chronological value. vol 1 is mostly "classical" music in the modern context of being infused with jazz, techno and noise. it really only has fragmented, vestigial bits of rock structuring. vol 2 retreats back to a more fully modern leftfield industrial combination of rock, techno and noise and is transitional into the splicing of industrial and post-rock that followed afterwards.

that means the song i've been working on is going to be on volume 2 and the last piece of volume 1 will be the atonal choral piece i'll be working on two further pieces from now. the tracklisting on volume one will remain; the 14 minute choir will just be added to the end, which conveniently takes it right up to almost exactly 80 minutes.

sequencing the fifth record (inri052)

so, the main aim of what i've been doing since february is completing what works out to be my fifth full length record, out of material that was written over the course of 2001 but never completed to my liking due to deficits in the technology that was available to me at the time. i had suspected from the beginning that this would probably be a double and have come to the conclusion this morning that it absolutely must be.

that means i've expanded the scope a little to make the project more encompassing. 85 minute doubles piss me off. if you're going to do a double, fill up both discs! not with filler!

i kind of wanted to do this anyways. the guitar project is now officially aborted, and it really leaves the two remaining tracks as conceptually and musically similar to the other ones. there's also the 9-minute vocal epic, stress, which, while a little different, fits the overall theme of the larger works. it would be incomplete of me to compile this material without including it.

the first half of this is now completed. this is final, in relation to the first disc. the cut-off point is july, 2001 which is only coincidentally the halfway point; what's more important is that it splits the year in half over the summer (with school on either end) and separates a very solo period from a more collaborative one.

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




1) written late 2000 & early 2001. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. completed on june 6, 2014. sequenced on sept 9, 2014. 


2) recorded in the first part of 2001. final editing on september 9, 2014.


4) written and recorded, 1999-2001. this file has not been altered from the original.


5) recorded in the first part of 2001. final editing on september 9, 2014.

yeah, it's going to be a double and more comprehensive over the scope of the 2001 material. i'm going to try and avoid redundancies, but a lot of what i've split off is split off for conceptual reasons.

i just won't be able to fit this on a single lp.

and, you know, looking at the material, it's going to be a hell of double, at that. the average track length is going to be something like nine minutes. one of those kinds of doubles...

actually, no. there's a lot more to do than i thought. i'm going to have reconstruct some of the tracks from source. there's a few where the vocals are integral, but there's a few where the vocals are just overdubs, and i'd like to reclaim those. i should stick to the sequence. but i'm more clear on the chronology, now, anyways and how i want things to come out.

so, back to inri029...

in particular, i'd really like to reconstruct an instrumental version of "clarity", which wasn't initially created as a rabit track. the vocal version is interesting in it's own way, but in some ways the vocals are kind of getting in the way.

i think the others are mostly set, but they weren't really started until 2002.

publishing give ‘em hell, harry / strung out (inri051)

i'm jumping ahead just a wee bit, so i can get a better handle on the shape of things to come. this was an idea i was working out in the fall of 2001. inri032...

--

i don't have an exact date for these files, so i'm picking november 11th. as others were, i was concerned about the president abolishing the magna carta after 9/11 and congress doing little more than helping him do it. however, this was meant to be a more encompassing project that combined harsh noise with political sampling that was pushing an anarchist agenda. the name of the project (ftaa) was chosen as a pun - it could either be the free trade agreement of the americas or about fueling true anarchy in the americas. i ended up dropping the sampling aspect and just focusing on the noise for the project's completion (which is the ftaa release in mid 2004: jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa ), so i'm going to upload these two pilot tracks (with the sampling in tact) as an introductory single and place them in this more topical chronological space.

in hindsight, i think there's something profound about juxtaposing the fair trade movement with the 9/11 attacks as, looking back, it really sucked the life out of the movement.

created in the fall of 2001. resequenced and rereleased on sept 7, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:

j - noise generators, cool edit, sequencers, guitars (electric, nylon, acoustic), mandolin, effects & processing, digital wave editing, sampling, production

released november 11, 2001

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/give-em-hell-harry-strung-out



1) this one was built up out of the sequencer/sampler in cool edit, which allows a user to create a melodic passage out of harsh noise. if the sample is particularly harsh (as this is) the sequencing can get a little messy, which is a bonus.....

the spoken word part at the end is some free trade protester on cbc. created in the fall of 2001



2) so, the pun here is that it's a lot of guitars going off out of tune, representing how the government is stringing us to dry by taking away our rights in the (not so) chaotic aftermath of 9/11. one of the samples is william de la hunt; i did not record who the other person is. created in the fall of 2001

re-uploading most of thru (inri070)

1) written late 2000 & early 2001. initial instrumentation and render completed mar 7, 2014. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. final render completed on april 27, 2014.



2) written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. final render completed on july 4, 2014.



3) written early 2001. this render is actually from may 13, 2001.



4) written june, 1998. reimagined june, 2001; the render is from june 18, 2001.



5) written late 2001. this render is actually from sept 22, 2001; it was very mildly edited for continuity on october 1, 2014. note that it was put through some reverb at that time.

so, i'm going to run through the rabit stuff this morning fairly quickly. inri029 is still in progress, but there are some reasons why i want to jump ahead a little, to get a better handle on how things are going to end up presenting themselves. i think this is likely going to be a relatively quick push through to about early 2003, with a few loose ends for me to get through over the next few months. so, it's going to flood a little...

1

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/me-myself-and-the-time-i-thought-this-was-a-good-idea-2

the cynicide is running longer but it won't be more than another week - i just need to add bass parts that are already written, mix (that's the length) and write a fade out. i'm not going to add much further commentary (which is the reason i'm sending these links out, as an opportunity to allow you to request changes) to what's already here, so i'll be taking jon out for the remaining rabit updates.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/to-spin-inside-dull-aberrations-2

j