Thursday, January 8, 2015

the time machine (vst mix) (for thu)

regarding this piece, my memory is blurry; yet, i have a vivid recollection of playing parts of it for my guitar teacher on a sunny day, where there was still snow on the ground. it's funny how we remember seemingly irrelevant details, but i guess the atmosphere of the performance is important because the performance is. that would date it to roughly march, 2001.

i switched the piece from classical guitar to piano halfway through writing it, and vaguely remember thinking that an impossible interval had something to do with it (a specific c# cannot be hit on a standard classical). yet, that doesn't change the fact that it's guitar music. the counterpoint is very guitar.

to further complicate things, i've long wanted to turn the piece into a jazzy idm romp. it has a kind of a jingly feel to it that belongs in the warp records sphere.

conceptually, the time machine aspect referred simply to the slowed down guitar chords at the beginning of the song. if you play it a certain way, it sounds like time is collapsing in on itself. or, so i thought, anyways. the various versions i have created here have made an attempt to take that idea to it's logical conclusion. it's a mix of the vision i had at the time and a bit of hindsight.

written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. final render completed on july 5, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-time-machine-5

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (vst mix) (for thru)

this is one of the tracks that i can't date well. i do, however, remember working on it during the winter, which means it must have been late '00 or early '01. i'm going to consequently deduce that it must have been what i was working on over the 2000 christmas break and date it coming out right after it.

actually, i have another reason to date it in early '01 rather than late '00: the introductory piano part was recorded live into my notation program on my dx100, which i was given over christmas (maybe a little before; it was a cheap garage sale pickup) to act as a controller for my recently broken jx-8p, that i had tried to take apart over the summer to clean a sticky key (a common problem with mid-80s roland analog synths) but failed and left keyless. it's still keyless. yet, the dx still drives it....

that introductory piano part formed the basis of the track, which built itself up fairly quickly. somewhere, i lost the nwc file by saving it as midi, which ruined all the formatting. it's been sitting on my drive ever since.

thematically, the track is meant to orchestrate a feeling of claustrophobia with society pushing down on you too hard. it's meant to transmit a feeling of existential dread. at the time, i really felt stuck with life in general and not sure how i was going to get out of it..

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 may 3, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-closing-in-on-all-sides-5
this thing has always been difficult to mix, because it's just a wall of fucking sound roaring at you - structured chaos to be sure but it's just loud. it's almost there, though.

i can't claim any specific improvement over the 2006 version. i mean, there's a reason i skipped over this last summer; i didn't think i could improve upon it. it's different, sure, but it's not really "better", and i'm not expecting that it's going to be. this is not an update on the final version. but it needs to be done for the thru project.

i mean, it's interesting, no doubt, but in a pretty geeky way that's only going to appeal to any segment of the fan base that also produces...

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

so, that was a relatively long break. it's ok, i think i needed to come at some of this stuff with a fresh perspective. but i'll be seriously back at it this afternoon.

i knew that copying information off facebook would get tedious and time consuming if i were to start it, and that is indeed what happened. my only real justification is that i was sick.

i've actually cleared off five years of facebook comments. it's left a lot of incoherent conversations on other people's profiles. but it is actually done. and that blog is not likely to come back up for a while, which i think is also positive. what's left on my personal page is a sort of a cv. feel free to sort through it if you'd like.

i have four more profiles to wipe clean (two music review profiles, a political link dump and this) but they're going to come together very slowly over many weeks - an hour or two a day until it's complete. this profile is slated to be shut down last. it could be up to six months.

for now, i'm going to be adding to the following single this afternoon by creating a vst mix:
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-symphony-of-psilocybin-induced-madness

this vst mix will also appear on the second half of the 2xcd thru collection:
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/thru

Sunday, January 4, 2015

you know, for once, it'd be nice to see a parody of existentialism that doesn't miss the point altogether (and i'm not sure how he's characterizing the statement about artistic integrity as randian except by wording it in a bizarre way, although i'll admit i ran into a few people at occupy that tried to merge worker politics with support for ron paul - and were promptly made fun of).

see, it doesn't matter if he gets through college and gets a higher paying job or if he takes the job as an office temp (although reality is that he'll be lucky if his college diploma gets him a paying job in an office, that's where mom's social standing plays a role). whether he's making $50/hr or $10/hr, his life will still lack meaning. he'll still be forced into employment he has no interest in. the point is that the effort and the social standing that comes with it doesn't make a difference in an individual's happiness.

nor is the doctor's ferrari anything more than a temporary alleviation of the deep emptiness that defines his existence.

it would be easier if more people realized all of this, as building a movement to create a system that provides meaning would actually become possible. alas, we're instead persistently driven into the false promises of illusory happiness that consumer culture provides for us.

now, if you'll excuse me, i am going to ponderously play a single chord on an out of tune guitar for an hour as i meditate on the purposelessness of capitalism.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

uploading nothing to say to youtube

so, the track switched on wednesday but i was too sick to say much about it. maybe it's sort of fitting.
this is the last track on cassette demo #2 and will be up until the end of january. the demo material will then cycle around for a bit, but i won't post that here. that means this is the last youtube update on this page until the beginning of may, when the feature switches out of my mid 90s punk phase and into my late 90s electronic phase.

hopefully, i'm out of my sophomore slump by then, too.

i actually expect to be a good ways into the discography by may - perhaps as far as 2006.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ37S6tpDJ4

i'm trying to get off facebook...

this page will be shutting down, accordingly. it's going to be a longer wait than the main profile, though.
i ended up catching the flu, which had this turn in to a longer break than expected.

back to work today or tomorrow.
obligatory influential on song of the month post...

i can't figure out what the hell was influencing me on this particular track, but i can hear a bit of deleo in the short guitar solo, and it's head-scratching enough that it fits. i'm reaching, though. it's not characteristic of my own work.

this record? i think it's aged well. i gotta lean towards the preceding record as the better crafted disc, but this is a perfectly worthy follow-up - and remains the only thing they've released that comes close to matching that universally acknowledged classic.

(relevant tracks: nothing to say, but deleo is a general guitar influence with that jazzy classic rock grunge fusion of his)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSuyEpcj_D0

Friday, January 2, 2015

"mom" seems to have snuck by 2,000 listens when i wasn't paying attention and is my first upload to do so. it's separated out from "boogeyman" by about 200 hits since october, meaning it remains my top track by a good margin.

this version of "mom" will not appear on the front page ever again, as the first demo is completed and it's not on the mix tape. as i mentioned before: it was sort of predictable, given the nature of the track. but i'd really rather something else was in top spot, because i don't expect it's popularity is a result of the track being understood properly. so, it's kind of fitting, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. "boogeyman" has 8 days left over the mix tape cycle (that's inri003), which will be enough to close the gap a little.

however, barring some unforeseen event, it seems like "mom" will retain the top spot until i get to inrisampled (inri004) which represents the segue between period 1.1 and period 1.2. this will be in the front slot for nearly four months and should consequently shoot rather far out ahead of everything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oSadVCVav8

Thursday, January 1, 2015

it's funny how the coughing itself can tire you out, even as you're just getting over it, making it seem like you got kicked back to the start of it. woke up feeling like somebody spent eight hours jumping on my chest....

it was the perfect storm to ignite my asthma/bronchitis. it's a result of living in a second-hand smoke environment when i was a kid, and comes up whenever i get a flu in the winter. it happened before i started smoking, smoking hasn't made it worse and quitting won't make it better (although i haven't been smoking a lot lately). the flu comes and goes in 24-72 hours, but the bronchitis it triggers can last for up to six weeks after it's gone.

i'm a pretty strong advocate of the idea that people between 17 and 60 should *not* be getting yearly flu vaccines - we're better off fighting it ourselves. unless we get a nasty strain.,..

...but i think i'm finally accepting that the bronchitis has put me in the "special" category, and i may finally crack next year.

i honestly think i just sort of got used to it.
that was another 15. one of the nice things about not having any responsibility is that when you get a 48 or 72 hour flu you can just sleep it off. everybody *should* have this right. but, most people don't.

i think i'm awake now...

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

yeah.

i'm groggy.

but i'm ok.
i feel a little bit better, but am still unlikely to be able to do anything besides copy & paste for the next 12-15 hours, if i don't fall asleep (like i did this morning).
definitely a virus....

i just woke up from about 21 hours of straight sleeping, which itself came after a short awake period of about two hours. i've basically been sleeping since about 5:00 monday afternoon. which means i need to eat.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

deciding to sit down and clean this up over the next few days worked out fairly well, because i'm so sore right now that it's just about my only option regarding things to do.

i've been noticing a sort of stretching issue for a while, now. i guess i spend a lot of time with legs under a desk, or with legs curled up when i'm sleeping (i can't help it, i go full fetal over night no matter how i fall asleep), and i walk a lot on top of it, so slightly sore legs are not a strange thing for me. when you're sore, you should stretch....

what i've been noticing stretching for the last little bit (specifically the one where you push your legs out from your body while lying flat) is that there's a point where it almost seems like my limbs are pulling out of their sockets. it's only ever happened previously with one leg at a time, but it's this mix of pain and numbness that's sort of hard to describe in any other way than it feeling like the leg is about to pop right out...

i've ultimately concluded that, despite the displeasure, this is probably good for me - because it tends to work. however, i need to, once again, point out the ms-ness of such a circumstance. it's part of a number of things pushing that way, but, i mean, there's not much to do about it..

before i went to sleep yesterday evening, i got a little stretch in and it hit me in both legs for the first time, which actually collapsed me off the bed and down on to the floor (i'm ok, obviously). but did it ever hurt. if you were here, you would have seen me collapsed on my thighs and sort of gasping for air.

given that i woke up with a cough, i'm now not really sure if the reason i'm sore is due to sickness or due to falling the wrong way. but i *am* sure that i'm not likely to move far from this spot for two or three days.

which should be enough to get this cleaned up. unless i can't stay awake...

Monday, December 29, 2014

deathtokoalas
obligatory influential on the track of week post.

i'm struggling to find my guitar influence in this track. the general construction is very edge, and the feel is largely corgan. i've kept track of this repeatedly on multiple videos though so i'm not going to post it again. there's also an extra sort of jazzy sophistication to this, though. keep in mind i'm still 17 on this track, and maybe a little shy about doing things with the instrument, so it's a little bit stifled.

i think there's some gilmour in there in the lyricism of the playing, but i hadn't hit that heavy animals period yet. i think that what i'm hearing is more the kind of thing that fripp did in something like starless, but interpreted through my suspicious-of-prog punk rock filters. so, it's a little grungier sounding.

(relevant tracks: idiotic, untitled, evil is a human construction, liquify, book it, all of the symphonies, most stuff after 1999)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRHvD6h3-C0


i think the bassline in the blues guitar solo near the end of the track is a good way to explore how some people misunderstand a small handful of prog acts - king crimson and genesis in particular, to be very specific. ironically, i think missing the point comes in overanalysis.

if you sit down and try and figure out what the fuck it is that you're listening to on a mathematical level, you're going to hear a confusing time signature and an agile scale run and it will appear boring and academic. it's only when you step away from that that you can hear the bassline as controlled collapse framing the mayhem around it. these increases in the complexity of the music actually begin to affect the feel of the piece, which is what the tools of course have been developed for in the first place.

i've pointed out repeatedly that the critics of prog were often right. but these two acts in particular really legitimately went over people's heads, and that needs to be corrected and reevaluated. i think this is slowly happening, and i'm actually reinforcing something that's already happening. but i think it can't be said enough until the narrative really changes.

holiosys atRandom
drummer here and I totally agree, the mid song bassline is like 13/8 and as a drummer I'm quite amazed, but yeah, take a step back and let it all unfold and you shall see.  tip, give reflection from tool a listen, beautiful.

deathtokoalas
i've been a tool fan for many years (although i found their last disc to be mediocre), but i consider them to be a grunge band with little influence from something like this. you could confuse a lot of people by telling them undertow is a soundgarden record.

tool's biggest influences were bands like melvins, black flag and swans.

(deleted post)

deathtokoalas
again: the only trace of crimson you're going to hear in tool is a bit of syncopation in the rhythm section. this is bruford/levin period crimson. but it's not dominant. tool is, first and foremost, a hardcore punk band...

fripp has stated he doesn't hear the similarity, either. and it's for good reason - there really isn't one.

i'll be a little more detailed.

the primary reason it's a bad comparison is that tool basically never plays in overlapping timings. they'll mix it up a little. but, again, i'm going to point to soundgarden or black flag (or led zeppelin) for that. the "crimson sound" is a sort of corollary to minimalist music theory - each instrument plays in a different time, in a way that unfolds metrically, but seems somewhat chaotic. fripp has claimed he developed this independently of steve reich, but i've always been skeptical of the claim.

the "tool sound", on the other hand, is very monolithic. when they play in off times, everybody is playing together. it's a full band attack. because it's punk rock...

now, yeah, you'll get this flashy bass part here and there, or this drum excursion jumping out from time to time. but they're fills.

so, when fripp claims he doesn't hear it, he's right. there's really no similarity on a compositional level. even if you can hear that touch of bruford & levin on the odd offbeat or in the odd figure...

Sunday, December 28, 2014

removing tracks from youtube

i've deleted a few files. i just want it publicly acknowledged that this was not due to reaction (or lack thereof) but because i couldn't work the tracks into the cycle i've set up, which runs into the distant future. in fact, i picked some of the less popular versions. it's just not useful for me to have all these excess tracks up here, and i don't want to put my rabit reworkings off to 2033 to make room for the vocal versions. so it's been condensed to conform to the cycled feature track. hey, i just lost something like 500 hits, actually.

everything remains available to stream and purchase at the bandcamp archive, which is where youtube is supposed to herd you to in the first place.
so, it seems like the production of hair is something your body does to help remove harmful cholesterol. and i'm growing increasingly uncomfortable with modifying that excretion system, such as via electrolysis. testosterone is produced from cholesterol...

it's pretty wacky, looking into this sebaceous gland. it's constantly producing clones that it then smashes in order to expel the cell contents, which get converted into hair. that's almost how a virus works. now, supposedly the cholesterol is good for your skin, and that's fine. but, your body seems to see the need to expel it. generally, when your body expels liquid it's to get rid of something it doesn't want.

if i go in there and smash up all the glands, i'm going to end up with a build up of that cholesterol somewhere else. and, if you want research money to do a salacious research report on, i think it would be interesting to try and measure a relationship between heart disease and hair removal.