file: test2.mid
composition: confused (2015 reconstruction)
status: unused (discarded) synth bass part for the eventual reconstruction of the track
Thursday, November 28, 2013
oxykitten as inspiration for chiptune project
i should point out that some of these chiptune things i'm cleaning up are from as far back as '97. i hit an apex in the style around '02, and then sort of faded out of it in favour of building a sort of guitar-driven electro sound, as explored in my 'tetris' project. i also had to x a bunch of the stuff under pressure from collaborators, as they thought it sounded 'too cheesy'.
the reason i'm doing this now is that i'm realizing i have enough material in the style to put together into an lp. it's a convenient way to order things.
that being said, here's a recent act in the style that's had an effect on me.
the reason i'm doing this now is that i'm realizing i have enough material in the style to put together into an lp. it's a convenient way to order things.
that being said, here's a recent act in the style that's had an effect on me.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
inridiculous (original album mix) (inri033) now fully uploaded
i've decided not to alter this in any way.
i was moving, conceptually, to more serious styles of music. i wanted to write these epic 20-minute trips that reached into every genre imaginable. you can hear that shift over the last few things i posted, and it really accelerates moving into the year 2000. this is my last kiddy recording...but it isn't really a kiddy recording.....
see, i had a bunch of noise tracks that i'd been putting aside for a third demo, trinri, that was meant to carry on with the same concept as the first two: "songs" and "collages" would alternate over 19 tracks. the problem i ran up against with trinri was that i was no longer interested in writing songs. what was coming out, instead, were these fifteen minute journeys. that's ultimately the driving reason that i switched things up: the format had worn itself thin.
so, i pulled the noise collages together (along with some older collages that i had pulled from various sources as far back as my first demo tape) into this thing. i became aware at some point, very suddenly, that the whole idea and product was sort of ridiculous. hence the title.
this recording is consequently void of actual songs. it isn't easy to listen to, and offers few reprieves, but if you're a fan of the genre that includes bands like coil, psychic tv, dvoa, nurse with wound and hafler trio (i hesitate to use the i word in context) then you may find something of enjoyment here.
cover art is from 1999. how the hell did the greeks think mesopotamia was an ocean, anyways? surely, they had contact with babylonians, if not indians. that's never made sense to me.
recorded from 1996-1999. this is my third record. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, keyboards, tapes, synthesizers, live drums, drum programming, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, loops, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
released dec 10, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
i was moving, conceptually, to more serious styles of music. i wanted to write these epic 20-minute trips that reached into every genre imaginable. you can hear that shift over the last few things i posted, and it really accelerates moving into the year 2000. this is my last kiddy recording...but it isn't really a kiddy recording.....
see, i had a bunch of noise tracks that i'd been putting aside for a third demo, trinri, that was meant to carry on with the same concept as the first two: "songs" and "collages" would alternate over 19 tracks. the problem i ran up against with trinri was that i was no longer interested in writing songs. what was coming out, instead, were these fifteen minute journeys. that's ultimately the driving reason that i switched things up: the format had worn itself thin.
so, i pulled the noise collages together (along with some older collages that i had pulled from various sources as far back as my first demo tape) into this thing. i became aware at some point, very suddenly, that the whole idea and product was sort of ridiculous. hence the title.
this recording is consequently void of actual songs. it isn't easy to listen to, and offers few reprieves, but if you're a fan of the genre that includes bands like coil, psychic tv, dvoa, nurse with wound and hafler trio (i hesitate to use the i word in context) then you may find something of enjoyment here.
cover art is from 1999. how the hell did the greeks think mesopotamia was an ocean, anyways? surely, they had contact with babylonians, if not indians. that's never made sense to me.
recorded from 1996-1999. this is my third record. as always, please use headphones.
credits:
j - guitar, effects, bass, keyboards, tapes, synthesizers, live drums, drum programming, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, loops, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
released dec 10, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
inrimake (initial 2013 expansion) (inri032) now fully uploaded
something that happened in the late 90s, when fans of bands started getting together and talking on the internet, was the phenomena of the unauthorized remix. schemes were hatched all over the internet to create remix records, tribute discs, fan collaborations and whatnot. in hindsight, given what the internet turned into, it was actually a refreshingly productive use of networking.
different artists have reacted in different ways. i got yelled at by the now deceased singer of god lives underwater for one of these. trent reznor, on the other hand, eventually went so far as to set up a competition (which i didn't take part in, as i'd moved beyond the idea by that point).
once i'd put a few remixes/recreations together, and received more positive feedback doing it than with any of my own songs, i began to realize that if i could get somebody's attention then i could construct myself a launching pad. it seems like that's what a lot of people were thinking; it didn't work out, but i did end up with a number of remixes.
unfortunately, i've lost a lot of them. about a third of them ended up on a cd-r i threw together at the end of 1999. a third just sat on my hard drive, and a third disappeared into the internet. i'm putting them all together here under the title of the 1999 release, 'inrimake'. the initial release ended after "the day inri messed the world up"; the last five songs are 'bonus tracks'.
i was very much going for the *abstract* remix sound rather than the club-friendly mix. you can't really dance to these. you're not supposed to. you're supposed to blare them through headphones and trip out into them.
in terms of my own work, this record very much extends a bridge from the inri period into the deny everything period, to the extent that it arguably realizes the goals of both phases better than either phase does.
recorded sporadically, and without cohesive intent, over '98 and '99. originally compiled in the fall of '99. augmented and minimally edited over november, 2013.
HEADPHONES ARE MANDATORY TO EXPERIENCE THIS AS INTENDED.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, drum programming, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencers, loops, remixes, reconstructions, reinterpretations
released october 15, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrimake
different artists have reacted in different ways. i got yelled at by the now deceased singer of god lives underwater for one of these. trent reznor, on the other hand, eventually went so far as to set up a competition (which i didn't take part in, as i'd moved beyond the idea by that point).
once i'd put a few remixes/recreations together, and received more positive feedback doing it than with any of my own songs, i began to realize that if i could get somebody's attention then i could construct myself a launching pad. it seems like that's what a lot of people were thinking; it didn't work out, but i did end up with a number of remixes.
unfortunately, i've lost a lot of them. about a third of them ended up on a cd-r i threw together at the end of 1999. a third just sat on my hard drive, and a third disappeared into the internet. i'm putting them all together here under the title of the 1999 release, 'inrimake'. the initial release ended after "the day inri messed the world up"; the last five songs are 'bonus tracks'.
i was very much going for the *abstract* remix sound rather than the club-friendly mix. you can't really dance to these. you're not supposed to. you're supposed to blare them through headphones and trip out into them.
in terms of my own work, this record very much extends a bridge from the inri period into the deny everything period, to the extent that it arguably realizes the goals of both phases better than either phase does.
recorded sporadically, and without cohesive intent, over '98 and '99. originally compiled in the fall of '99. augmented and minimally edited over november, 2013.
HEADPHONES ARE MANDATORY TO EXPERIENCE THIS AS INTENDED.
credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, synths, drum programming, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, sampling, sequencers, loops, remixes, reconstructions, reinterpretations
released october 15, 1999
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrimake
k. so, i'm pausing for a little bit.
1) my headphone cords should be in the mail early next week. that means:
(a) i need to wait for them for the deny everything material, which exists in multiple ways.
(b) when they get here, i'm going to have to closely listen to what i've uploaded, which may mean some track replacements. the songs won't change, but the sound of them probably will.
2) while i'm waiting, i'm going to work on converting some old stuff into chiptune tracks.
i've uploaded a huge amount of stuff over the last two months. 3 demo tapes, 5 cds, 3 eps, 2 singles. all of it before the beginning of 2000. it's in listenable form. so, while i'm pausing, feel free to stream the records as records.
1) my headphone cords should be in the mail early next week. that means:
(a) i need to wait for them for the deny everything material, which exists in multiple ways.
(b) when they get here, i'm going to have to closely listen to what i've uploaded, which may mean some track replacements. the songs won't change, but the sound of them probably will.
2) while i'm waiting, i'm going to work on converting some old stuff into chiptune tracks.
i've uploaded a huge amount of stuff over the last two months. 3 demo tapes, 5 cds, 3 eps, 2 singles. all of it before the beginning of 2000. it's in listenable form. so, while i'm pausing, feel free to stream the records as records.
superhappyfunsong & drumk (original album mixes)
these were rescued from the initial demo tape and slightly modified to segue better into the noise aesthetic.
recorded in the spring of 1999. edited in december, 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/drumk-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/superhappyfunsong
recorded in the spring of 1999. edited in december, 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/drumk-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/superhappyfunsong
tribute (original album mix)
through '99 and '00, and generally very early in the morning, i could often be found recording very long ambient guitar sections into my machine. really, i was just expressing myself. my first proper symphony ended up built around this concept.
when i went to construct this demo, i needed an extra few minutes of ambience to segue between tracks. so i pulled one of the files off the drive and shaped it a bit...
recorded in the fall of 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/tribute
when i went to construct this demo, i needed an extra few minutes of ambience to segue between tracks. so i pulled one of the files off the drive and shaped it a bit...
recorded in the fall of 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/tribute
book it! (original album mix)
this is another lost track that exists in a sort of an ill-defined alter-reality. the track mixes idm, new age, jazz fusion and progressive rock into a ridiculous, hyperfruity masterpiece. it's a mash-up of return to forever and mike oldfield, as remixed by coil.
it came out of a jam in my basement that fall. i was feeling a little more lonely than usual. see, i was quite literally the only person in my social group that bothered doing grade 13. so, school was converted from my only real social grounding (and i was always an extremely introverted loner) into a place of isolation and alienation. i skipped a lot of classes, actually, in a desire to escape the people. looking back, i sort of regret not reaching out to the people around me a bit more; it would have helped in more than just a social context. but, in hindsight, i'm also able to understand the separation better as one of class; as much as i regret keeping myself isolated, i think i would have been better off not carrying on with school at all.
i mean, i did well. my average was over 90. but i felt hopelessly out of place. i knew i didn't belong there....that they would never accept me unless i became the kind of pretentious jerk i despised. nor did i want anything to do with them, anyways. i really hated the superior attitude that i found myself immersed within. so, i just kept my physical distance and my mouth shut, hoping the condition was temporary (it wasn't).
the flip side of this is that i was also working a part-time job in a fast-food restaurant and i hated it just as much. i didn't fit in any better there, amongst the kids with no aspirations in life except to work in order to exist.
so, i found myself stuck between worlds, not wanting anything to do with either. in both cases, though, what i found the problem was was the people. "i don't mind the job, but i'm repulsed by the staff".
what i really wanted was just to be able to lock myself in a room and never have to engage with anybody ever again. i think that i'm the only person that could have written this. it exudes my idiosyncrasies in surreal, tongue-in-cheek humour. but it's also dead serious.
"i'd rather have a book than a friend.
it's loyalty will never end,
doesn't succumb to fashion or trend,
and all the information it sends,
will never get lost along the way.
when things get as tough as they may,
it will always know exactly what to say,
'cause books don't hurt...
...or do they?"
musically, there's some fancy playing here. everything is completely live: no loops (except the drums, programmed into a 909 emulator). that guitar part is sort of tricky. and check the bass part in the breakdown.
the thing i really like about this the most, though, is the gorgeous kosmische ending section, which is built up on overlapping sixths and is just the most dreamy thing to escape into ever. dramatic ending chord care/of a day in the life.
and, indeed, this is the dramatic ending chord for inri.
recorded in the fall of 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/book-it-raw-mix
it came out of a jam in my basement that fall. i was feeling a little more lonely than usual. see, i was quite literally the only person in my social group that bothered doing grade 13. so, school was converted from my only real social grounding (and i was always an extremely introverted loner) into a place of isolation and alienation. i skipped a lot of classes, actually, in a desire to escape the people. looking back, i sort of regret not reaching out to the people around me a bit more; it would have helped in more than just a social context. but, in hindsight, i'm also able to understand the separation better as one of class; as much as i regret keeping myself isolated, i think i would have been better off not carrying on with school at all.
i mean, i did well. my average was over 90. but i felt hopelessly out of place. i knew i didn't belong there....that they would never accept me unless i became the kind of pretentious jerk i despised. nor did i want anything to do with them, anyways. i really hated the superior attitude that i found myself immersed within. so, i just kept my physical distance and my mouth shut, hoping the condition was temporary (it wasn't).
the flip side of this is that i was also working a part-time job in a fast-food restaurant and i hated it just as much. i didn't fit in any better there, amongst the kids with no aspirations in life except to work in order to exist.
so, i found myself stuck between worlds, not wanting anything to do with either. in both cases, though, what i found the problem was was the people. "i don't mind the job, but i'm repulsed by the staff".
what i really wanted was just to be able to lock myself in a room and never have to engage with anybody ever again. i think that i'm the only person that could have written this. it exudes my idiosyncrasies in surreal, tongue-in-cheek humour. but it's also dead serious.
"i'd rather have a book than a friend.
it's loyalty will never end,
doesn't succumb to fashion or trend,
and all the information it sends,
will never get lost along the way.
when things get as tough as they may,
it will always know exactly what to say,
'cause books don't hurt...
...or do they?"
musically, there's some fancy playing here. everything is completely live: no loops (except the drums, programmed into a 909 emulator). that guitar part is sort of tricky. and check the bass part in the breakdown.
the thing i really like about this the most, though, is the gorgeous kosmische ending section, which is built up on overlapping sixths and is just the most dreamy thing to escape into ever. dramatic ending chord care/of a day in the life.
and, indeed, this is the dramatic ending chord for inri.
recorded in the fall of 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/book-it-raw-mix
Monday, November 25, 2013
let freedom ring (original discarded outtake)
so, this is an interesting thing to have sitting on my shelf. it's the 'i have a dream' speech, orchestrated with some soaring guitars.
i should point out immediately that i got a lawsuit thrown at me by the king estate when i tried to upload this back in early '00. i thought that was really trite, but it's not really a legal battle i want to have. i would react more or less the same way should i be threatened a second time, except to point out this time that it's fair use so long as i remove the price tag and basically just do that.
the story behind the song is not very remarkable. the working title for the track was just 'progblues thing'. it was intended to be a structured instrumental guitar track that mixed the flair of hendrix with the minimalist structure of steve reich. the speech sort of came to it by accident.
it was also the result of my dad getting himself a drumkit for christmas that year, which my step-mother promptly placed in my bedroom as a disincentive for further use. score, i guess. but it didn't survive the move a few months later. in the mean time, i got some recordings out of it - as well as a few moderately crazy drunken weekend jam sessions.
i'll note that that christmas also produced a grand piano a few feet outside my door. it's intended recipient was my sister, but she wasn't around much. me? new pc, with a convenient recording interface, and some more functional microphones. despite talk of family jam spaces, one might suspect my father was actually conspiring in my favour. there is probably a great deal of truth in this suspicion. these conditions held for less than a year, but i made the most of them.
so, the idea of the track was initially about experimenting with the new reverb system built into my new soundcard interface, by triggering it with the drumkit that had recently magically appeared out of good fortune. it had been a few years since i'd played the kit much, and, unfortunately, it kind of does show. i had spent a little time practicing along with "nevermind" and "siamese dream" for a few weeks to get back in shape, but i wasn't really "there" yet at the time of this recording. i didn't want to program loops into the song, so i compensated by splicing the track up. of special interest in this wave editing is the backwards cymbals, and especially how they intersect with the soaring guitars.
and of those soaring guitars? a fairly simple blues pattern. sure is lovely, though, isn't it?
the speech became attached to the track when chance managed to have them playing simultaneously for me. i had cnn on in the corner. it was doing some kind of special on mlk, perhaps related to an anniversary that is related to a yearly holiday. placed together, it knocked me flat on my ass.
the idea in my mind from the start was integrationist, if not really consciously so. on the one hand, the guitar part is raw southern blues. on the other hand, the structure is sterile white minimalism. i didn't just realize this juxtaposition, i was trying to exploit it, even if the racial context hadn't occurred to me. when king's speech was played over it, though, the idea really exploded; the context became much deeper. it was an instant exponentiation in profundity.
i also thought it would work well as a foil to the doonesbury sample that is in the track that follows this one [entropy (original mix)].
in hindsight, there are some problems with this. i was a moderately wealthy white kid from canada. there was never much chance of me turning a profit on this, but if i did it would be a type of appropriation. this track does appear on the deny everything demo (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/deny-everything) but under the title of "a commercial break" - and without the dr. king samples. that's probably for the best.
that doesn't change the feeling i got when i first heard the two things together, or take away any of the power that the pairing produces.
i think this is worth sharing.
recorded in january, 2000.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/let-freedom-ring
i should point out immediately that i got a lawsuit thrown at me by the king estate when i tried to upload this back in early '00. i thought that was really trite, but it's not really a legal battle i want to have. i would react more or less the same way should i be threatened a second time, except to point out this time that it's fair use so long as i remove the price tag and basically just do that.
the story behind the song is not very remarkable. the working title for the track was just 'progblues thing'. it was intended to be a structured instrumental guitar track that mixed the flair of hendrix with the minimalist structure of steve reich. the speech sort of came to it by accident.
it was also the result of my dad getting himself a drumkit for christmas that year, which my step-mother promptly placed in my bedroom as a disincentive for further use. score, i guess. but it didn't survive the move a few months later. in the mean time, i got some recordings out of it - as well as a few moderately crazy drunken weekend jam sessions.
i'll note that that christmas also produced a grand piano a few feet outside my door. it's intended recipient was my sister, but she wasn't around much. me? new pc, with a convenient recording interface, and some more functional microphones. despite talk of family jam spaces, one might suspect my father was actually conspiring in my favour. there is probably a great deal of truth in this suspicion. these conditions held for less than a year, but i made the most of them.
so, the idea of the track was initially about experimenting with the new reverb system built into my new soundcard interface, by triggering it with the drumkit that had recently magically appeared out of good fortune. it had been a few years since i'd played the kit much, and, unfortunately, it kind of does show. i had spent a little time practicing along with "nevermind" and "siamese dream" for a few weeks to get back in shape, but i wasn't really "there" yet at the time of this recording. i didn't want to program loops into the song, so i compensated by splicing the track up. of special interest in this wave editing is the backwards cymbals, and especially how they intersect with the soaring guitars.
and of those soaring guitars? a fairly simple blues pattern. sure is lovely, though, isn't it?
the speech became attached to the track when chance managed to have them playing simultaneously for me. i had cnn on in the corner. it was doing some kind of special on mlk, perhaps related to an anniversary that is related to a yearly holiday. placed together, it knocked me flat on my ass.
the idea in my mind from the start was integrationist, if not really consciously so. on the one hand, the guitar part is raw southern blues. on the other hand, the structure is sterile white minimalism. i didn't just realize this juxtaposition, i was trying to exploit it, even if the racial context hadn't occurred to me. when king's speech was played over it, though, the idea really exploded; the context became much deeper. it was an instant exponentiation in profundity.
i also thought it would work well as a foil to the doonesbury sample that is in the track that follows this one [entropy (original mix)].
in hindsight, there are some problems with this. i was a moderately wealthy white kid from canada. there was never much chance of me turning a profit on this, but if i did it would be a type of appropriation. this track does appear on the deny everything demo (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/deny-everything) but under the title of "a commercial break" - and without the dr. king samples. that's probably for the best.
that doesn't change the feeling i got when i first heard the two things together, or take away any of the power that the pairing produces.
i think this is worth sharing.
recorded in january, 2000.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/let-freedom-ring
missed connection (original discarded outtake)
this was initially written to be the first track of my third record, which i was calling trinri as a working title. yet, it was written about the same time as i was finishing up my covers disc. i wanted to add at least one more track to the disc to make it a bit longer. for whatever reason, i ended up using it as an introduction to the hummer cover, rather than as it's own track.
i've pulled it out here, in instrumental form.
recorded in sept. 1999. isolated on nov 25, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/missed-connection
i've pulled it out here, in instrumental form.
recorded in sept. 1999. isolated on nov 25, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/missed-connection
hummer (remix/cover for inrimake)
this is two things.
the introductory synth section was created independently as the introduction to a theoretical third demo (which became deny everything). i had also already decided to compile the covers disc and ended up using it for an introduction to this cover of hummer, instead. so i "lost" the section. i've regretted letting the part go a few times since. and, going this route factored into the decision to include the first two tracks (which are not covers). anyways...
the rest of it is actually two different approaches to the same thing. i ended up using them both by stringing them together rather than one or the other.
i was also feeling trapped in the covers project, generally. this is something that took a huge amount of time and energy. why wasn't i applying that towards original material? the samples at the end are meant to represent me breaking free of myself, and letting myself loose to get back to my own ideas. so i could live again. i plead guilty to all counts of being a drama queen.
i also ended up co-opting the song, mildly. i focused solely on the instrumental part in the second half of the track, which has a very carefree quality to it. it's not explicitly about rejecting war. but it fits.
musically, for the second part, i need to weight two tendencies. first, it was consciously meant to have this silly fake-jazz strut to it. second, i was clearly more interested in free jamming than composing anything with structure. it's a weird juxtaposition that sounds kind of dorky. sometimes, you have to begin analyzing something by determining whether it accomplished it's goal or not. i feel this did, but the intent was admittedly unusual.
this is so dramatically different from the original that it's reasonable to say something like that it's "inspired by" the original rather than a remix or a cover. it does contain creatively reinterpreted samples of the original.
created in sept & oct, 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/hummer
the introductory synth section was created independently as the introduction to a theoretical third demo (which became deny everything). i had also already decided to compile the covers disc and ended up using it for an introduction to this cover of hummer, instead. so i "lost" the section. i've regretted letting the part go a few times since. and, going this route factored into the decision to include the first two tracks (which are not covers). anyways...
the rest of it is actually two different approaches to the same thing. i ended up using them both by stringing them together rather than one or the other.
i was also feeling trapped in the covers project, generally. this is something that took a huge amount of time and energy. why wasn't i applying that towards original material? the samples at the end are meant to represent me breaking free of myself, and letting myself loose to get back to my own ideas. so i could live again. i plead guilty to all counts of being a drama queen.
i also ended up co-opting the song, mildly. i focused solely on the instrumental part in the second half of the track, which has a very carefree quality to it. it's not explicitly about rejecting war. but it fits.
musically, for the second part, i need to weight two tendencies. first, it was consciously meant to have this silly fake-jazz strut to it. second, i was clearly more interested in free jamming than composing anything with structure. it's a weird juxtaposition that sounds kind of dorky. sometimes, you have to begin analyzing something by determining whether it accomplished it's goal or not. i feel this did, but the intent was admittedly unusual.
this is so dramatically different from the original that it's reasonable to say something like that it's "inspired by" the original rather than a remix or a cover. it does contain creatively reinterpreted samples of the original.
created in sept & oct, 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/hummer
Sunday, November 24, 2013
the day inri messed the world up (remix/cover for inrimake)
alt.music.nin is a thing that existed, and you can imagine that the release of the fragile was a pretty big deal there. it was the first nin record released in the internet age - the first chance to discuss something new.
in fact, it hit the place like an explosion from friendly fire. giant arguments erupted, quickly giving way to a strange kind of silence. people that had been posting regularly for years couldn't even be bothered to post an opinion. i realized later that it was the first of what were several generational shifts in trent reznor's following. it actually seems to happen after every record. my shift out was "with teeth".
personally, i have a complex relationship with the disc, but this isn't a review of the fragile. it's an explanation of my remix of the track's first single, the day the world went away.
the single was released a few months before the record. people were posting remixes almost as soon as it was released. i actually didn't want to, but i had a few requests so i approached it on that level.
i wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the record, which it seemed like i had been waiting for my whole life. trent had been obfuscating and coy. it was hip-hop. it was orchestral music. it was prog. it was pop. i was just waiting with an open mind. the single didn't help form expectations: two versions of a mopey ambient thing, and a frighteningly awful tongue-in-cheek stadium rock dig at marilyn manson (who i gave zero fucks about, except in the context of him reducing reznor's songwriting quality). how does one approach this?
no. i didn't want to. "c'mon, i wanna hear your interpretation". fuck. fuck. no.
i listened a few more dozen times. i had aged five years, but the lyricist hadn't. i wasn't really connecting to it. but, the musician had aged fifty years and i was connecting to this. the production was.....actually really thin.
strangely.
musically, he had a good idea, but the execution struck me as completely botched. or, maybe, just minimized by record executives? either way, i decided i could make this thing bigger, more epic and more powerful.
that's the central idea in my reconstruction. i just wanted to take the idea in the original track and make it more dramatic.
i got a better response from this than i've ever gotten from anything else. randoms accused me of leaking a track, or even secretly being trent reznor (ok, those accusations were mostly not serious). many people admitted they liked my version better than the single version. i had such a huge spike at my mp3.com page (remember mp3.com?) that some of the tracks hit the top ranking in their categories. inri: mp3.com industrial rock superstar.
my plan was working! finally!
i can't tell what kind of feedback i got on the site. i had forgotten my password, and the site didn't have a mechanism to recover it. they got bought by some huge company soon after (i think it was vivendi) and all the indie artists got kicked to the curb.
drats. foiled....
recorded in the summer of 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-day-inri-messed-the-world-up
in fact, it hit the place like an explosion from friendly fire. giant arguments erupted, quickly giving way to a strange kind of silence. people that had been posting regularly for years couldn't even be bothered to post an opinion. i realized later that it was the first of what were several generational shifts in trent reznor's following. it actually seems to happen after every record. my shift out was "with teeth".
personally, i have a complex relationship with the disc, but this isn't a review of the fragile. it's an explanation of my remix of the track's first single, the day the world went away.
the single was released a few months before the record. people were posting remixes almost as soon as it was released. i actually didn't want to, but i had a few requests so i approached it on that level.
i wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the record, which it seemed like i had been waiting for my whole life. trent had been obfuscating and coy. it was hip-hop. it was orchestral music. it was prog. it was pop. i was just waiting with an open mind. the single didn't help form expectations: two versions of a mopey ambient thing, and a frighteningly awful tongue-in-cheek stadium rock dig at marilyn manson (who i gave zero fucks about, except in the context of him reducing reznor's songwriting quality). how does one approach this?
no. i didn't want to. "c'mon, i wanna hear your interpretation". fuck. fuck. no.
i listened a few more dozen times. i had aged five years, but the lyricist hadn't. i wasn't really connecting to it. but, the musician had aged fifty years and i was connecting to this. the production was.....actually really thin.
strangely.
musically, he had a good idea, but the execution struck me as completely botched. or, maybe, just minimized by record executives? either way, i decided i could make this thing bigger, more epic and more powerful.
that's the central idea in my reconstruction. i just wanted to take the idea in the original track and make it more dramatic.
i got a better response from this than i've ever gotten from anything else. randoms accused me of leaking a track, or even secretly being trent reznor (ok, those accusations were mostly not serious). many people admitted they liked my version better than the single version. i had such a huge spike at my mp3.com page (remember mp3.com?) that some of the tracks hit the top ranking in their categories. inri: mp3.com industrial rock superstar.
my plan was working! finally!
i can't tell what kind of feedback i got on the site. i had forgotten my password, and the site didn't have a mechanism to recover it. they got bought by some huge company soon after (i think it was vivendi) and all the indie artists got kicked to the curb.
drats. foiled....
recorded in the summer of 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-day-inri-messed-the-world-up
sleepy weekend. got stuck in the loop. don't know if other people are familiar with this.
it starts off by sleeping too little. 3 hours, let's say. but you're not tired for whatever reason, so you get up and check your email or whatever. within three or four hours you're sleepy, because you didn't get enough sleep. but you did get a little sleep so you only sleep for an hour or two. when you wake up you're still tired because you didn't get enough sleep, but you can't sleep because you're not tired. after about 36 hours of this nap/read cycle, it seems like you've had an exceedingly long day and need a long sleep - even though you've been barely able to stay awake. so you crash for like ten hours.
i think i just snapped it. annoying, though.
it starts off by sleeping too little. 3 hours, let's say. but you're not tired for whatever reason, so you get up and check your email or whatever. within three or four hours you're sleepy, because you didn't get enough sleep. but you did get a little sleep so you only sleep for an hour or two. when you wake up you're still tired because you didn't get enough sleep, but you can't sleep because you're not tired. after about 36 hours of this nap/read cycle, it seems like you've had an exceedingly long day and need a long sleep - even though you've been barely able to stay awake. so you crash for like ten hours.
i think i just snapped it. annoying, though.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
liquify (original album mix)
this track was meant to be a new beginning, but, instead, exists in a sort of purgatory. musically, it's radically different than anything else labeled 'inri'; thematically, it's a logical extension of inri. i really wanted this to be a fresh start, but in the end i had to leave it in the inri pile. in places it's sort of evil, in other places it's just a little too precious.
my dad swapped houses in mid 99. again. this would be a frequent annoyance over the next few years. i can date this clearly to the summer of '99 as the first thing i did in my new basement. that change of surroundings contributed to the feeling of wanting to do something different...
while it is an original track, it ended up on the covers disc for two reasons. first, the lead guitar loop that cycles through the track came out of a stoner jam session in the basement of a friend of mine. it's sort of hilarious to realize it took three years for another human being to get an influence here, even if it was a throwaway jam session. that was really just an excuse though. the real reason it's here, rather than on inridiculous, is that it fits in better on the prog theme of this disc than the noise theme of that one.
the lyrics have been a problem since they were recorded. sex sells. shock sells. i had to psyche myself up to do it. it's all tied together, though. where was i going with this, anyways?
'99 was the summer between grades 12 and 13 ("oac"). yes, ontario had a grade 13. get your laughs in. it was actually a pre-university year. universities would take the grades from the "oac" year as the entrance requirements. we didn't do SATs or anything. most universities have something like this for "mature students"; the weirdness is in making high school kids do the extra year. a few places (like quebec) still have similar types of pre-university screening...
anyways, i'm going into the oac year and i haven't even really given the whole vocation thing a passing thought, other than to reject the idea of defining my life through the concept of labour. there were a few weeks in the summer where i had sort of decided not to go to oac at all. i was actually *excited* about escaping school, focusing on a minimum wage job and spending my free time smoking pot and writing music. i really didn't want anything more out of life than this. and, if i happened to get lucky and sell some records, even better. i was eventually talked down from this position through a process of bribery. that didn't magically construct vocational aspirations, though; i ended up overloading on oac credits for the simple reason that i didn't know what i wanted.
(i ended up grudgingly accepting entrance into a software engineering program, literally switched to cosmological physics within a few weeks, switched to math after that, then bounced around from music to english to women's studies and ...)
so, again, i'm stuck between grade 12 and 13 and really dreading what the future holds. finding a way to sell some music would be an escape from this. i concluded that, tactically, my best approach at the time would have been to focus on something sexually explicit that gains it's power from it's shock value. there's a bit of desperation underlying this.
so i wrote a sort of graphic depiction of sexual domination within a male homosexual context. see, the thing is that it isn't very convincing. it isn't very convincing because it's contrived for profit. i'm being bluntly honest about the logic that produced this track because seeing myself in the mirror like this actually had a large effect on me. once i realized what i'd created, i was completely disgusted with myself. in it's initial form, liquify was the first 3:36 of this track. it sat on my hard drive for several weeks, waiting for me to finish questioning myself - who i was, what i was doing, whether it was worth it.
i came to two conclusions.
the first was that contrived music sucks. i realized i wasn't going to get anywhere faking it, anyways. if i wanted to build an audience, the only serious approach i had was honesty.
the second was that, even if it works, being fake isn't worth it. i was rejecting the beaten path because i didn't feel i belonged on it. accepting some kind of Official Alternative Beaten Path wasn't solving anything.
so, i should just do what i want, and tell anybody that doesn't like it to fuck off.
the second part of this track flowed from that epiphany. it's a pure prog workout, discernible from 1972 solely in it's updated use of technology. probably for the first time, the notes really mean something to me, here. if you listen, you can tell.
the ending scene of the jim carrey masterpiece, the truman show, fades the track out. it's meant to document the importance of the film in helping me work through what i was working through. i've mildly modified the track to fade out the truman show ending, which was just a little too cheezy & precious.
so, yeah. there's a few more inri tracks. but this is really the point where inri dies.
recorded over the summer of 1999. edited on nov 23, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/liquify-inrimake
my dad swapped houses in mid 99. again. this would be a frequent annoyance over the next few years. i can date this clearly to the summer of '99 as the first thing i did in my new basement. that change of surroundings contributed to the feeling of wanting to do something different...
while it is an original track, it ended up on the covers disc for two reasons. first, the lead guitar loop that cycles through the track came out of a stoner jam session in the basement of a friend of mine. it's sort of hilarious to realize it took three years for another human being to get an influence here, even if it was a throwaway jam session. that was really just an excuse though. the real reason it's here, rather than on inridiculous, is that it fits in better on the prog theme of this disc than the noise theme of that one.
the lyrics have been a problem since they were recorded. sex sells. shock sells. i had to psyche myself up to do it. it's all tied together, though. where was i going with this, anyways?
'99 was the summer between grades 12 and 13 ("oac"). yes, ontario had a grade 13. get your laughs in. it was actually a pre-university year. universities would take the grades from the "oac" year as the entrance requirements. we didn't do SATs or anything. most universities have something like this for "mature students"; the weirdness is in making high school kids do the extra year. a few places (like quebec) still have similar types of pre-university screening...
anyways, i'm going into the oac year and i haven't even really given the whole vocation thing a passing thought, other than to reject the idea of defining my life through the concept of labour. there were a few weeks in the summer where i had sort of decided not to go to oac at all. i was actually *excited* about escaping school, focusing on a minimum wage job and spending my free time smoking pot and writing music. i really didn't want anything more out of life than this. and, if i happened to get lucky and sell some records, even better. i was eventually talked down from this position through a process of bribery. that didn't magically construct vocational aspirations, though; i ended up overloading on oac credits for the simple reason that i didn't know what i wanted.
(i ended up grudgingly accepting entrance into a software engineering program, literally switched to cosmological physics within a few weeks, switched to math after that, then bounced around from music to english to women's studies and ...)
so, again, i'm stuck between grade 12 and 13 and really dreading what the future holds. finding a way to sell some music would be an escape from this. i concluded that, tactically, my best approach at the time would have been to focus on something sexually explicit that gains it's power from it's shock value. there's a bit of desperation underlying this.
so i wrote a sort of graphic depiction of sexual domination within a male homosexual context. see, the thing is that it isn't very convincing. it isn't very convincing because it's contrived for profit. i'm being bluntly honest about the logic that produced this track because seeing myself in the mirror like this actually had a large effect on me. once i realized what i'd created, i was completely disgusted with myself. in it's initial form, liquify was the first 3:36 of this track. it sat on my hard drive for several weeks, waiting for me to finish questioning myself - who i was, what i was doing, whether it was worth it.
i came to two conclusions.
the first was that contrived music sucks. i realized i wasn't going to get anywhere faking it, anyways. if i wanted to build an audience, the only serious approach i had was honesty.
the second was that, even if it works, being fake isn't worth it. i was rejecting the beaten path because i didn't feel i belonged on it. accepting some kind of Official Alternative Beaten Path wasn't solving anything.
so, i should just do what i want, and tell anybody that doesn't like it to fuck off.
the second part of this track flowed from that epiphany. it's a pure prog workout, discernible from 1972 solely in it's updated use of technology. probably for the first time, the notes really mean something to me, here. if you listen, you can tell.
the ending scene of the jim carrey masterpiece, the truman show, fades the track out. it's meant to document the importance of the film in helping me work through what i was working through. i've mildly modified the track to fade out the truman show ending, which was just a little too cheezy & precious.
so, yeah. there's a few more inri tracks. but this is really the point where inri dies.
recorded over the summer of 1999. edited on nov 23, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/liquify-inrimake
Friday, November 22, 2013
intro to liquify (original album mix)
my time stamp on this is too late; i specifically remember working on it before i moved in the summer of '99, but i don't know how much before. this may have been more like spring, 1999.
either way, i put the track aside to be worked on and didn't get back to it for quite some time afterwards. when i was compiling this (and inridiculous) as the end of my inri phase, i had to make a tough choice as to whether or not i wanted to finish it as a post-inri project or leave it as it was and move forwards. i really prioritized that cut-off point...
half of me wants to finish it now, but it wouldn't sound the way i wanted it to, originally. and it works well as this introduction.
recorded in the spring of 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/liquify-inrimake
either way, i put the track aside to be worked on and didn't get back to it for quite some time afterwards. when i was compiling this (and inridiculous) as the end of my inri phase, i had to make a tough choice as to whether or not i wanted to finish it as a post-inri project or leave it as it was and move forwards. i really prioritized that cut-off point...
half of me wants to finish it now, but it wouldn't sound the way i wanted it to, originally. and it works well as this introduction.
recorded in the spring of 1999.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/liquify-inrimake
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