i've got this reasonably synced, although i'm not entirely sure what i'm going to do with it yet.

the initial play on the track was with the digital corruption. it's supposed to be erratic and off-kilter. so, i'm thinking about going with out-of-time live drums to take it to the next level, to start with.

i think that was the only thing i wanted to add to it, but it was vetoed out in favour of the folk aesthetic....

i haven't used the kit yet since i've moved down here. the song only has six tracks, so it's a good way to get it up and running.

i'm also going to need to replace that rondo intro with something really noisy.

lost yesterday. things. i hope to get the 9:46 instrumental synced and at least thought through (or composed) before i head out to see a john cage piece on sunday night.

the day i saw you cry (first demo)

this is a messy folk punk first run through of the second incarnation of this track, which was initially meant to be an industrial/punk song. it would be nice to have another take of this, but i don't have one, so it's better if you interpret this as a bonus track. there are completed versions of this, but they're not like this...

recorded feb 19, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-day-i-saw-you-cry-first-demo

9:16 outside of the magenta box

this is the original demo, that the main track was built over. it is completely unaltered from the 2002 file, which was recorded on feb 5, 2002. 

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/9-16-outside-the-magenta-box

time (rabit is wolf mix)

hrmmn. i'm actually thinking i'm going to need to squeeze another single in to explore time as a techno/hip-hop "thing".

i think this is a good quirky early 00s pop song in the style of garbage or the smashing pumpkins, but the mix never resolved itself and the vocals are, in hindsight, somewhat of a noose around it...

listening to each part separately through headphones is just reminding me how thick it is and how poorly i got the thickness across.

written & recorded in late 2001 and early 2002 and mixed in early 2002.

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

100,000 hits

yeah, what i uploaded was the best option. ok. i'll get to work on the reconstruction after lunch.

i seem to have taken this 2002 file down in volume for continuity purposes. i may even do it again, but it can't be the alpha.

and, actually, i found a file from 2002 - it was mixed quietly, so i've taken it up, and while it doesn't null with the 2007 mix, it's close. i've got volume differences and cd compression in the way. it certainly nulls more with the 2007 mix than it does with the 2002 mp3, leading me to believe it wasn't burnt from mp3 and the 2007 mix was the original. it's not coming out in the form of a reverb ghost or something, it seems like a volume difference, primarily.

but, i've got an a/b, there. i need to pick one of the two. either the 2002 mix was basically burnt from the same file (meaning the 2007 mix is the original file), or i've got some processing on the 2007 file to find. if i can't hear it, it's not there.....

...and i want to stick with the file at almost exactly the same volume as the 2002 mp3, which is the 2007 file, which is what i had to begin with.

note to self: leave notes to self.

actually, i've found a more scientific way to determine this.

1) the file i uploaded to bandcamp initially (sometime between 07 and 10) seems to be the same as the 2007 file. it's the same size, and it's nulling, even. so, the perception i'm having that the original upload sounds better is psychological.
2) the 2007 file i have is NOT the decompressed mp3, because, if it was, it would null. that being said, the intro nulls. so, i therefore must have taken the intro out of the mp3 and then done something else with the other file.
3) i'm slowly convincing myself that i didn't eq it.

bottom line: that's the file. i'm going to get to the point of remixing it, and i'll compare, but i think i'm dealing with a foobar fail. it sounds "right" in cool edit...

so, i'm about to update that.

actually, it sounds better in cool edit. i'm anal, i know, but sometimes, foobar really doesn't reproduce the files well...

keep in mind, i'm comparing it to a wave editor. maybe that's not fair. but there's gotta be a windows player at this point that's as good as cool edit was c. 2000.....

i'm slowly coming to the conclusion that i need to find a better player. especially for wave files.

uploading already completed tracks to inri055

1) http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/dnnng


2) this is a little messy, but such is the charm of acoustic demos. this was recorded live through a tascam four-track into cool edit (running on a PIII), with sean on the right channel and myself on the left channel and then mixed into stereo afterwards. unfortunately, you can hear the hard drive recorder skip at a few points; i ended up working it into the composition, but it wasn't initially intentional.

this was meant to purely be a demo, but i ended up just building the mix on top of it.

written and recorded in early 2002. track released feb 5, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/9-16-outside-the-magenta-box-acoustic-demo


3) this is the original vocal mix from 2002, and also appears on the rabit is wolf demo.

written and recorded in early 2002. track released february 8, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/9-46-outside-the-magenta-box-original-full-mix

so, the 9:46 single is going to be february/02, basically. the rabit material is unique in having otherwise discarded mixes that differ dramatically from final versions - i generally work on the track until it's done and that's it but with all the stylistic upheavals and the influence of 1.5 other people, it got messier than normal. so, i'm going to fill it up with goodies, 'cause why not...

there'll be a few tracks with minor or no mods up almost immediately.

unlike clarity, the final version is going to be significantly remixed. it was a messy mix that i mostly tossed together as a demo in the wee hours of a frozen february morning. there's even some digital corruption in the file. it wasn't meant to be final. but the vocals carried it as it was well enough that it didn't need it, really. if i'm going to reclaim this as an instrumental, it needs significant work to get there.

so, workflow on this:

1) acoustic tour demo mix (also on acoustic tour ep)
2) vocal mix (also on rabit demo)
3) instrumental mix (also on j^2)
4) extra demos from feb, 2002 - mostly as is, and mostly otherwise orphaned files

cigarettes are gone, i'm feeling calm, and i'm ready to make the best of what i've got left to do.

it looks like i've got six months left to live. that might change, but it's how i'm going to be acting for the foreseeable future. so, i need to pick up the pace.

i'm not going to compromise on the product, i'm just going to stop focusing on promotion. it will be a roughly weekly ritual from this point until i figure out how much longer i've really got.

so, they decided to make the forms due on my birthday. aren't they sweet....

if i wait until the very last minute, i should hopefully get another month or two while it's being processed.

i then get a three month grace period from the time a decision is made to figure something out.

i can also appeal. so, i could stretch this out to close to a year.

i'm thinking i should go in to see my worker within a few days to ask if she has any recs for doctors, because it's what it comes down to. all i've had here so far is grief (excluding that one er doctor). i'm actually even considering hitching back to ottawa to go back to the same doctor that signed off on me initially.

kind of cold to hitch, though.

no, really. there's inevitably sleeping outside involved.

i'm obviously crazy. you only need to follow my facebook feed for a few days to get that. but i come off as rather deceptively sane, both on paper and in person. this is why i wanted to get some serious shrink time in. my insanity may not be obvious in a ten minute conversation, which is how these things seem to work, but you can't miss it after you've known me for a few weeks.

like, i was so sane on first impression that the shrink i went to wouldn't even talk to me. if you've been following this for any length of time, you realize how surreal that is.

i suppose i can try another shrink, but....

i think the best diagnosis is just "mad".

"she's a mad hatter" kind of thing.

i'm calmed down, now. my threats aren't idle but i'm relaxed. i wish i didn't buy those cigarettes...

she's in tuesday mornings...

guess i'll have to wait until next week. gives me time to think...

i'm just going to have to level with them.

i needed the doctor to play along, but what got me a huge slice of empathy from ontario works was a letter i wrote them where i just explained the reality of my existence in the most cold, dour way possible.

the truth is nothing has changed. i didn't choose to exist in this society, and i would have decided pretty squarely against it if i had the opportunity to make the choice. but, i'm here, and this is the only way i'm going to exist with any contentment. i can at least state that i've been considerate enough not to breed. signing me off into misery (which i will not accept. i will choose death.) isn't making anything better for anybody.

in the end, i have to convince them to choose compassion over calvinism.

90% of that is going to be determined by who i end up talking to....

clarity (final album mix)

i need to point out that *this* is really going to be the final cynicide/rabit release, that takes the best material out of the period and puts it together into a single record. go ahead and listen to the first two tracks. it's already epic. an elephant in the womb, indeed....

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

publishing clarity (inri054)

the core loops involved in clarity were initially created in the late summer of 2001, with the intent of being the opening sequence in a new inri project (with the long kicked-around working title of 'trinri'). while i had fairly firmly put the inri moniker down around my 19th birthday (late 1999), i was also coming out of a lengthy "serious music" phase and was getting a desire to write in a more structured, synth-pop type direction, as i had for years previously. this urge was happening about the same as i was being coerced into starting a rock band with some high school acquaintances.

around october, i started working on a separate noise project that was meant to splice harsh electronic noise with anarchist politics. this produced two tracks at the time, which are now available as a short single as inri032. at the time, it wasn't clear to me where those ideas would lead.

by november it was clear that the rock band wasn't happening, but it turned out the singer had tastes that correlated reasonably well with what i was thinking about creating for the trinri project. these two projects consequently merged into rabit is wolf, and the material i was kicking around for use in trinri ended up becoming the core of what rabit is wolf became.

as i was recording parts for clarity, i ended up reusing ideas from the noise project. i further reused those ideas in constructing a 2004 noise collage for inclusion on the record that finally came out of the noise project. both noise collages are present in order to comprehensively explore the ideas existing within clarity.

zen was recorded with sean over december, 2001. i have chosen not to complete a version of the wave (inri034) that was also being discussed at the time, but would have fit into this release well, conceptually.

clarity was completed (with vocals) over january, 2002. the nature of rabit (along with the songs i had written for it) took a sharp turn towards folk almost immediately. this collection is consequently quite different than the official rabit demo, which is much more song-oriented. over the years, i've always wanted to have a rabit release that was darker, noisier and more chaotic and am glad to have it in the form of this ep-single, which could be viewed as a secondary demo. put another way, this is the comprehensive representation of the second (electro/noise/industrial) incarnation of rabit is wolf.

however, there are two factors complicating clarity as a solely rabit is wolf production. the first is that sean was never really happy with the result - a shame as i consider his vocal performance and lyrics to be the best of the songs we did together. the second is that i always felt the track was "mine" and should have had an instrumental mix. that is, i've always regretted not saving an instrumental mix.

for these reasons, i've revisited the track as an instrumental and left two snapshots - 11/2001 and 01/2002. this second snapshot (which is to be considered a final mix) will also appear on my upcoming 6th record, dated to the end of 2002.

recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. track 6 was constructed in may, 2004 out of files recorded 1999-2001. tracks 1-4 were reconstructed over october, 2014. final mixes were finished on october 18, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars (electric, acoustic, nylon), mandolin, sequencers, synthesizers, drum & melodic programming, electric air reed organ, digital piano, flute, drum kit, sampling, digital and analog effects processing, digital wave editing, sound design (loops, granular synthesis, noise generators), production

sean - vocals/lyrics (3,5), harmonica (4,5)

released february 1, 2002

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

i've listened to and tweaked around with the eq and compression on clarity all day, and i'm just about to leave it as it is. every time i change something, it becomes something i'm not used to hearing. i operate pretty strongly on intuition. that is, i tend to just fuck with it until it sounds "right". what i'm realizing is that what sounds "right" is the way it sounded 12 years ago, due to listening to it that way so many times. i guess this is a thing that happens, and that we all do it to our own music and the music of others - through repeated listening, the imperfections on the track become a part of the track, to the point that it can't exist without them. i'd bet this frustrates the fuck out of paul mccartney....

even the piano part. it's sloppy. i think i was drunk. i wanted it to have that suave, amateurish new wave bash to it (it's a stylistic trait of mine, through a lot of my recordings), but it came out weirdly meek sounding. like i wanted to smash the keyboard but was drunk. which i think is literally true...

i can't replace it, though. i've mentally cycled through a number of more sophisticated parts, and they all convert the track into something it may have once become but hasn't been since it was created. i've thought about rebashing a little harder, but it's the same fundamental concern.

so, the 2002 instrumental mix is going to be the final mix on this. predictable posting flurry is coming...