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.

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...

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...

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.

so, my listening day has convinced me that it's a good time to go back over the material after inri023 and double check it's all what i want it to be, which may include making a few new remixes. that means the untitled techno tune is on hold until i get there, which i think is what it needs right now, anyways.

i needed to do this soon, whether it's now or in two weeks is being driven by my concern that the track i'm working on needs space.

i mean, i was planning on doing it when i was done the disc. but i'm doing it now instead. so, that vst mix of the second symphony is probably up next.

ok. i wanted to do some listening this week, because it's the time of the year for listening aids, so it's going to be a day or two before i come back to this, which is probably for the best. i guess i still have four mixes to do on this single...

untitled (vst mix)

this takes the midi file as it was created in 2002 and updates the playback to utilize modern vst synthesizers and guitar modellers. render finalized on dec 26, 2014. 

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-vst-mix

the reality is that canada benefits from warming in just about every way - longer growing seasons, better exploitation of resources and a more enjoyable climate. to any body governing canada, this is not a crisis but an opportunity. and i think that this fundamental calculus needs to be understood in approaching ways to deal with canada. canada will never respond to this as a crisis situation - because it is not a crisis situation to canada. it is just about the best environmental conditions that are even possible for canada. it is optimal.

but, see, that screws the rest of the planet over. so, as a canadian, i'm torn between recognizing what is good for my area of the planet and recognizing what is good for the planet in general. and, that's difficult because it means that this region is going to have to make sacrifices for the well being of other regions. which doesn't tend to happen. this region is actually notorious for that.

and, it's particularly problematic because we're actually even in control of the factors increasing the warming. it's not just us, it's russia as well. but we're a dominant factor due to our extraction techniques, and our permafrost.

the reality is that putting the frozen person in charge of the thermostat is going to lead to higher temperatures. that is a fundamental calculation that has to be recognized about how future canadian governments are going to react to this concern.

if we get a liberal government in, they may increase foreign aid to areas undergoing desertification out of a sense of legitimate guilt. canadian liberalism is really the last remaining branch of the original british liberal tradition, and by far it's most complete extrapolation of thought in the canadian constitution and charter of rights and freedoms. i think it's reasonable to project into the future this legitimate feeling for the necessity of reparation, and to have that feeling shared by a broad sense of the population. canadian liberalism can still produce this sense of legal fairness - i'd argue probably uniquely in the british tradition.

but none of that will stop canada from increasing emissions, it will just a set a self-imposed price on it's behaviour.

another strain that's going to develop is that canada is going to see itself increasingly isolated with russia. now, the current government is behaving rather stupidly in regards to this, so any kind of natural aligning is going to be stunted until they're removed from power. but, it's increasingly inevitable that we're going to see closer co-operation between canada and russia as their policies align internationally, if not domestically.

the reality is that the basis for canada as a non-aligned state is already well established from the trudeau and chretien years. the liberal party in the second half of the twentieth century didn't want nato to define it's international relations and often acted as a semi-neutral go between for american interests, while resisting nato operations in favour of united nations operations. it wanted an independent foreign policy, and had one up until the current prime minister took over. if a liberal government is able to re-establish an independent foreign policy, that kind of relationship might develop between canada, russia and the united states - the latter of two which are on the path to direct conflict. that kind of third power actually has a very important role to play right now and canada is kind of uniquely situated, between them in multiple ways, to play it.

given the american psyche, and we've seen this repeatedly in american history, it's more likely that americans will get up and leave the regions they've damaged than stay and try to fix it. and, the direction that californians and texans and others are going to move towards is north. the question is how far north.

the idea that canada has any real say in the matter is pretty tenuous. we're utterly dependent on the americans for security, and if they decide to move a few units into montreal or toronto we're not really going to have much to say about it. there have been concrete plans, even, to do this - some as a contingency plan for world war two in case the british fell and some as recently as the succession referendum in quebec, which would have ended with clinton declaring montreal the capital of the new state of quebec.

so, is the reality that canada has similar security issues to a country like poland? i think this discussion immediately requires an acknowledgement of the difference of scale. canada is lightly armed, but very large and there's a dramatically different (shorter) history there, despite much of it being unfriendly. yet, it's the same basic dynamic, where canada could conceivably be in need to seek protection from a force which has no future historical role but to dominate it. there's no need to work out the hypocrisy, because there's no need for consistency.

with russia, further, the situation is far less ominous - we really have nothing but commercial relations to look forward to, as russia couldn't possibly pose anything but a pyrrhic threat to canada, no matter how hard it tried to.

i think that sets up some historically strange dynamics that are going to need some foresight to navigate around.

one could even say that russia has met it's match with canada, in terms of natural defence barriers. i mean, they could maybe pull it off. for a week. then, they've doubled their size and are open to immediate dismantling. from all directions. it'd be a race with china for central asia.

which opens the country up as equals, which is my point. cross-polar trade could be the dominant economic relationship in canada within a few decades.

the thing about the kennedy assassination is that it remains unresolved. whether the resolution ultimately ends in filling in details to the official story or in a different story altogether remains an open question, but what is clear is that the story is incomplete. so, theories, in this context, are valid hypotheses to be checked - even if they seem ridiculous.

i tend to lean towards lbj as the most likely suspect. but there were of course a dozen other people with motives and ability. in the end, the story may never be told.

you have to wonder, though, if, at the root of it, it wasn't just some high tory reaction to the irishness of the whole situation. i mean, you have to imagine that these conversations happened in london.

"history has turned upside down, i tell you. there's an irishman in charge of the empire."

british heads of state have been killed for similar crimes of ethnicity in the past. and, really it's not clear that the mindset of the british lords is altogether much different today, when it comes to certain things, than it was a thousand years ago.

given the conspiratorial complexity of certain theories, i just sort of like the simplistic stupidity of this one.

when you spend several days on a specific part, you want to make sure you get it right. then, when you spend a week on it, it'd better be almost perfect. of course, it's complexity grows when you spend that much time on it, as well. so, the importance of getting it right increases. then, when you've spent two weeks on it you're not satisfied with anything less than an impossible ideal.

then, when you're struggling with old age, and you're still cursing the machine for not getting it right, you shit in your diaper and realize the futility of the whole endeavour.

i'm just about done convincing myself this is perfect.

actually, i'm going to have to do a dark mix, too. let's make this an interesting single.

i made a last minute addition and it's extended the time for the vst mix, but it's really almost done. really. i keep saying that, and i have to be right eventually.

most of the singles i'm releasing lately are practically lps in themselves, which is something i may revisit a little - there may be extra mixes added to some of these singles to fill them out.

for the few people that have bought these singles, i'll send out free download links. i'm going to finalize all discs on the date shipped though - meaning clarity and spin are finalized. they're both done anyways, conceptually. there's at least one new psilocybin mix coming. the time machine has multiple mixes, but is under 50 minutes, so it's more a temptation to use the space than to complete the idea. same thing for time. and box. and maybe even stuck. i want these to come to me organically, though. meaning it will likely be slow revisions with no final end point besides death...

for right now, this untitled single is going to be pushing 80 minutes again. and i'm content with that. if i'm going to do this the way i'm doing it, the discs really should be full.

to extend the torture of mixing this track, i've decided to do at least one more mix of it. it's techno-jazz. and i'm focusing on the techno. but i think one mix should focus on the jazz.

the techno vst version will be up before the sun is, i can guarantee this.

so, the mix is finalized, i'm just fighting with the sampler.

it's different every time i play it. and it's bluntly driving me bonkers. i think this is probably by design to make it sound "more real", as nobody plays the same thing the same way twice. but, they seem to have picked rather annoying variables to modulate in order to create this effect, and i can't figure out how to turn it off.

i'll have to adjust in the future by rendering guitar outs to wave essentially immediately. it's going to kill a little bit of flexibility, but at least i'll have control over the sound.

for right now, to get this mix out, i'm forced to keep experimenting with the render until it comes out right. it can't possibly take more than a few more hours to do this...

this is a softer argument that i think i ought to try first and foremost, and continue moving back to...

the fact is that i went in to see the doctor in the first place because i wanted to discuss factors that were disabling me from finding employment. i went through a long process from that point, but the essential premise has remained in stasis. i remain in need of that discussion about factors that are disabling me from finding employment. that needs to be a basic step forwards, and it's unlikely to resolve itself in a period of three months. so, if you're not going to diagnose me on the spot then you need to put the things in motion to have me have that discussion relatively quickly, so i can get another year or two to either be diagnosed more rigorously or to try and carry out any recommendations.

it's funny how you meet these people that think they can conquer any odds. it defies the entire concept of odds to think you can conquer all odds. so, there's an implicit misunderstanding of the concept inherent in this perspective. so, to me, the more interesting question is how such absurdity can arise?

i think there's a simple psychological explanation that essentially renders the concept as relative - despite all arguments to the contrary. it's ultimately just not carefully thought through, of course. but, i think the way it works is basically this - if you've never put yourself up against serious odds, if all of your challenges in life are things that you're more likely to succeed at than fail at, then you might gather the perception that odds aren't important. if you've always been favoured, and you've always won, it's possible to delude yourself into thinking you'll always win. see, that's the odds working, though. kind of comically.

so, you get these situations where people are faced with 100:1 odds and they approach it with the attitude that the situation is inevitably going to unfold in their favour, like every other situation always has. which is the comfort of modern existence, i suppose.

hey, google..

do you think people might enjoy being notified when somebody they subscribe to changes their lead video? i know i'm abusing your system, but i think it's an abuse that could be expanded into a functionality. but, i'm not sure. part of me thinks it's invasive, part of me thinks it's a good idea.

at least the way i'm thinking about using it is a good idea. see, i'm running through my discography in a one-to-one relationship with the time it took to create it. what that means is that my lead track is consistently about 18.5 years ago, which means when i change it is an interesting idea for a long term feed to follow, as you're following a relatively unusual life. it's a character to follow. slowly. i'll probably actually set up my own rss for this when i get around to doing a number of things that are like this. but i still like the idea of using youtube for it directly. put another way, i'm a musician, so the storyline of the "channel" requires a slightly different set of tools to set up to follow.

but, it could be used for pure evil, too. this is a privilege that requires careful checks and balances, and it might be impossible to keep it in line.

so, i dunno. maybe notifications on the lead video change aren't the best idea. but i think that the ability to set up specific feeds to subscribe to kind of really is a good idea.

i know i can set up a playlist and use rss feeds on the playlist adds, but there's no social front-end to this besides facebook, which i'm trying to get away from. and if i'm going to update an appspot site, i don't need an rss feed for it so it's kind of a non-answer.

it's something that would be much better to present inside of youtube...

hell, i'll build it for you if you want to let me hang out in california for a few months.

:).

put simply, it's just the idea of channels having multiple feeds that subscribers can subscribe independently to.

obligatory influential on the track of the week post.

sunday bloody sunday. could i be more iconic? well, it's sort of the point. that martial drum beat exists in many places (before and after 1983) but is likely forever attached to this specific track.

(relevant tracks: idiotic, others)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQZLPV6xcHI

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

it's right about the point in time where my concept of sound and music was being entirely reshaped by this band. i'm pulling out riverz end, specifically, though, because the track was removed of samples in the final version.

(relevant tracks: idiotic)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84fvBST9o0w