i've pretty much settled on combining the techy guitar tracks together into a "tetris", and waiting until the end of period 4 to release it as a 2xcd. i'm mostly done the sound collage - just a few more tracks. but it's going to be split into tracks for a normal cd release, and it's a little short of the 80 minute target. the guitar atmospherics disc is also seeming like it's coming up a little short, so this may actually get moved to a period 3 comp. i'm just a little hesitant that it may end up creating the problem of requiring two more discs - and i wouldn't really want to release a 4xcd of this nature, or release it in two doubles. tetris is something i've been wanting to do for years, and it works as a 2xcd. but a 2xcd of guitar snippets is overkill, and a 2xcd of guitar atmospheres is likewise pointless; this is only interesting when bundled together as an a/b side type thing.

i have a pile of real world things i need to do tomorrow and probably tuesday, and was hoping i could get this done first. i can't put it off, so if it's not done by the time i sleep, it's going to be until at least mid week before it is.

so, i've narrowed this down to one, maybe two more comps.

it seems like i'm going to have a guitar works up in three volumes, similarly to the ambient works - with a spliced together mix tape of shorts for the period one material and a 2xcd for the period 2, with one for "lead" parts and one for "atmospheric" parts.

i'm debating also putting together a drum and bass / electronic jazz disc, but i want to put together the guitar disc first to see if it overlaps.

i've had an idea for a while about a "tetris" idea, which is specifically meant to be techno guitar solos. this overlaps with the drum and bass idea. but, it also overlaps with period 3 and also period 4.

so, i'm contemplating these things. and then that is it - it will be on to period 3.

publishing orchestral works (inri072)

this is inri049 - an orchestral works compilation to close my second compositional period. these pieces are diverse, but the commonality is that they are arranged for the whole orchestra.

==

an unexpected result of the project to complete my discography, undertaken in late 2013, has been the construction of a handful of orchestral pieces, mostly as remixes of original tracks from the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj period. while these tracks were initially written out as scored pieces for expanded instrumentation, they were generally written around the guitar and the expanded instrumentation was largely meant simply for colour. the exception to this is the psilocybin symphony, which was written as a piano concerto from the start and previously completed in early 2006.

the ability to expand these pieces into orchestral works is the result of the advances in vst sampling technology that have occurred since 2003. while changes in instrumentation have been accompanied by extra writing (mostly on the guitar), tempo shifts and other general rearrangement choices, the existing technology makes it very easy to rearrange a rock song for an orchestra, by simply multiplying staves and changing the sound fonts.

the condition i've set for a piece to be "orchestral" is that it must utilize the entire orchestra: it must have percussion, piano, horns, woodwinds/reeds and strings. guitars are generally treated like "first violins", whereas violins are generally not considered to be more special than other similar string instruments. some of the tracks also have prominent choral sections. all of these pieces meet this condition, except the last one which does not have a woodwind/reed section.

my delve into scorewriting ended in 2003; the material in my third phase is more focused on live and manipulated guitars and synthesizers. i consequently feel that this is an interesting summary of my second period, taken from a specific angle that is otherwise largely relegated to single-only remixes.

initially written and recorded between 2001-2003 and remixed and recorded further over 2014-2015, except track 2 which was completed in early 2006. final compilation date is may 23, 2015. as always, please use headphones.

credits
j - controller inputs, drum & other programming, orchestral & other sequencing, live guitars, live bass, live synths, effects, sound design, digital wave editing, composition, production.

the various rendered electronic orchestras includes violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric guitar, nylon guitar, guitar fret noise, bass guitar, synthesizer bass, french horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, english horn, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, saxophone, bamboo flute, flute, piccolo, synthesizers, mellotron, organ, piano, harp, koto, music box, clavinet, kalimba, xylophone, agogo, mallet, hammered percussion, woodblock, tubular bells, tinkle bells, glockenspiel, orchestra hit, melodic toms, electronic drum kit, timpani, orchestral drum kit and choir.

released april 29, 2003

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/orchestral-works-vol-1

reflections (orchestral mix)

written and recorded in early 2003. transcribed, slightly rearranged, remixed and re-rendered over may, 2015. this render was completed as an ambient mix on may 16, 2015 and expanded to include a horn section on may 23, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/reflections-orchestral-mix

done up to the trip

hey..

this has been a painfully slow process, but i'm finally done up to the bc trip. that's a lot of stuff. like, almost two days of music. now, i need to get to creating final versions of as many of the songs i wrote on the trip and right after it as i can remember...

"refractions" (inri046), "flying" (inri045) and "la la la la" (inri043) are singles of material from "reflections (inri050), which was the going away trip. there's some new remixes on 43 & 46 that you may enjoy, specifically.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/music

j

prematurely publishing orchestral works (inri072)

ok, so i've published this with the ambient mix of "reflections", but i'm in the process of adding some horn parts. these are minor additions that are doubling guitar and bass parts - you'd have to know the track fairly well to even notice. but it's conceptual in getting the comp together, and it *does* brighten up the sound a little.

i'm not expecting to add reed or woodwind parts to this, but i'll have to listen to it on repeat for a few hours to be convinced of that.

for right now, this is basically inri049. i'll post the final update when it's finished.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/orchestral-works-vol-1

inri024 has been updated again with two more mixes - the discussed orchestral mix, and a glitch sound collage that came out of the process. i believe this is the final update.

this process of compiling ideas at the end of period 2.2/2.3 will be the absolute final modification of the material up to inri050.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-closing-in-on-all-sides

stuck in the middle of an alley with angry googley-eyed robots slowly closing in on all sides

i wanted to check that two outs from the orchestral mix mostly nulled, and ended up with somewhat of a musical - albeit very glitchy - difference file. i created this collage out of that difference file on may 22, 2015.

written late 2000 & early 2001. rearranged, rendered and faded out on apr 27, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. further remixed for the ambient works on may 19, 2015, again for the orchestral works on may 22, 2015 and a third time for this glitch mix on may 22, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-with-angry-googley-eyed-robots-slowly-closing-in-on-all-sides

stuck with a guitar in the middle of a slow electronic orchestra playing on all sides

for the orchestral works (inri072). the sound font on the strings was modified to sound less synthetic and the live guitars from the original mix were worked in at the slower tempo.

written late 2000 & early 2001. rearranged, rendered and faded out on apr 27, 2014. live guitars were layered into the final version over may 2014. further remixed for the ambient works on may 19, 2015 and again for the orchestral works on may 22, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/stuck-with-a-guitar-in-the-middle-of-a-slow-electronic-orchestra-playing-on-all-sides

yeah. i've got a five track, 76 minute comp of orchestral music that is coming up as inri049, i just need to make some adjustments to "stuck". it wasn't in my initial list because it's kind of a punk song, but it turns out "spin" meets my requirements of "orchestral". and i've made an exception for the ambient mix of reflections, which is like....if it wasn't there, the disc would be 50 minutes instead, and who prefers that? it's basically bonus. it doesn't have reed, wind or horn parts but the synth bass sounds sort of like a horn and the choir, when it comes in, is pretty epic. i'm going to experiment a little with adding some parts in, but i don't expect any to stick...

the thing is that there's nothing approaching "orchestral music" in the discography after 2003 until at least 2006. i was more interested in trying to find a drummer in order to start a rock band. some of the stuff may have picked up string parts and whatnot had they developed further, and a few still might, but there's just not anything to put aside the tracks for. if i don't put it together for april, 2003 it will probably never get put together at all.

the other two tracks are the mushroom symphony and the guitar concerto.

first things first: let me take a look at "stuck".

i've been wanting to do an "orchestral works" for a while, it's just that i need to be strict about how i'm defining an orchestral work - because otherwise i end up with almost everything.

i'm going to lean towards horn-heavy tracks as being "jazz" and string heavy tracks as being "chamber". that's going to let me put both of those ideas off until the end of period 3.

an orchestral work needs to have horns, strings, reeds and winds - it's gotta actually be a full orchestra. it also helps if it's a concerto.

i've got two pieces that fit this definition cleanly, and two i want to remix mildly to get closer to the point. i'm thinking this will probably get done for an inri049 release, which will put reflections up to 50 - or 51, if that guitar disc gets built, as i think it will.

so, there's still some ideas to work through with this.

when you need to sleep...

the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj period is now finished. finally. and it feels good.

publishing ambient works vol 0-2 (inri071 + inri035)

i've got the mix tape up which means inri048 is now done...

i've got a number of snippets after about 1999 that i'm not sure what to do with. i'm probably going to just forget about most of it, but some of it will no doubt end up on volume 3, which will be somewhere in the 60s or 70s. so i'll just put it aside for later.

i put aside a number of compilation ideas as i was sorting through the material. i wasn't expecting anything to get a release in this space, but i'm now questioning that. it's largely a process of elimination. but right now it'slooking like inri050 is actually going to be a similarly epic guitar-focused disc.

that said, there's plenty of guitars on this disc, especially in the mix tape. i'll post it when i figure it out...

===

i've taken to splitting my discography into phases, and my hitch-hiking trip to british columbia is a very important separation point - both in terms of the nature of the material that came out afterwards and what is now a substantial body of work that came before it. that makes it a natural point to look backwards and build compilations of intersecting ideas.

a characteristic of my work is that it does not conform well to genre norms. this is not an accident; when compiling a record, i'm guided more by the late beatles' philosophy of vast diversity in a small space than i am by any kind of desire to collect together nice singles, or by some kind of compulsive organizing into categories or concepts. i write psychedelic music. that means something different in 2015 than it did in 1966, but the commonality is that it's necessarily challenging. i want all of my records to do everything at once, and accomplish everything by their end point. that makes compilations of this sort inherently difficult, because every song touches on every compilation idea at the same time. the jazz record would have the same tracklisting as the punk record, the classical record and the folk record - and none would really be what they're claimed to be.

the one exception to this conundrum is how i interacted with ambient music in this period. i very regularly utilized ideas from the genre, but i tended to interpret ambience as something that is necessarily obscure. in this period, ambient pieces are almost always outtakes or b sides. i tended to interpret covers and remixes as ambient pieces, probably because that was unexpected. when ambient ideas make it on to the record, they're almost always for effect: introductions, endings, connecting passages, that sort of thing.

when i began reconstructing my discography in early 2014, i came across a handful of songs i'd written out into midi format and put aside for later. a number of these ended up reworked into ambient pieces, and released as b sides. i also ended up converting some of the material i wrote in this period into ambient sound collages that are more in the style of music i created after 2003.

the end result is enough bsides and remixes to put together two full cds of ambient music. none of the tracks on volumes one or two are on any official record as they appear here; this is technically a collection of remixes and outtakes.

initially written and recorded between 2000-2003 and remixed between 2014-2015. sequenced over mid may, 2015. final compilation date is may 21, 2015,. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - guitars (acoustic, electric, nylon), effects & treatments, bass, synthesizers, electric air reed organ, orchestral & other sequencing, drum & other programming, generative programming (sounder), "projectile synthesis" (audiomulch), granular synthesis (granulab), sound design, electronic and conventional drum kits, sampling, loops, films, voice, digital wave editing, composition, production.

sean - vocal ideas (tracks 4 & 7, disc 1), ring modulator (track 9, disc 1)
jon - background guitar performance (track 4, disc 1)
greg - drum performance sample source (track 5, disc 1)

the various rendered electronic orchestras include synth bass, electric bass, acoustic bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, nylon guitar, guitar effects, guitar noises (fret noises, pick scrapes, knocks), synthesizer, synth pads, mellotron, choir, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, string section, pizzicato strings, french horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, oboe, english horn, bassoon, clarinet, flute, piccolo, mallet, piano, woodblock, music box, xylophone, tubular bells, other bells, orchestra hit, electronic drum kit, melodic toms, drum machine and orchestral drum kit.

released april 28, 2003

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-works-vol-0-2

ambient works vol 0, side b

side b mixes various ambient sections from period 1.2 and period 1.3, which, here, is all over 1999. mix created on may 21, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/side-b

ambient works vol 0, side a

side a mixes various noise and ambient sections from period 1.1 and period 1.2, which is 1996-1999. mix created on may 21, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/side-a

ambient works vol 1

my liner credits are often ridiculous, and this is the near the top of the list in ridiculousness.

j - guitars (acoustic, electric, nylon), effects & treatments, bass, synthesizers, electric air reed organ, orchestral & other sequencing, drum & other programming, generative programming, granular synthesis, "projectile synthesis" (audiomulch), sound design, electronic and conventional drum kits, sampling, loops, films, voice, digital wave editing, composition, production.

the various rendered electronic orchestras include synth bass, electric bass, acoustic bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, nylon guitar, guitar effects, guitar noises (fret noises, pick scrapes, knocks), synthesizer, mellotron, choir, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, string section, french horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, oboe, english horn, bassoon, clarinet, flute, piccolo, mallet, piano, woodblock, music box, xylophone, tubular bells, other bells, orchestra hit, electronic drum kit, melodic toms, drum machine and orchestral drum kit.

i'm tempted to convert the kitchen sink into an instrument, just so i can put it in there.

vol 1 is done. these discs are both over 79 minutes, so you're in for a lengthy listen.

vol 0 will be the spliced together mixed tape and will be what i'll be doing after lunch. it should hopefully be up the morning.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-works-vol-0-2

ambient works vol 2

volume 2 is up. wait a few hours if you want it with volume 1.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-works-vol-0-2

bird's eye view (sounder mix)

this is a sounder sequence, which was rendered some time in late 2002. i've dated the file to december 25, 2002. published on may 19, 2015.

i will not be appending a mix to inri027. volumes 1 & 2 are done, and should be available to stream within a few hours

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-closing-in-on-all-sides

stuck in the middle of a slow electronic orchestra playing on all sides

so, i've appended a mix to inri024.

written late 2000 & early 2001. rearranged, rendered and faded out on apr 27, 2014. further remixed for the ambient works on may 19, 2015.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/stuck-in-the-middle-of-a-slow-electronic-orchestra-playing-on-all-sides