finalizing inricycled (inri002)

this was posted to google+ the other day and is how i'm going to close the disc here.

this is inri002; it's what i've been listening to in the other room for the last day or so. what it does is combine bits and pieces of my first two demos, which are largely unlistenable, into something that can actually be enjoyed. i've pointed out that the first demo has a kind of abstract quality to it that has the potential to find an extreme niche audience somewhere between philosophy of the world and trout mask replica. that's great and all, but most people find that kind of thing too challenging.

this is far more digestible - which also means far less cringe-y. there are some short vocal sections, but it's broadly instrumental. the sections are usually short. so, it's a mix tape. all of the snippets were recorded in 1996 or 1997, but the mix was constructed in 2013.

i'm posting this now because i'm enjoying it for what it is. i've come to the conclusion that this is a really seriously worthwhile addition to my discography. when i first mixed it, it was more as a way to save face - i wanted to be able to do something with all these little pieces of sound that were ruined by bad lyrics. it's grown on me as a really positive decision.

it's weird. very weird. that's why i like it so much. but, it's contained and sort of catchy, too. there's an audience for this, for sure. and i'm proud of this now, finally.

==

i've released a dozen different things with the title "inricycled", making it more of a concept than a release. it's not just the material i'm recycling, now, it's the idea of recycling material.

i hope this is the final iteration. the difference, here, is that i'm trying to isolate segments of songs that people interested in my more recent compositions would find interesting. these fragments aren't entirely void of lyrics, but they're very minimal. they're also quite short.

i've retitled most of the tracks to get a feel of what the music sounds like and/or what i was thinking as i was writing it.

the material in this volume is taken from the first two cassette demos, inri000 and inri001.

this is the best possible absolute starting point for my musical material.

written and recorded over 1996 and 1997. digitally remastered, sequenced and mildly modified in the fall of 2013. released dec 11, 2013. finalized as lp000 on july 3, 2016. i consider this my unofficial zeroth record. as always, please use headphones.

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 2013, 2016).

credits:

j - guitars, effects, bass, drums, vocals, keyboards, tapes, found sounds, metronomes, digital wave editing, production. 

released july 1, 1997

02-07-2016: closing inri001 and discussing inri002

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

finalizing inri001

yeah. i just got a quick, clean listen of inri001 in on the official setup and it sounds great. i can only hope that this clarity lasts. i'm going to try it through the other gear, but i'm closing it.

this record is very much a continuation of the first demo, but it's also a kind of an appendix to it. if the charm of the first demo is in it's outsider music abstraction, this demo could easily be overlooked. but, it's in truth a more honest representation of the more ordered side of what i was attempting to create. the record also contains cringey moments, but they're not as pronounced and in truth are even largely overshadowed by the increased order in sound. so, despite the charms of the first demo, this is far more predictive regarding the music i would create over the next few years.

near the end of the demo, i become cognizant of the fact that my family is moving and i will lose the recording space - specifically the drums and the recording machine. i kept the guitars, as i was intellectually invested in them previous to the room, and my dad kept the bass. this awareness of an end point brought me to several summary type songs near the end, where i'm attempting to close the idea down prematurely. i always intended for this demo to be the same length as the first one, i just ran out of time. so, the cassette will leave the second side of a 100 minute tape blank.

while i can ultimately not honestly diagnose this demo as any more listenable than the first one, in absolute terms, it is certainly a lot closer to it. again: is this an asset or a drawback? it depends on the perspective. there's something to be said for me finishing my ideas more clearly, even if it means a loss at the level of the surreal - which is actually important in appreciating this, as one cannot actually listen to it.

that's not to say that this demo doesn't get outright weird, as it certainly does. it's just that the weirdness is more composed and less accidental - again, it's a stale academic argument, but it has a real meaning in the contrasted aesthetics.

so, i'd request that you interpret it as a reflection of the first demo rather than try and build a direct comparison with it. i'm pointing this out because i'm bundling them together in chronological time and associating them to one another due to the shared recording environment, but the value of this is more in the contrast than in the comparison.

so, i think it has a path to an audience, if not necessarily an obvious one just right now. it's too good to be intriguingly awful, but not good enough to appeal on it's own merits. so, it has to be understood in chronological context - as a transitional recording.

==

my second demo, recorded over the second half of the tenth grade, is a considerably more polished recording. by this time, i had learned a lot about how to record things and had improved my drumming and keyboard playing. while the vocals remain highly erratic, ranging from precociously insightful to devastatingly stupid, the music here is actually not far from a professional recording.

recorded in spring 1997, remastered in fall 2013. finalized on july 3, 2016. as always, please use headphones.

i consider this an archival release with little direct listening value. i've pointed out repeatedly that i was 16. however, various segments have been isolated and pulled out for a higher listenability value over here:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled-a

this release also includes a printable j-card insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 2013, 2016).

credits
j - guitars, effects, bass, drums, keyboards, tapes, vocals, found sounds, metronomes, production\

released june 1, 1997

the interference seems better tonight. figuratively knock on wood. the air is running, so it doesn't seem to be dominant.

i was able to finish the inri000 listening along with a lot of filekeeping related to it, including a j-card insert. i am comprehensively moving on, except to eventually update it with liner notes from the alter-reality (1996), 2013 and right now. that will happen around christmas...

inri002 is up next, and i'm going to try to take advantage of the low interference and go right for the mixer for the night. i could even close it by the next sleep.

j-card insert added to download for inri000.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1

a comment about inri002

i'm going to jump ahead a little bit. but this is a sidenote.

this is inri002; it's what i've been listening to in the other room for the last day or so. what it does is combine bits and pieces of my first two demos, which are largely unlistenable, into something that can actually be enjoyed. i've pointed out that the first demo has a kind of abstract quality to it that has the potential to find an extreme niche audience somewhere between philosophy of the world and trout mask replica. that's great and all, but most people find that kind of thing too challenging.

this is far more digestible - which also means far less cringe-y. there are some short vocal sections, but it's broadly instrumental. the sections are usually short. so, it's a mix tape. all of the snippets were recorded in 1996 or 1997, but the mix was constructed in 2013. and, i believe that i will expand it in the upcoming days into a full 90 minute mix tape. it's currently sequenced for cd.

i'm posting this now because i'm enjoying it for what it is. i've come to the conclusion that this is a really seriously worthwhile addition to my discography. when i first mixed it, it was more as a way to save face - i wanted to be able to do something with all these little pieces of sound that were ruined by bad lyrics. it's grown on me as a really positive decision.

it's weird. very weird. that's why i like it so much. but, it's contained and sort of catchy, too. there's an audience for this, for sure. and i'm proud of this now, finally.

ok, so what happened was that i spent thursday night looking for something, and then i figured i couldn't find it - so i said i'd do some listening on friday. but, then i found what i was looking for on friday and hence did not do any listening. but, i've put the vlogs on hold, i've done the prep that was required and i'm ready to get to some serious listening for most of the next week.

while i was doing prep, i spent a lot of time listening to inri002 and have developed some further ideas about how to distribute it. so, i'm going to be abstractly packaging some cassettes - but i don't have a cassette deck, so i can't actually make them. instead, i'll put the packaging in the download.

in fact, i think that i'm going to do that across the board. it may act as an incentive for digital purchase, and that might help me with eventual physical distribution. i'll have to be forthright: you don't get a number with a download.

that's yet another added level of complexity to the process, which is just more information overload. but, i'll eventually finish the packaging.

i haven't done headphone listening of either inri002 or inri003 yet, but they are definitely closed, audio-wise. i'm just waiting to get the proper time stamp.

the second half of yesterday was messy. i actually don't think i was planning on getting anything done, anyways. but, i *do* plan to get some listening in today.

i've been to a doctor a few times this week about the degenerative disease it seems like i have. that's something i'm going to be doing over the next year or two, as i seek to figure out what the fuck this is.

i need to be clear: i don't have a clue what it is. not the slightest. it's a lot of the same symptoms you get after a stroke, or get when you have ms, or get when you have als, or get when you have cancer, even...

these are symptoms that have been bothering me for around ten years, now. in some ways, they are getting worse. yet, they kind of come and go, too. i just always lived with it. facial tics are annoying, but not worth the time to see a doctor. i can deal with a sore back every now and again. & etc. but, the dysphagia has been really scary at points over the last couple of years. this isn't new, either, though - i remember it being awful for short periods as far back as ten years ago. what's new is that it hasn't receded now in quite a while.

the first thing i wanted to do was quit smoking habitually. done. since january. i wanted to make sure i wasn't just dehydrated, too, and i think i've ruled that out. the next thing that i wanted to do was rule out an ear infection, as a lot of the symptoms seem to be centered on my left ear. what's the point in getting mris and talking to neurologists for the next ten months if i just have an ear infection, right? so, i did that this week. i will get results on monday and am not certain what they will be. the doctor eliminated an actual infection as a cause, but the admin seemed to note something unusual around my ear drum when she was doing aural testing.

i don't think i had a stroke, although i've had periodic fainting spells for years (none recently). i got rid of them by not smoking on an empty stomach, although i think some of it was also heat stroke. i also think that this has been going on for too long for it to be cancer. the simple truth is that nobody has untreated cancer for ten years without the symptoms getting overwhelming. yes: the dysphagia is bad right now. but, it always previously came and went. if i had a cancer in my ear ten years ago, i'd almost certainly be dead by now.

so, i've kind of long deduced something like ms (or als, or...) by default. what else could it be?

well, something i've overlooked this whole time is lyme disease. i was just reading up on it. the symptoms are pretty accurate - especially the facial tic. i don't explicitly remember the rash, but would i have been able to tell it from a mosquito bite? i've had lots of mosquito bites over the last ten years, and some period of being "eaten alive". the absence of a rash is not absolute, either. you'd think that untreated lyme disease for a decade or more would be pretty serious by now, but that's at least a way out from ms or als.

the only other way out that i can think of is that my jaw keeps healing wrong and then fracturing and then healing wrong again, and it's basically just fucked that side of my face up so badly that everything has stopped working right. essentially, then, my face would be fucked. i know you appreciate my technical definition and in depth knowledge. but, i think there is something to this.

i wanted to do this one thing at a time to keep the issue straight in my head and i don't want to see a neurologist until everything else is ruled out. let's say i have ms, in the end. it's untreatable. i lose nothing by waiting for the diagnosis. i gain everything by avoiding a misdiagnosis.

so, i will go in on monday after i get my hearing test results and set referral appointments to check both for lyme disease and for skeletal issues. i'm also going to see if i can get my tongue checked for cancer, just in case.

it's only once i go through that process that i will consent to see a neurologist to check for a degenerative disease.

right now, i'm honestly kind of leaning towards lyme disease. - and i'm irritated with myself for not thinking of it sooner.

i got some listening in this morning as i was doing grocery shopping, although i kind of crashed when i got back. i also had to do some mundane tasks like wash strawberries, budgeting, etc...

the listen was over inri001 and inri002, and while they were both only half-engaged listens (while doing things like analyzing tomatoes), i can at least say i expect to close them both fairly quick, presuming the gear co-operates.

i think i'm going to wait for more careful listens before i do any final thoughts analyses.

29-06-2016: going for a hearing test and coming home to a noisy room

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

so, i did finally get through almost the whole record, but it was punctuated by about a dozen stops to adjust the foil. the cause and effect was overwhelming - it shorted out whenever the cage broke and it was solid for long periods whenever the cage was in tact.

the way i understand this is that that more or less clarifies that the issue is in fact an external field, and not bad wiring. any remaining doubts on this point are now gone.

what it is that i'm going to do about it is a lot less clear.

the a/c is running upstairs at full blast. i may have grounds for a noise complaint to get it turned off. but i don't have strong evidence that there's any real relationship between the two things and am not going to go down that path until i do. the noise itself doesn't actually bother me...

i have some shopping to do early in the morning, and i'm going to want to listen to the last third of the record before i go on, but i have every reason to expect to move on to inri001 at some point tomorrow.

the idea that i can maintain a full aluminum foil faraday cage over this wire is purely utopian - and every time a hole opens up, i'm exposing the wire to possible interference, when the interference is heavy. so, this isn't really sustainable. it never really was. it was always merely workable.

i'd obviously like to just use some shielded cables, but replacements for these phones are out of my price range. absurdly so, even.

nonetheless, i have done enough listening to conclude that the primary issue is in fact environmental, which i already knew. when i can cover the line, the short clears and the signal is clear. it's just that it doesn't last long...

so, what can i do? for now, i need to mix when the field is weaker. mornings. weekdays. that's what i did to get through the last batch of stuff, before i quit smoking.

in the long run?

well, there are these little rings you can put on the wires but the physics suggests to me that it's going to deaden the signal. somebody will tell me this is obvious. but, the only thing that's obvious to me is that i don't want this.

something else i can try is to block entry and exit points with some rmf shielding. they make tape, window tints, curtains....

i think the aluminum is going to remain my dominant solution for the foreseeable future, though. i'm just going to have to be patient about replacing it.

season 8

27-06-2016: confirming the interference still exists, and shielding my brain with tinfoil

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

today was actually a long day, and while i haven't moved on to inri001, i've at least set myself up for it.

i was able to confirm that the phones are still picking up a charge, and that the charge can be easily drained from the cable. the totality of evidence suggests i'm dealing with an environmental magnetic field, but i still have the possibility of bad wiring (no ground) as a cause.

i want to see if it's the field, first. i only had half of the cord covered with foil. i spent several hours this afternoon lining the entire cord over....

while i haven't listened to it with full coverage yet, it is ready to go when i wake up.

the other things that happened today were that i spent a lot of time eating as a consequence of the schedule doubling over, and that i did a lot of editing on the vlogs. the google+ page is just about wiped, so my reacts should be back to normal, pretty much, now.

i'm falling asleep...

26-06-2016: enough listening to close inri000, but slowed down by further annoyances

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

so, i've tried a few times to get a good listen in and there's been a number of complicating factors. i decompressed from flac to wav and it helped - i think maybe because i caught the machine in an upsample to 32 bits. i do still think that might be a factor. it's apparently hard to get windows to not upsample, but that's why i've stripped everything down to asio for now. i'm still getting some kind of interference on the old phones, but i wasn't getting it on the new ones so i'm not convinced that it's local. rather, it's the same apparent broad field issue that these phones seem to have big problems with, sometimes.

the a/c will be on strong for a while; i managed to get the heat in here up past thirty due to the nice humidity outside. finally.....so, i have a strong control, anyways.

as for what i have heard, it's kind of a mix of what i might expect from the equipment and what i might expect from the interference. these phones are absolutely flat and consequently absolutely honest. what that means is that it's a lot less forgiving, and i'm getting a more accurate signal - which means less bass and harsher highs. it's a reminder that newer equipment is newer and people aren't necessarily going to hear these pieces the way that i'm intending - but that mileage varies, and sometimes there are accidental improvements, even if that's hard to even define because it's actually all relative.

it's probably obvious that i need to listen a bit more to disentangle it and get a cleaner understanding of what i'm hearing. so, i'm going to try listening to the old phones through the laptop, and the new phones through the mixer. once again, this is just to isolate - the first two demos simply cannot be further altered. the audio is otherwise closed.

as mentioned, i will need to wait until the alter-reality catches up before i can permanently close the record. for this demo, that will happen at christmas.

but, i've now posted all the posts that i need to post, so i'll be moving on from inri000 when i feel i'm ready to - either tonight or tomorrow.

finalizing inri000

these are the first demos i recorded, written 1994-1996 and recorded in the second half of 1996. this corresponds to the end of my 15th year and the beginning of my grade 10 school year. on the one hand, it's an intriguing document of a socially maladjusted teenage punk. on the other hand, it's a 15 year-old kid learning how to use a recording studio (and how to play the drums). influences are displayed on my sleeve just a little too loudly at times.

i was attempting to create something that could be described by the words disturbing, schizophrenic, unique, bizarre, twisted. looking back, i think i succeeded more than i realized at the time. this is a difficult listen that would be appealing to fans of the obscurantist reaches of 80s punk and 90s grunge. i manage to maintain a strange sense of melody, though. in truth, my current adult self is somewhat impressed with my teenaged self at this current point.

that being said, it should not be forgotten that i was fifteen. i am at times rather crude, and i display a childlike understanding of certain issues. most poetry written at the age of fifteen is not particularly insightful. again, though, i surprise myself at points.

this is the first time i'm publishing these demos in any form. i've remained frighteningly self-conscious of them over the years. over the last seventeen years, the audience has been extremely limited. initial reactions suggested i take some time to perfect my performance skills, particularly my drumming skills. however, this indicated a lack of understanding of my intent in the overall sound. the playing is quite purposefully abstract with the aim of exploring mental illness.

the demos were initially dub-mastered onto a 110 minute tape that would have flipped after the eighth track. that tape was at some point recorded into a soundblaster and compressed very heavily; this is the only source of the material that i still have. so, i had to decompress the files from those 128 (or worse) kbps mp3s and run them through some digital mastering equipment in an attempt to "undo" the compression. what that is is a half-effective trick to recover data that is in actuality forever lost. nonetheless, i should point out that while these files were recorded entirely in 1996, they were substantially digitally modified in late 2013. finalized on june 26, 2016. as always, please use headphones.

i consider this an archival release with little direct listening value. i've pointed out repeatedly that i was 15. however, various segments have been isolated and pulled out for a higher listenability value over here:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled-a

this release also includes a printable j-card insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1996, 2013, 2016).

credits:
j - guitars, effects, bass, drums, vocals, keyboards, tapes, found sounds, percussion, production.

released december 25, 1996

of course, as soon as i claim i'm awake, i get sleepy.

i'm truly caught up and will be back to work tomorrow.