SubVersion Stop 64: Muttley - Back To The Drawing Board (January 2010)

A genre bleeding into a new definition? If you listened to "Back To The Drawing Board" as an ambient lover, the tunes would be fresh to your ears. If you glanced at this set-list as a drum & bass conisseur, you'd predict it would be beat-orientated. The fact is that these tracks were not drawn-out drones in their initial guises, nor beatless. Every one is a composite of stretched audio.

I read Dave Michuda's "slo_mo" entry, and downloaded Paul's "Extreme Sound Stretch", wondering what original things I could do with it. At this time I was also feeling let down, and had spoken to a friend about jungle mixes. This duality lead me to revisit the most spine-tingling tunes I could find in my drum & bass collection, citing the phrase "back to the drawing board".

I don't have many records in the genre - 250 maximum, at a push. So sampling for breakdowns, intros and outros without percussion was fairly easy. Thinktank's "Skyscraper" was a starting point. The samples in "Back To The Drawing Board" were stretched to up to ten times their original length. Adam F's classic "Jaxx" and Probe-One's "Substance" were the longest modifications in the set, taking under two minutes of synth noise and elongating it to roughly 600 seconds. Not all is audible; using Acoustica Audio Mixer I faded in and out of sounds with clarity optimized.

There's a variety of octave adjustments mixed in, blurring the lines. "Extreme Sound Stretch" lets you do this as well as shift pitches and harmonics. While this mix was rendered entirely from drum & bass audio, I plan to incorporate a helping of outsider repertoires, including ambient and piano works, to chime in with my favoured selections. It's worth noting that I bought these tunes partly on the basis of their atmospherics, so perceive this as a prototype to me discovering ambient music when I was 16, if you will.

The title is relevant, also, because I'm completing my Open University study. I am in the process of re-reading all the units to ensure I obtain the highest mark I can for my second assessment. 75% on my first is respectable considering I knew I was slacking due to undisciplined structure. At 25 minutes, I hope "Back To The Drawing Board" will resonate with your own experiments.

TRACKLISTING

01. Mav - Atomic Collision (Vector Burn remix) (Covert Operations / Warm Communications, 2003)
02. Konflict - Messiah (Renegade Hardware, 2000)
03. Thinktank - Skyscraper (Obscene, 2005)
04. Adam F - Jaxx (from the album Colours, 1997)
05. Cartridge - Expressway (Unreleased)
06. Kemal & Black Sun Empire - Stranded V1.0 (oBSEssions, 2005)
07. Polska - Burning Sun (Subtle Audio, 2005)
08. Probe-One - Substance (from the album Testflight Presents Altitude Vol.1, 2005)
09. Breakage - Drowning (Planet Mu, 2006)
10. Hive, Keaton, Echo & Gridlok - Exit Violence (Violence, 2005)

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SubVersion Stop 63: Muttley - Paralysis (January 2010)

I've dedicated several mixtapes to friends I speak to online, or have met because of online interaction. A follow-up to "Caught In Static", "Paralysis" is dedicated to Annastay from talking to me about her condition. I wanted to create something that was contemplative, warm and useful for capturing a joyful, stable state of mind beyond what paralysis constitutes - with a fair helping of static noise to round off the spectral suspension.

Annastay was misdiagnosed for years and it turns out the culprit was lyme disease. It caused her "to be really ill over years; I was fatigued constantly, pain moved around to different region of my body causing severe tightness or numbness while the muscles would go into complete spasm throughout the day. As these problems progressed, the spasms started to linger in one limb or two for days on end. I had years where I couldn't even sit in comfort. I had to keep moving around due to the intensity of pain, not being able to sit still for 15 minutes. I had stopped sleeping, whereby then I started to have severe anxiety/mental problems (as you can imagine anyone would in this situation). Environment and large amounts of stress can cause these problems to surface with anyone with a dispostion to them, let alone chronic health problems of this extent.

The lyme attacks the blood effecting your brains' neurological pathways. My cognitive function has been severely affected, and my short term memory basically non-existent; I still can't remember names to anything really. I constantly have to ask or check who an artist is when listening throughout the duration of a song if I want to try and remember it. I had gone untreated for so long, that it's invaded my entire neurological system and inhibited deeply in my ligaments and muscles.

I could barely walk at points over the years. Yet my condtion and how I feel is still invisible to people and even most doctors. Now that I've finally started some antibiotics for the last 6 months I've luckily started to begin to sleep again more than just an hour at a time, and had small improvements in some areas of pain but my brain is worse than ever from the dying off of the spiroketes - I have days where I literally cant connect any of the thoughts I have or take much action on any ideas I might have on the creative front, which is frustrating as inspiration or productivity is hard to come by while going through all this.

I've always fought through the symptoms and worked on music, but the last few years has been the hardest and most devastating as this wasn't possible. I had no outlet for expression or release of feelings as my shoulder was not able to take extended time on a mouse or drum kit. The treatment is not clear-cut nor the same for anyone with this disease and will take years to treat. I was fortunate enough to have it show up on a blood test finally."

Conversely to "Caught In Static", the pieces here are more focused. Last Days makes a late appearance as "Nothing Stays The Same, Nothing Ever Ends" (from The Safety Of The North) on "Caught In Static" resonated with her over the other tracks. To initiate the idea for suitable music I thought to myself: "What would someone paralyzed like to listen to?" Then I extended this to "What can free the listener's inhibitions to fight paralysis as the problem?" I concluded from these judgments that I required tunes that weren't fleeting, had a large amount of sustain, and evolved in texture. Consequently the files' runtime is a fair bit shorter.

TRACKLISTING

01. Machinefabriek - Weightless (remix) (from the album Bijeen)
02. Keith Berry - The Other Shore (rework of Fessended sounds) (from the album Bleu Resultat)
03. BJ Nilsen - Viking North (from the album The Short Night)
04. Ivan Ckonjevic - Umesto Bujenja (from the album Plavi Bicikl)
05. Apalusa - Small Environs 2 (from the album Small Environs)
06. Carl Sagan's Ghost - Solitude II (from the album At The End Of It All)
07. Stars Of The Lid - Articulate Silences Pt. 1 (from the album And Their Refinement Of The Decline)
08. mwvm - Negative Pole (from the album Rotations)
09. Wereju - Forsaken (from the album The Way Of The Cross)
10. Last Days - Nightlight (from the album Sea)

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Related links

underourskin.com: watch

Lyme disease: wikipedia

15 Minutes Of Fame: archive

SubVersion Stop 62: Peter Broderick's "Experiments In Sound And Song"

It is with deeply felt honour on my part that I can present Peter Broderick's contribution to "15 Minutes Of Fame". Best known for his piano-led masterpiece "Float" on Type Recordings, an LP which elicited heart-tugging poignancy in its 36 minute duration, "Experiments In Sound And Song" is described by Peter as follows:

Peter Broderick - Experiments In Sound And Song - www.myspace.com/peterbroderick
"In the last months, I have been occasionally posting music for free on my flickr page ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/ ). All of this music was recorded very quickly, impulsively, and then put online, and at the moment I don't plan to do anything else with it. The music has been all over the place, from quiet solo piano to wanna-be hip-hop. All of the songs in this mix, and more, can be downloaded at my flickr page, and I hope to keep putting music up there in future. I have written a short description for each song here, and posted links to the original flickr postings.

-----

01. Sunday Song (0:00 - 3:26)A simple song I wrote on my friend Nils Frahm's piano, recorded on a quiet Sunday evening when I had his place to myself.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4124838647/

02. When I ___ I ___ (3:26 - 7:15)I asked people on my flickr page to fill in the blanks on the following sentence: "When I ___ I ___, and my ___ is ___." Then I made this song using their comments.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4209420900/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4213098889/

03. Freyr (7:15 - 13:25)Before I moved to Europe at the end of 2007, I lived in Portland, Oregon, with my cat Freyr. Freyr was my best friend in the world, and leaving him behind was tough. But my father loves cats as much as I do, so I took Freyr up to his place in the country side to stay. He loved it there. And I would see him every time I was back in Oregon visiting. This last November he disappeared into the woods, and never came back. One morning I received an email from my father, explaining that Freyr was gone, and how that made him feel. Most of the emails I get from my father are quite short (he doesn't spend all his time on his computer like we do!), but this one was much longer. I knew he loved that cat like I did, and the words he wrote were so beautiful to me. I had to take them and make a song out of it, a song for Freyr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4106661573/

04. These Walls of Mine (13:35 - 21:36)I had surgery on my knee back in December, and was very immobile in the days that followed. So I spent all of my time trying to distract myself and pass the time. I watched Twin Peaks all over again, and recorded a bunch of ridiculous music. I thought a lot about all the different ways to present words. Our voices are so versatile, and when words come out of our mouths, the way we deliver them is a crucial part of how those words come across. So this is me playing around with the delivery of words, and trying to make hip-hop with a piano, a violin, a nylon string guitar, and a computer.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4196847489/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4197602544/

05. I Do This (21:36 - 27:20)This really makes the most sense if you look at these flickr entires, in the following order:
1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4034911156/
2. http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4037989881/

06. Copenhagen (27:20 - 35:16)There was a huge marching rally on the street right outside my window in Copenhagen. They were playing these amazing beats on their drums. So I hobbled over to my suitcase (it was the day after my knee operation) and grabbed my field recorder. Then I spent the rest of the day making this song, using my voice as the only other instrument. I processed layers of my voice to make a beat the same tempo as the one I had recorded from outside, then blended the two together with more layers of my voice.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4191088220/

07. Hannover (35:16 - 38:09)I was on tour with Efterklang a few months ago, and we played at this wonderful theater in Hannover, Germany. I found an empty room with a piano, set up my field recorder and recorded some short improvisations, then mixed a few different pieces together really quickly.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4124176977/

08. Inside Out There (38:09 - 43:28)Another song I made in the days after my knee operation. I was restless, and was basically just messing around with making beats on the computer, only using my voice and other things laying around, like my fingers on the table top, or smacking the chair next to me. Once I finished the beat, I picked up some other instruments and made this song around it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4197602318/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbroderick/4197602544/

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"15 Minutes Of Fame" archive

SubVersion Stop 61: SubVersion Recommends: Muttley - Finding Beauty

"Finding Beauty" was inspired by a comment from PvC of ambientblog.net. I was discussing with him by email my rate of output, and I realised only then that I'd put out 14 mixtapes in a month (December 2009 - January 2010).

Ideally I'd design artwork, but I'm a technological caveman at present, so tracklists and hyperlinks will suffice.

I brought up catharsis as an integral element, but then I thought further - from a track title by Craig Armstrong - and it appeared to summarise why, more specifically, I bind tracks. It was to find beauty.

In a way this is an extended counterpart to "Patience Of Saints Remembered" as where that upheld the best bits from conclusive tunes on albums, "Finding Beauty" blends crescendos, climaxes and stretched out deluges. It will also serve as a taster for the SubVersion audience of what concepts have passed, as well as soundtracking movements to find beauty - in its rawest (physical) or artificial (online) aggregations.

If you are a budding or established artist, I have plans for artwork I'd like to see realised. If you'd like to guest on SubVersion, feel free to drop me an email.

TRACKLISTING

01. Celer - A Lifetime Of Wasted Breaths (from the album Flowers: Dragon's Eye's Fourth Anniversary)
02. Nest - Trans Siberian (from the album Nest)
03. Darren Harper - Amongst The Trees (from the album The Hundredth Mantra)
04. Beau Finley - Winter Light Arc Light (from the album Adventures In Mass Transit)
05. Library Tapes - Waves (from the album Sketches)
06. Language Of Landscape - Contemplating Departure In Wake Of Clear Light (from the album Memories Fade Under A Shallow Autumn Snow)
07. Badgerlore - String Wrist (from the album Stories For Owls)
08. Brian Eno - Dunwich Beach Autumn 1960 (from the album On Land)
09. Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd - Avenue Of Shapes (from the album After The Night Falls)
10. mwvm - Sleepy Crayfish (from the album Rotations)
11. Craig Armstrong - Choral Ending (from the album As If To Nothing)
12. Yui Onodera - Synergetics I (from the album Synergetics)
13. Language Of Landscape - Speaking Through Truth And Denial (from the album Memories Fade Under A Shallow Autumn Snow)
14. Brian Grainger - Untitled 1 (from the album The Fieldtrip Reconstructions)
15. Stars Of The Lid - Even (Out) (from the album And Their Refinement Of The Decline)
16. Richard Skelton - Green Withins Brook (from the album Landings)
17. Duncan Ó Ceallaigh - The Sea And The Sand (from the album Distant Voices, Still Lives)
18. Tim Hecker - White Caps Of White Noise II (from the album Harmony In Ultraviolet)
19. Moby - 18 (from the album 18.)
20. Beau Finley - Graves Of Children (from the album Peculiar Ghost)
21. Craig Armstrong - Starless II (from the album As If To Nothing)
22. Nest - Charlotte (from the album Nest)
23. Craig Armstrong - Wake Up In New York (from the album As If To Nothing)

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SubVersion Stop 60: SubVersion Recommends: Greg Haines' 09 Mix

From now on, all non-"15 Minutes Of Fame" exclusives to this blog will go under the banner of "Subversion Recommends". For the first instalment I'm very proud to present a fantastic cross-genre set from Greg Haines, the artist who shot to critical acclaim in 2006 with MIASMAH's "Slumber Tides".

We begun chatting via MySpace in concern of gigs, and one thing I was dying to ask was if he'd like to record a selection of his influences. He had this to say...

Greg Haines' 09 Mix - www.myspace.com/greghainesmusic

TRACKLISTING

01. Trygve Seim - Himmelrand

02. Jocelyn Pook - Masked Ball

03. Allegri - Miserere

04. Jimmy Scott - Sycamore Trees

05. Sufjan Stevens - Redford

06. Burial - Dog Shelter

07. François Tétaz - Wolf Creek: Main Title

08. Arvo Part - Tabula Rasa (ludus)

09. Craig Armstrong - Immer

10. Tape - Moth Wings

11. Seven Peace Orchestra - Sketch II

12. Tomasz Stanko Quartet - Trista

13. Contemporary Noise Quintet - Even Cats dream about Flying

14. Nomo - Elijah

15. Phill Niblock - Sax Mix

16. Popul Vuh - In the Realm of Shadow

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SubVersion Stop 59: Genetic Basis for Musical Ability?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090526093925.htm

SubVersion Stop 58: Richard Skelton - Landings LP (Type Recordings 055 / Sustain - Release 014)

Popular music denotes a quality or aesthetic that has widespread appeal. It doesn't have to introduce much innovation to be warranted - more often than not, tried and tested structures and ideas form the forefront as well as the backbone of the music. The Beatles churned out pop hit after pop hit of sing-a-long joyousness or non-arbitrarily melancholic oeuvre, whereas Madonna continually reinvented herself whilst not changing a lot of her lyrical and ornamental phraseology. Musicians like these are looked up to by the pop contingent and offer plenty of crossover ability. Nonetheless, there is another side of the musical coin that comparatively, exists not to obstruct the rudimentary, but breathe life into loose ends.

Enter the modern classical canon. Classical allocated a capital 'C' clasps at a type of linguistic superiority, and a fanbase that can detest anything watered down to feed the masses. But with the backing of Type Recordings, creators can flip the lid of niche expectancy. What immediately struck me with Type, however, is that they cross the spectrum of psychedelia, ambient, drone and further experimental music. This offers a paradoxically homogenous sub-societal menagerie of styles and counter-arguments that get you to question: what's at my disposal? Contextual plight reinforcing the aims of musicians can be seen lens-like, where architecture arises from a certain clan of supporters, as a means to explain that resultant work embodies a lifestyle and personality all of its own, but also of a wider palette of influences.

Richard Skelton is no stranger to building his ethos with various bricks (aliases) and mortar (labels released on, including Type). He started out with wife Louise Skelton in A Broken Consort, an experimental acoustic band that would serve as an infancy to his subsequent solo work. In 2008 Preservation (later Type on limited edition vinyl) released "Marking Time", a tonic for relieving mental tension, that ruminated away past woes like an unmade bed being folded into neat, caressed shapes. "Landings" affirms from the start that the sheets (instrumentation, approach) could well be swept to freshen, but arrangements surrounding these homely, sometimes forlornly processed pieces remain through the drawn out currents of weeping bowed strings.

"Noon Hill Wood" commences this emotionally rich embellishment; a pulse can be felt from the tension and release relationship, to give the audience its appropriately timed foothold into Skelton's soundworld. The harmonies swell over a light but pronounced bowing mechanic, repetition of phrase supposing question and answer schematics. Consequently sidestepping judgementality to invitingly recoup the theme, the second track, "Scar Tissue", revolves around a descending guitar chord whereby strings play a brief counter-melody to thicken the texture. You get the feeling that at under two minutes the work is much more of a prelude than an exercise in pretence. "Threads Across The River" is exactly the latter but skillfully, and comes off like the closing echo of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's "Blaise Bailey Finnegan III", slowly developing a searching, nasal accentuation with violins undercutting each other in slow-motion, contrapuntal pinball. At 06:30 the mood alters with layered strings adjusting in tempo, absorbing the poise of prior muscularity with a smattering of guitar strums to close.

"Green Withins Brook" is a nice diversion in a third of the album's duration, where bowing and tremolo effects step aside. The picture is clean-cut and flourishing in four minutes, ripe with execution and emotional range. "Of The Last Generation" has us returning to the fields of golden phrase-matching, where rhythm is uneven, pitches slide up and down sharply but with little general oscillation, and timbre has a rough-hewn, gritty surface, full of porous potential. Even though there's no great movement it's hard not to be moved by the captivating melody lines.

"Undertow" sidechains Arvo Part, overlapping chords like a napkin being folded before dinner arrives. This pattern of pre-empted satisfaction was encountered earlier in the LP, although at just under six and a half minutes, it's more fitting of the usual diameter of Skelton's arsenal. "Voice Of The Book" breaks the silence with melodic counterpoints split like atoms - lightly rocking back and forth on the lapsteel, giving this a reassuring feel.

"Rapture" clocks in at 120 seconds, bucking the timespan trend for the third occasion and gently weaving between airy notes, segueing into the highlight construct, "Pariah". This tune re-introduces the guitar in a lowered pitch, with sombre tones, superimposing the entirety as regaining real purpose and enveloped in Skelton's reserved, yet expressive melange. The simplistic composition evokes captivating qualities that signify maturity.

"River Song" builds on the gentle lull and draws out its tension, beauty seeping out of every notation in morose lineages. "Remaindered" starts with a synthetic textural patchwork dissimilar to Zelienople's psych-rock breakdowns and Sigur Ros' noteworthy, transcendent grandeur, but again the bowed string accompaniment makes an appearance early on to subduct qualms over maintained identity.

The closing piece is perhaps a nod to the album "The Shape Leaves" (of the same name) by Skelton's previous involvement with A Broken Consort. But more than that, it's a curtain-puller on the ghosts that exist from listening to this magnificent long-player. A Skelton record sounds like nothing but a Skelton record and that's a reality Richard should be proud of. Widespread popularity may escape him, but that's part of the parcel in a land of cultural overproduction. Unmissable.

Purchase: CD
Purchase: Mp3 release
Sustain-Release: MySpace