Music

My relation with music has always somewhat ambiguous. I realize I’m not a good musician and when I create something they are often projects that span many weeks. Way too long to be any good. I also never got any satisfaction from creation/producing music this way. So in the end, after having bought a series of synths and  working them, I stopped making music. This page is mainly 1- a dedication to the hard work I spent on creating it 2- there so that people who joined in the creation have access to their work as well.

1. Nje

Being young at heart and having a certain drive to bang the beat of a beatbox, I create a ‘boenk-tsk-boenk’ version of a well known Russian folk song. Created with a Roland MC505 and a Korg N346. The violin at the end is played by my brother, as well as the piano in the center.

2. Treason

A ‘dungeon-techno’-song created in 1998 together with Filou & Satan. There are three mixes of this song.

The first is the original version, made in 1998. The second one, created in 2011,  is a revision made after uploading the samples to audiotool. Sadly, the original voices were never recorded, so a 10th order butterworth bandpass was used to extract them from the original.  In the third revision I threw out all voices and kept the rhythmical section: from treason to bliss in 81 measures. The last is not particularly good but for some reason the audiotool installation fucked up the sound to such extent that particular parts of the sound received more prominence. The inbalance in the result is mainly due to that.

As I walk away from the festivities I realize, I hate these lost emotions
The pain real enough to let itself come to life it is revealed for the horror it is
Leaves me Thrashing in its horrifying wake it hurts my eyes to see my soul still burning
I seek, my own lair For I have forsaken me I had to face Remorseless retribution

I gaze Clad in black And their invisibility has closed my eyes beyond the point of blindness
and still groping for reality to seep back in this hellhole filled with unbelievers
it hurts ignorance sensing yet not seeing I cannot tell What in me feeds this yearning
Of blood The scent it is Entering my nostrils Can’t look back upon deserted battleground

Opening The acid-filled And ancient cavity It’s known only To those who ruefully weep
To gasp A little more Of that infested air I have to rise Detested, blighted surface
Scavenge This rotten world Where mimicry is holy I am prepared The bounties are just waiting
Mending The broken thoughts Marauding the countryside The heroes stand To judge what they can not slay

Strofe fucking 4 Waar is dat fucking refr ?
Frenzied And wildly Not knowing where the cliff ends I’ll flail around
To flatten these last morcels
Inhabited by the vultures Of this criminal society

3. Drift

A song I created on a blue night somewhere after playing too many computer games. Ambient at 150 BPM… Created in 6 hours… And to be honost, I’m not entirely dissatisfied by the result. In this case, the entire synthesizer setup was already there, so there was little to do but to play, record and layer.

4. Ganjue

Some other music made with an anonymous jammer. Took quite a while to create and the sound recording itself is not the best one can hope for. In any case, nostalgy is always interesting.

5. Brups

This was my attempt to create a piece of Goa trance. It was again created in 6 hours. But man… How I hate the fast tempo of that type of music. I cannot understand how psytrance artists get all the notes in the right order when they are blasted out that fast. The voice in the beginning are taken from a self-help disc created by John Lilly. Around 23″ there is some distortion due to a Q-value that was too low. Also by around 4 minutes I had no idea how to continue the song so I just stopped  it. Not very good for a wanna-be psytrancer 🙂

I feel, that I am merely an agent
Giving you some keys
Which have been given to me
To pass on to you

These keys are to unlock doors
Out of your present prisson
Doors opening on new alleys
Doors beyond, where you are now

In general, the thing of the workshop is
that each one of us is far greater,
far more advanced,
far more consciously aware,
far more intelligent,
than each one of us can see of ourselves as being

Written by: John Lilly 1994

6. Broken

Then there was my attempt at making dance music. I got the pizzicato right. The tempo. Maybe not the bassline. And the idea that a climax goes up is something I should also work on. Also the midi bus was somewhat overloaded with all those notes hitting 4 octaves at the same time. Nevertheless. With a ‘this is the best I can do’ dance track in hand I went to my beloved co-artists. The first bunch …

6a. The War Efforts Mix

A try to make some dance music, but we couldn’t stick to it, so we created something … unique … beautiful … never created before …
Make sure to listen to this marvelous music with its cunning end. I don’t believe we actually managed to sing all text and by the end Filou was already fairly drunk so his words are slurring somewhat.

1] Take away the grain. The king has gone to war. Starving all his minions. His Army is his whore.
Peasants lose their children. As there is no food left. Picking up their weapons. To right this awful theft

2] Heroes of the future. Cowards of the past. Rallying their forces. Pushing to get there fast.
Showing off their courage. Showing all their guts. They will show the soldiers. Those bastards, they will rot

3] Moving towards the fire. The men will stand their ground. Unless the harsh repression. is coming back to haunt.
Acceptance of oppression. Is crushing the revolt. For They cannot continue. Until they find their fault

4] If they want to fight it. first they’ll need redemption. man would love to hate it. shaking off corruption.
soulless collaboration. will keep them in shackles. powers blinding darkness. can lead them all to hell

5] Entering their nostrils. The scent will reach their brains. Rotten creeping tendrils. Will drive soldiers insane.
Virtues growing tired. They long for penitence. But their strong desires. Make it stand no chance

6] Finally they come round. they will now turn back. evil found a fertile ground. and it’s above their necks.
Women, children cheering. welcome heroes return. but should they not despair now. as they ‘ll be burned in turn

7] They need no outside evil. The men have come to town. Mankind needs no devil. For he can grow his own.
Women will be raped. And children will be torn. The malign hated darkness. Is where we all were born

Written by: S@t@n (1999)

6b. The Necromancer Mix

And then the second lot could get its hands on filling the empty space with text. This is the more or less decent (woehahaha…) version of the same song. This is probably because its no horny woman singing her necrofilic feelings for some kind of dead guy… Not that the first rendering of the song was sung by horny females but well… So we did it -again- ourselves.
1] Green Pools of fire. Consume Inheritance
Desacrated Temple Grounds. Preacher stands no chance
His hands are in the air. as he calls for intervention
Losing all his faith. in a suicide tendention

 

2] The Women and their children. are praying for the light
Their husbands took the horses and left the town to fight
Burning village ruins will be avenged tonight
With blood on their swords with honour and with pride

3] In Ancient Times,
this village was built over a swamp by
a nomadic tribe of sorcerers and enchanters
to safeguard the mysteries of the soul
they had uncovered.
Behold, their disciples
did not know of the sinister lich
that tied them to Bael,
and for over a thousand years
they put their faith in a God
that wasn’t theirs.
As so, for their lack of knowledge
they would be punished severely

4] Haunt’d whispers of the spirits. Gaze upon your soul
temptation of the evil. as the hunger takes control
Inhuman laughter. their banners black and red
for the enemy you’re fighting. is already dead

5] Their legions grow larger. with every warrior slain
Victory of the damned. as you face eternal pain
Visions of the future. cloud your memories of the past
No one could foresee. the end that came so fast

6] Suddenly there was brightness. as the wizard stood upright
mumbling sacred phrases. preparing for the fight
He brought us salvation. midst the fury of the storm
then thousands cries of agony. left the evil ripped and torn

Schuppen is troef…

Written by: Ditmar 1999

7. Speedies Revision of Paradiso

As song based on a tune of Faithless. I had to do something with to let it go… So here it is… Speedy is singing…

8. Wasting Your Time

Another cooperation with Speedy. Damn, he had a good voice. I also started to learn how to work with the synths to create the sound I wanted.

Im gona make you, Im gona make you, Im gona make you,
All all hot somehow,  All all hot somehow

Wasting your time, [Wasting your time, Wasting your world x3]
Wasting your Time, Wasting your Time, And having but a girl

[I’m gonna make you fly, like the wind in the city
Oooo live over,  since i make you, well I’m on
and on a tripthing, i wanna live in this i saw wonder x2]
der..der..der..der..

[I’m gona check your body lines, I’m gona check your body… x14]

Lyrics: Speedy Sept ’99

9. Padded Walls

Currently there are two versions of this song: The original 1999 version and the mix made in audiotool in 16.04.2012. The song was made in 1999 together with Filou & Satan. Filou sings, Satan wrote the text and I (God) made the music. Of course, Satan wrote more text than we wanted to sing, so we’ve cut the story short. The sounds were made using a Korg N264 and a Roland Mc505.

Trapped in my glass container, I gaze down into the valley,
sighting only darkness, my puppet doesn’t answer me anymoreAs I inquire what he,  my faithful companion sees,
angered by his ignorance, he will be the means to my escape…When the red haze subsides, I find the shattered skull,
of my only friend, the bone sharts
strewn all around meFerociously, I attack the wall that robbed me of my soulmate
the scent of blood enters my nostrils and the stains are on the wall and the floorwritten by: S@t@n

10. The New World Order

Harold Pinter was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature 2005. The song includes some text from his very powerful acceptance speech.

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist,
unflinching,
unswerving,
fierce intellectual determination,
as citizens,
to define the real truth of our lives
and our societies
is a crucial obligation
which devolves upon us all.
It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied
in our political vision
we have no hope of restoring
what is so nearly lost to us –
the dignity of man.

11. Ten Point 39

A song I made after working at audiotool for about 9 months. During that time I learned that the audible spectrum covers about 10.39 octaves (depending on where you stop at the lower end). This song was an obsessive attempt to create some audio for each of the 10 octaves. Listening back to it a couple of years later, I realize that the audiotool installation might have been too good. None of the frequencies addressed in this song are really well perceived on common installations.  I also realize that the synths themselves are a large chunk of what an artist can do. And the synths in audiotool didn’t have very satisfactory presets at the time. The title was somewhat inspired by Vangelis’ Albedo 0.39

12. Impulse Responses

When a pulse is send through a system of audio modules it tends to be modified. This modification is called the impulse response. This entire song is one such an impulse response. This song is the answer the system gave to the mono signal (1,0,0,….).

The setup starts out with a series of delaylines to keep the pulse alive. A compressor is applied to bring ‘whatever we get’ to a reasonable level, while at the same time allowing us to keep on amplifying the signal (the postgain of the compressor is maximal). However to make this work correctly one must realize that the audiotool compressor does not perform lookahead. Consequently a sidechain is used to drive the compressor while at the same time feeding it with the delayed signal. That ensures that the signal will fall after the attackphase of the compressor.

Once the signal stays alive, stereo and reverb are added. From there on it is merely a matter of modifying the audiotstream

A Similar song was created but relied on a high pitched ping.

13. Two Jam Sessions – Cettle banging deluxe

Two jam Sessions made together with some anonymous guy. The two are made ‘on the fly’ without much preprocessing. The drums are mainly done using an MC505 and a Korg N264. The bleeps and bloops are done using some Yamaha JC909 (or so). They were made somewhere in 1998-1999. This was actually the first time I liked playing ‘live’ without too much preprocessing involved. Once you are in the flow it is easy to decide which knobs to push.