STORY SHAPED BEATS | Strange Music Structures and Life Events

 

Been listening to John Foxx's SYSTEMS OF ROMANCE, METAMATIC and his 2010 LIVE "Analogue Circuits" on continuous repeat the last week+. Some of his lyrics and delivery are "word salad poetry" like.  I hadn't really noticed before, and haven't seem them referred to as that.

I found that really interesting so added such spoken word lyrics to the last short piece of music I did. They imply things, and are open to interpretation. 

I think the result is a very interesting structure. I am being really original here? Maybe. But surely this stuff has all been done before...

The verses have a few bass sequences they play over, then there is kind of a call response between the spoken words and a melodic synth part, a few notes at a time. Verse ends with a melodic few bars. Could you call that a chorus though? 

After 2 of those section it drops back to just the arpeggiated synth sequence that runs all through it.

Then rock guitars come in for a few bars, then it drops back to another verse end melodic few bars with some repeated spoken words.

Can be found on my Bandcamp: STORY SHAPED BEATS. 

Other Things

Had my last, number 4, medical procedure for hemorrhoids last Wednesday.  Cut and stitched this time and not the rubber band ligation of the previous 3 procedures. Will be uncomfortable for another few days yet, but this has been NOTHING like the 4+ week ordeal I went through 9 years ago recovering after the overnight hospital stay. Photo of Hospital room. 

The point of the story is that handling a problem earlier, rather than later, can be so much easier and better! Putting off treatment for 20+ years was the wrong thing to do.  I am lucky so far to have only none life threating issues, even if they have been terribly painful and inconvenient in the past.

I will be taking it easy for next week it seems, and will have my final check at the clinic on Friday and this issue should be closed.

On another medical note, the musician that video called me out of the blue last year tracking down who had made the SYSTEM FLOPPY DISC of the first Fairlight Instruments CMI Series III in the UK in the 1980s posted some not great news.  He had been under treatment for cancer the last few years, but that has now stopped as the treatment itself had became dangerous for him.  Without the drugs he is actually feeling the best for years, but he is now on the final stage of his life, and prepared for it.   

Watched LEON THE PROFESSIONAL on Netflix over 4 nights during the week.  Not a fun flic at all, but has many that made THE 5TH ELEMENT involved with it.  Some of the minor music cues in LEON seemed very similar to the same composers work in THE 5th ELEMENT.  THE 5th ELEMENT is one of my most favorite films, have the soundtrack CD etc.  The bits with the Arabic feel.

Mattias IA Eklundh released a track yesterday that is back to his Freak Kitchen in style, rather than the more weird Jazz of recent Freak Audio Lab work.  More to my taste.  I tried to get into his RESIST THE CORROSION,  but it didn't have the kind of  riff and melodic bits that attract me. 

I guess I prefer stuff with simple riffs/ melodies and nursery rhyme like. I try and make my own stuff  like that. I really like to have a simple thing to hum to myself while having a shower.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Some Great Artist Interviews: My Own Reflections

 

The Emperor's Birthday public holiday this Monday in Japan, so a good time to post another 180 second fake Kyoto FM Mix of 3 of my tracks from Bandcamp as a SHORT to YouTube.

And after a couple of days it got 600 views, then YouTube turned it off.  Never to be seen again.

Other Things

Watched 2 great musician/ artist/  interviews yesterday.

Mattias Eklundh: 

Mattias is so positive, and such a force for good, and being independent (and METAL).  What struck me most though is how totally different his upbringing was from mine. Mine was very much Cats In The Cradle.  

But it was Mattias's Freak Kitchen in the last 6 years that got me involved with 7 and 8 string guitars and writing and recording my own songs that really meant something. A huge recent influence, and I have met him a few times now.

Dennis Leigh ( stage name John Foxx, Ultravox founder):

I found John Foxx particularly interesting in his approach and way of thinking that is very similar to myself.  A very Quietly spoken man. Something else I relate to. 

When asked why THE GOLDEN SECTION was so happy and positive compared to earlier works he answers he visited Italy and discovered the sun, something he hadn't seen before living in the UK till that time. 😂

In reflection in retirement I feel I was always really an artist (drawing and making things was always my love, and did Art as a subject all throughout school), but it was drilled into me I had to have a real job and ended up doing Electronics and Software. My art and tech are very much done like painting. It isn't a performance, but a work created in a studio over time.  After finishing my Fairlight Instruments High End Sampler era, I moved on to other things and didn't need to do it again.   

Also his SYSTEMS OF ROMANCE & METAMATIC albums had such an impact on me on their release. I think I try and combine the sounds he did back then in what I do now with the Sequenced synths and Heavy Guitar. 

Like this quick thing I did yesterday.  Sequenced synths & heavy guitar. I will probably change the comic to something else before making it a YouTube SHORT:

Can someone steal the music in this, claim it is theirs and then claim a copyright strike against me in the future? It is very possible as it happened to Ola Englund from some thieving music company in China. Ola had his music published on Spotify and had done all the paperwork, and paid the fees to fight and win it though. 
 

Spring weather the last few days and took this in someone's yard in a midday walk yesterday. 

So my nose has started rehearsals for the real HAY FEVER season already. 

I expect most accesses to this blog are just bots and scrappers.  Doesn't really matter, as no one ever (well actually twice) comments on anything here anyway...   

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

6, 7 or 8 String Guitar?

 

For 30 years I just had a 6 string Squire, that 16 years ago I shielded and put a Humbucker in the bridge of. Hated the tremolo as it was just a detune lever and unusable. But with the humbucker, I could use high distortion without the hum and I did a lot of recordings with it.

In retirement I have spent much time recording and using 6, 7 and 8 string guitars. I had thought a Ibanez RG with locking nut and trem would be  the end game of the ultimate guitar for me, but not at all. Down tuning and heavier guitar music lead me to the 7 and 8 string guitars. 

I have my guitars in DROP tuning now, even my bass, but found that doesn't work with an 8 string. The lowest string is too floppy that way, doesn't sound great at the really low end, and I am not interested in heavier string gauges. I already have a Jazz Bass. So the 8 just stays 1/2 tone down tuned, and it ends up the 7 gives me as many usable low notes. The ones that sound good. Being fixed bridge is also so much easier for tuning and setup.  Tuning is something I fuss about a lot, and more strings and trem make it even more tedious. I find the bridge pickup on the 7 sounds better than the bridge on the RG too. The RG sounds really thin.

Will be keeping them all though, but will probably give the Squire to the grandson when he is older. 12 months ago I was really into Melodic Techno with no guitars, so have no idea where I will go musically in the future.

The track on Bandcamp  6, 7 or 8 String Guitar? 

The Reaper project:

808 Style

 

MUSIC+COMICS scheduled Saturday morning 8:15AM release.  Music a little different, maybe, in this one. 

More MS-20 synth noises.  

Should the D-50 have been 808 styled? Not at the time, and the more modern look was right for it. The font they developed that was used on the D-50 and other products was called BIOFORM. I used to have a copy of it. Real SciFi looking and I loved it.

Other Things

Had the last of my main medical procedures done yesterday.  Nice weather today after snow and rain this week, but I will be taking it easy.  Will go back 3 times for some related things that will be more painful for a bit, starting in a week and a half. 

Valentines Day to day, but I bought a cake at the Keihan Department store during the week when they first went one sale and we had it then. It was good. 

Found out from an X post yesterday that mangaka MIYAGAWA AKIRA had continued MASAMUNE SHIROW'S  APPLE SEED world in 3 books that were published from 2012. This was news to me, so tracked them down second hand and will have them shortly.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN

Big Tech Yanking Your Chain

 

Enshittification was the word of the year added to an Australian Dictionary a year or so ago now. Such is the state of the world, and this talk and interview with the author goes into more details.

Anecdote how Uber will pay one driver more to make him a cheerleader, while everyone else gets very little is one tiny part of the bigtech algorithm in his talk here.  I have seen the same thing with random encouragement in all kinds of things I have done from Google, like in these YouTube SHORT view counts of mine.

We are all having our chain yanked. 

Other Things

The guitars of THE ALFEE: 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN