collage artwork by John Parker that I animated
Day: September 5, 2009
"Wonky Wank Variation"
"Wonky Wank Variation" [mp3 removed - this track can be heard on Bandcamp]
This was already a pretty dumb riff so I added "Mo Tucker drums." A kick and two snares alternate and one of the snares adds a beat unpredictably. The hats come and go and feature what I believe is a flam paradiddle but I could be wrong. (It's not two handed but there is a 1/32 "grace" note between groups of four 1/16 notes.)
"Broomlike"
"Broomlike" [mp3 removed]
This initially made me think of minimal techno guy Mark Broom because of the bass line. But after adding twice-filtered 303ish squiggles, a canned drum loop (RMV Machinedrum), and a house chorus it wasn't very Broomlike.
Notes on Morton Subotnick's "Until Spring" (1976)
A 29 minute piece that Subotnick describes as an audio sculpture, divided into two parts in the vinyl version.
Modular analog synth and 8 track analog tape.
Clean recording--all the elements can be heard and "seen" in the stereo field.
Pre-recorded snippets arranged in time and also across the space of the 8 tracks.
Both dimensions are depicted in drawings on the sleeve--curlicues, arcs, hatch marks, and elongated > and < signs, in a kind of cloud as well as the 8 track "staff."
The overall dynamic: alternating slow and fast passages; a thinning and thickening of sound.
The elements, or snippets, include:
A staccato wap-wap-wap that speeds up to a high purr and pans slowly or rapidly in the stereo field.
Slow hums building into a rapidfire sequence of boings (with varied attack/decay envelopes).
Some low-pass filtering of these segments.
Lawn mowers in the distance and summer sprinklers right next to your ears.