We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.
/

about

This was the first extended piece that was attempted during the second stage of prehistoric irr. development (between 1991 and 1995) that I regarded as having an essentially successful outcome. In the previous stage of recording, I had access to nothing more than a 'boom box' with dual cassette decks and a dubbing microphone jack; I'm sure the limitations of working this way are obvious enough. I couldn't afford any better equipment at the time, so I had to resort to enrollment in the local community college's electronic music course in order to have access to a half-decent music studio.

Most of the instruments in the studio were the typical, awful-sounding keyboards that permeated the late 1980s (like the mostly-useless DX-7 -- although, to be fair, R K Faulhaber used to get great results from instruments like that; I simply didn't have his finesse). Fortunately, there was a decent sampling system (for the time, anyway) on hand as well, so I had something I could work with to try to create the kinds of sounds I wanted. But this also prevented me from ever using most of the tracks that I initially came up with: I didn't have the resources to supply my own original sound sources, which meant that I had to sample whatever commercial recordings were available to me, and I was always concerned that some of these sources might be too obvious. By the time I put together this track, however, I'd become much more adept at manipulating the samples so that their origins were better disguised. Knowledgeable listeners might still be able to identify some of them. Hopefully not.

The only means I had of making a permanent record for myself of any of the material created during this period was to bring in a cassette deck (borrowed from Mr. Faulhaber) and plug into it using the outputs intended for the studio monitors. A persistent buzz was almost always added to the recordings because this set-up did not allow for proper grounding. From time to time the studio equipment would be upgraded, and whenever that happened the whole internal configuration would be changed, removing the possibility of ever re-creating (and re-recording) the original track -- so buzzing cassette recordings were typically the final and absolute document that I was left with.

Despite all these shortcomings, I did manage to get what I felt were useful results in the last few semesters of my enrollment. Some of these tracks eventually found their way, intact, onto irr. albums: 'Harpsichord A-Go-Go', 'Significant Memory...' and 'Lingual Milk Salts' from the first album 'An Uncertain Animal...' (1997); 'Disjecta Membra' from the 'Dust Pincher Appliances' 10" (1998); 'The Unconscious Passenger' from the still-unreleased 'Foreign Matter, Nor Frequency Carrier' (1999); and '...Fanfare For Nothing In Particular' from 'Their Little Bones...' (1999). Several others, like 'Nihl Corpus', were dissected into smaller pieces and scattered about into various new tracks. An elbow or a toe, and occasionally an entire buttock from 'Corpus' can be found in: 'A Condensed Model' and 'Lines Of Thought, Corrupted' from 'An Uncertain Animal...'; and 'The Absence Of Gravity', 'A Confluence Of Trivialities' and 'From Out Of The Loins Of Pestilence: Joy' from 'Their Little Bones...'.

This is the first time it's been possible for me to give the material from this period a proper scrub & rinse. All the unwanted buzz & tape hiss has finally been eliminated. This is also the only time that 'Nihl Corpus' has been made public in its original, un-dissected form, and the only appearance to date of parts 4 & 7. It's still clearly the work of someone struggling to find his creative bearings while manoeuvring around severe technical limitations, but I think it has some value regardless.

Although intended to be one continuous piece, I've divided the track up into its component sections to avoid the problems that can occur with long download times, and for a few other reasons as well (see the text on the 'Orgonosis #4' album page for more about this issue).

I have to convey my appreciation to De Anza's Electronic Music course instructor, Dan Mitchell, who gave me the latitude to get on with whatever I was getting on with.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

credits

from Second Stage Archive Selections, Volume 1 {1992​-​93​/​2011}, released April 11, 2011
----------
-----

Assembled & mixed at the De Anza Electronic Music, Cupertino, CA in 1993(-ish). Digitally scrubbed at Rock Creek Tributary, Hillsboro, OR in March 2011.

Drawing ('Draining The Lizard', 1991(-ish)) & graphic treatment by M. S. Waldron.

license

all rights reserved

tags

irr. app. (ext.) recommends:

If you like irr. app. (ext.), you may also like: