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muttsmischiefacademysblog · 10 months ago

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Prey drive blog part two

YouTube audio link: https://youtu.be/ltwmdaKLhPk?si=wuYJ9cRyL67Nie-2

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It is important to acknowledge genetic influences on dog behaviour as dogs are evolving all of the time. With each litter the genes from their parents do influence behaviour. DNA is altered by the methylation, which affects gene expression in future generations depending on the behaviours of the mother. (1)

It is also equally important to also respect that the environment, learning through life and the opportunity to rehearse behaviours, especially successfully contributes to how much a dog's behaviour is influenced. (2)

Early experiences for a dog will dramatically affect their behaviour throughout their life, researchers have found that if a dog was to be ill as a puppy, the guardians would experience more unwanted behaviours than that of a guardian with a dog who didn't experience illness or unwellness as a young dog. (3)

The documented behaviours found were fear related behaviours and “aggressive” behaviours towards strangers, separation anxiety, barking and humping.

As a personal note, I know of many dogs who experienced illness during early life such as giardia, parvo and bone problems which inhibited these dogs as puppies from early life experiences, some dogs were absolutely fine and some dogs needed support. So I would just like to reassure anyone fearful of having an unwell puppy. This does not mean that you will absolutely have behavioural problems as your puppy grows into adulthood. With any academia we have to remember that many sample groups for statistics are very small and data is not always accurately given.

A poor diet and a lack of nutrients in a puppies life can also alter their behaviour as they grow, a dog's brain development is reliant upon polyunsaturated fatty acids. As the brain needs these nutrients for cognition and learning. (4) If you would like to learn more about diet and nutrition you can refer back to my previous blog on diet to learn more. 📸 Look at this post on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/share/iUgafRQKsnVv6J9u/?mibextid=WC7FNe

Phenotyping a dog is a delicate balance to include validity, sensitivity and to be as objective as possible. In medicine diseases are easy to identify as there will be specific components to look for to diagnose. However there is no such thing to identify behavioural traits, which makes diagnosis more complex and restrictive. Which means researchers rely on questionnaires from dog guardians to gather data, but we always have to be mindful that what the guardian interprets may not be accurate if there is limited knowledge as to the dogs behaviour and motivations. Just as we as behaviourists would not understand the coding of blood tests for example whereas trained and experienced medical staff do know this. We are all experts within our own forums and professions and this does not mean that anyone is lacking in knowledge, skills or intelligence, we are simply on different paths of study.

There are many tests that have been met with scepticism due to human error and bias when interpreting behaviours of a specific breed. Especially if a particular breed is a favourite of the tester. This was shown by Diederich and Giffroy (5), they found in their research that there was a lack of standardisation widespread within the parameters. These parameters included indoor and outdoor dogs, age ranges, social and environmental stimuli used. For example when looking at sound sensitivities there were far too many variables from an alarm clock to a siren. They also found a lack of standardisation in canine laterality tests. (6)

Laterality simply means the preferred side the dog has for example being right handed or left handed. Many of my conditioning and Trick clients know that I always say that every individual dog has a preference to which they will prefer to lie on to roll or step forward with to interact with a piece of conditioning equipment.

Some tests only looked at one behavioural trait to understand such as the Ainsworth strange test which specifically looked at dog and guardian attachment using a series of controlled tests and a controlled environment. (7)

As mentioned above results can also be influenced by external influences, such as judges. Another test is the mentality test, used to test thousands of Swedish dogs annually. These results would be compared with the answers from the guardians completed questionnaire.

Ruefenacht (8) identified the heritability of traits within German Shepherds such as hardness, defence drive and confidence which is influenced by the age and sex of the dog, the breeding and the judge. (9)

Whereas when looking at livestock guardian breeds, objectivity in selection for herding breeds and successful breeding programmes for the complexity of traits of the livestock guardian dog. (10)

But again it is important to be mindful that many testing areas are unfamiliar to the dog and the dog may not feel safe or the dog maybe too engaged with the new environment. This is where guardian questionnaires are valuable as nobody knows their dog better than their guardian. The dog is also in their own home which again many who work with me know how much I value this environment and not a strange environment to travel to. There are two types of main questionnaires which guardians have been asked to participate with for reliable data. The Canine Behavioural Assessment and Research Questionnaire also known as C-BARQ which has been used by many researchers for data. There is also the Monash Canine Personality Questionnaire - Revised (MCPQ-R). (11,12)

The other problem which has been identified is the use of terminology and the understanding of the behaviour. It has been found that too many behaviours were being grouped together instead of being identified as their stand alone sub-type. For example aggression, resource guarding, defensiveness, fear and anxiety. There was too much divergence between the emotional state and motivation of the dog as perceived by the testers, which meant as a stand alone diagnostic tool the results would be inaccurate. This included 15 international Veterinary behaviourists. Which shows due to human error just how a dog's behaviour and emotions can be interpreted in different ways by using different language to identify essentially the same diagnosis of behaviour or emotion. (13,14)

It may seem strange that I am breaking down and explaining genetics and phenotyping in depth to simply share how to work with your dog with prey drive and predation behaviours. But as said before in the previous blog, in order to truly understand your dog as an individual we first need to understand all of the components that brings about this behaviour for you both to be successful in your learning journey!

References

Champagne FA, Curley JP: Epigenetic mechanisms mediating the long-term effects of maternal care on development. Neurosci Biobehav Rev2009,33(4):593–600. 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2007.10.009

Scott JP, Fuller JL: Genetics and the social behaviour of the Dog. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 1965.

Serpell J, Jagoe JA: Early experience and the development of behaviour. In The Domestic Dog: Its evolution, behaviour and interactions with people. Edited by: Serpell J. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1995:79–102.

Overall KL: That dog is smarter than you know: advances in understanding canine learning, memory, and cognition. Top Companion Anim Med2011,26(1):2–9. 10.1053/j.tcam.2011.01.001

Diederich C, Giffroy J: Behavioural testing in dogs: a review of methodology in search for standardisation☆. App Anim Behav Sci2006,97(1):51–72. 10.1016/j.applanim.2005.11.018

Tomkins LM, McGreevy PD, Branson NJ: Lack of standardization in reporting motor laterality in the domestic dog (Canis familiaris). J Vet Behav:Clin Appl Res 2010,5(5):235–239. 10.1016/j.jveb.2010.03.002

Topál, J., Miklósi Csányi, V., and Dóka, A. (1998). Attachment behavior in dogs (Canis familiaris): a new application of Ainsworth’s (1969) strange situation test. J. Comp. Psychol.112, 219–229. doi: 10.1037//0735-7036.112.3.219

Ruefenacht S, Gebhardt-Henrich S, Miyake T, Gaillard C: A behaviour test on German Shepherd dogs: heritability of seven different traits. App Anim Behav Sci 2002,79(2):113–132. 10.1016/S0168-1591(02)00134-X

Thomson PC, Wilson BJ, Wade CM, Shariflou MR, James JW, Tammen I, Raadsma HW, Nicholas FW: The utility of estimated breeding values for inherited disorders of dogs. Vet J 2010,183(3):243–244. 10.1016/j.tvjl.2009.12.002

Arvelius P, Malm S, Svartberg K, Strandberg E: Measuring herding behavior in Border collie-effect of protocol structure on usefulness for selection. J Vet Behav:Clin Appl Res 2013,8(1):9–18. 10.1016/j.jveb.2012.04.007

Hsu Y, Serpell JA: Development and validation of a questionnaire for measuring behavior and temperament traits in pet dogs. J Am Vet Med Assoc2003,223(9):1293–1300. 10.2460/javma.2003.223.1293

Duffy D, Serpell J: Behavioral assessment of guide and service dogs. J Vet Behav:Clin Appl Res 2008,3(4):186–188.

Overall KL, Crowell-Davis SL, Dehasse J, Fatjó J, Houpt KA, Mills DS, Palestrini C, Beata C, Seksel K: Terminology think tank. J Vet Behav:Clin Appl Res 2006,1(1, 2, 3):29–46. 80–83, 121–123

Ohl F, Arndt SS, van der Staay FJ: Pathological anxiety in animals. Vet J2008,175(1):18–26. 10.1016/j.tvjl.2006.12.013

Image description: A three window comic panel which is grey. The title reads: prey drive and livestock force and fear free solutions.

The first window is of a Wolfdog chasing sheep on a country hillside. With a blue and yellow sky. The text box reads: You don't need an e collar to stop this behaviour, but a little bit of common sense and a responsibility.

The second window is of a wolfdog running in a secure dog field. With a blue sky background. There is a fence and tufts of grass growing by the fence.

The text box reads: utilise enclosed dog fields, long lines and check fields for livestock. Avoid fields with livestock.

The third bottom window is of a Wheelchair user with blonde, pink, purple ombre hair sat in a Wheelchair with a Wolfdog either side engaging with a backdrop of a sheep herd on fields with a blue sky in the distance. The text box reads: working on predation substitute training and work on stimuli which triggers a prey chase behaviour.

#dogs #dogtraining #dogsofinstagram #dogsofinsta #dogsoftiktok #dogstagram #dogtrainerlife #dogtrainers #vets #doglove #predation #prey drive #phenotyping #genetics #genetic mapping #dna #epigenetics #recall #Youtube

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undiscovered-horror-icon · 4 years ago

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SlipKnot Histrory

[This was from a french blogging website, post original publish in 2009. I think it’s instresting; All credit goes to the original poster. Posted linked at the bottom of this post.]

[Post copy and pasted below]

Note: This is a long hauled description of events; it shows how fate has brought Slipknot together and how this makes Slipknot more than an everyday band; the music is their life not just a ploy for fame. Slipknot are hard core expression and emotion that WILL rock the music industry! They are a band with an undying passion! Slipknot formed in the year of 1995 as a result of the work of Paul, Shawn and Anders Colsefni (ex-vocalist). (They had originally played with the idea of making a band as early as 1993 and even began writing songs; however the project fell through when Shawn became busy with his welding occupation.) These three along with guitarists Donnie Steele (ex- Body Pit guitarist) and Quan Nong began practising under the name of Meld. However, at some point Quan Nong left, this time is uncertain, but is expected to be following the first six practices due to his following of a more Alternative/Punk style. Following his departure the band started anew, with a project named, "The Pale Ones". During this period Shawn (a.k.a Clown) was the lead drummer. Paul was determined to get Joey involved with his new project, despite failing to receive his interest in earlier projects such as Body Pit. Paul met up with Joey at Sinclair's where Joey worked nights, there he tempted Joey to watch rehearsals within Anders' basement. Joey reluctantly agreed and despite missing two rehearsals due to work priorities, eventually made it down to the basement to view a practice session. This basement, was "largely, open spaced", not only was the area so small and cramped but for soundproofing the members used carpet samples and scraps from a nearby pet grooming centre, these made the whole basement smell of Cat piss. The first song that Joey heard them play was a song known as "Slipknot", followed by "Gently" and "Fur". Joey soon realised that he had to be in this band and soon began to play the drums; pushing Shawn onto percussion. A band had formed. Within the cramped basement new songs were being turned out by the minute, including titles such as "Killers Are Quiet", "Bitchslap", "Do Nothing", "Confessions", "Some Feel", "Part of Me" and "Tattered and Torn". Paul, Shawn and Joey also began to meet up at Sinclair's to discuss ideas and plans for the future. Here they planned everything, here they decided the rules that define the current Slipknot. 1. "We do not answer to anyone" 2. "We do not worry about trends" 3. "We play what we want" 4. "We would not allow people to have any sort of influence on the band" Shawn and Joey also decided that the band would require three drummers to provide a hardcore audio assault. Shawn wanted a drummer to the left and right with one at the back controlling it all, creating a wall of power, a fist layer... . Joey plays the main set and as a result is the main drummer who holds the band together. Shawn is the "Total Power Drummer" and is all aggression. The third element of percussion was often performed by Anders. Within Sinclair's Shawn and Joey also realised that the band would need another guitarist. Josh formerly of Modifidious and Inveigh Catharsis was called and he soon added himself to the band. Now there were six. Soon the band decided on a new title for themselves, they toyed with the name of "Pyg System" however agreed on the more simple name of "Slipknot", the title of their first song. The people of Des Moines knew that a new band was forming and they knew who was in it. However no one had heard or seen them. Soon a small performance was given, the band suited in Kiss styled makeup, fitting the music perfectly with the green glowing lights. This spawned the idea of the masks. This idea evolved and following discussions and Shawn turning up to a practice wearing his legendary Clown mask, the sextet decided almost unanimously, with the exception of Donnie, that masks should be worn. Joey came fully equipped with his moulded and expressionless Kabuki Mask and despite difficulty within practices the idea took off, the whole anti-image appearance which fitted so well with their rule of ignoring trends had a great appeal. Soon Shawn contacted Mike Lawyer, due to an interest in recording some studio work. Mike got an engineer/producer of his named Sean Mcmahon to meet up with them during a practice session. Sean, not only stunned by the wolf skin attire of lead singer Anders, was also blown away by the sheer sound of Slipknot. The band soon started work on their first project, dubbed, MFKR. "Mate Feed Kill Repeat". The band grabbed every available moment to practice, perform and record within the SR Audio Studios, customising the room with posters, lights and many other objects. Many happenings occurred around this studio, including the drawing of corpses on the road outside and a performance in the nude by Joey. Sean Mcmahon: "I was contacted by former members of a band called Body Pit to check out their new band at their rehearsal space. I did. I was Floored! That band was Slipknot." Within February of 1996 a great change occurred within Donnie Steele; he found God. He realised that he could not be within such a band as Slipknot with the beliefs he held and as a result withdrew himself from the group, the others respecting his descision. At this crucial point in time a new member was called up; a former member of Joey's band Modifidious, his name was Craig. He had been recommended by Jordison. During his arrival the MFKR album was already in its mixing stages. The mixing of MFKR was anything but smooth. Each song being remixed many times. Strain was added by different view that each member held and things often got intense. Not only was their problems with the mixing but the band was also unhappy with the mastering that was done on the CD, hence they insisted that Sean should do it. Slipknot's first major show in which they would unveil themselves to the people of Des Moines became booked for the 4th April 1996 at the locally known meeting place pronounced, "The Safari". On the day's arrival the room was packed with 200 people. The band arrived in Joey's car and each member sported their individual garments. Paul with a wore wrapped around his head, weaving in and out of his piercings, Josh showing off an executioners hood while Craig had placed pantyhose on his head. Joey and Shawn each used the masks they had always worn, the Clown and Kabuki. Before the band began to play Joey began to incessantly shout, "I need a little Christmas in my drink" repeatedly with each new phrase increasing in volume, energy and power. The band then slammed into their debut song, "Slipknot". By Slipknot's second performance at the club Paul had found a new "Pig" mask. Within this show the band played with another band named, "Stone Sour", Corey Taylor was the lead singer. The band played a total of seven shows at the club in one month alone. The band carried on playing their shows which were much more "insane" than we see these days (taming of the media,etc...), rather than the same uniform jumpsuits and regular masks the band played in different things, for example Shawn rented out a large purple "Barney" suit and others wore Nun dresses and even ballroom dresses or a Little Bo Peep outfit. The shows were really dark, underground and scary however they still carried an element of humour. The shows would start with strobe lights flashing and a sample from Craig, usually of a mad laugh and "ice cream" man chimes, Shawn would drop a power saw to create a series of sparks to fly over the crowd. Joey still felt that the band was incomplete. He wanted more; a different sound and a greater variety. Craig was promptly shifted onto samples, leaving an empty vacancy. Hence Mick arrived. MFKR was eventually finished on Halloween, 1996. The party had began and 400 people turnt up. The album was sent out to many people and a person named Sophia at a local station managed to hear it and liked it. This lead to the arrangement of Slipknot's appearance in the local battle of the band's contest. The on air tournament that spanned across several weeks soon began with the individual heats. Slipknot faced Corey's band; Stone Sour - they won. Slipknot also defeated "Maelstrom" and "Black Caesar" who came second. Slipknot conquered all. This was one of the band's highlights that fuelled them to their current stardom. The money from the win helped fund the heavily in debt band's new projects and demos. By this time several record companies had investigated the band, one of these being Roadrunner who felt that they should not pick up Slipknot due to their thought that the vocalist required more melody. This rejection continued and no where could they be signed. Sophia became their first manager due to her contacts and love for this new band. Things then seemed to get worse; Shawn bought the Safari which took time away from the band despite being a good investment. The band could no longer play in Anders' basement and things were falling apart. There were often tensions between Joey and Shawn and "Slipknot" had no where to play. However they still managed to make it onto the bill for the local "Dotfest" in June. There they played to the largest crowd in their history, a crowd of 12 000, containing many industry people. Not only was the sound dodgy and kept going out but the crowd began to throw chicken bones on stage. At the show Slipknot came out throwing Tampons into the crowd and had several "gimps". This was the first and last time for the "gimps". The gimps were Frank with a gas mask, Lanny with tribal markings in liquid latex, Greg covered with liquid latex and a ball gag in his mouth and Greg's friend Slick Rick in a latex hood. Slipknot had the original idea of having a professional stunt man, Rick, come out dressed as Shawn and then Shawn would come out and set him on fire. They had all the things to do it (for a long time it set in the cooler at Safari) but the city would not issue the permits to perform it so the event had to be abandoned. The set ended with them being cut off and an almost riot breaking out as Andy cut open his arms and tossed CDs over the fence to the fans. Joey quit. But he reconsidered and came back. Some good things did come out of this though, their performance left a mark, they made new fans and most importantly they discovered Sid Wilson (even though they did not speak to him). Slipknot looked for the success they were not getting and decided to enlist Corey Taylor of rival band Stone Sour, to join the line up. Joey, Shawn and Mick confronted him with the an ultimatum at his work place, "The Adult Emporium". They said, "Join the band or we will kick your ass!" Slipknot provided an opportunity not present in Stone Sour; the band could go places. The music over image policy also appealed. Corey began practising with the band and the first lyrics he wrote were to be used in the song, "Me Inside". This was a very experimental move and everyone was wondering how it would turn out. This change resulted in Anders being pushed back to percussion and back up vocals. Soon this new breed of the Knot performed a show; it turned out it was a charity event for a local hospital. The Safari was packed to the brim. Corey came out wearing a large amount of makeup that gave a dark appearance, this was added to by two latex crosses marked over his eyes. Despite this excitement the show was riddled with technical problems and was the show that resulted in Joey's nickname, "Superball". Their next show was on 17th September, again at the Safari. This show was a great improvement however nearly a year on from the MFKR release an announcement was to be made. Just before Slipknot were about to storm into their final song, "Scissors", Anders made an announcement, "This will be my last show" he stated. This stunned both band members and the audience. Following this sudden change the band returned to the studio to re-record the songs on their untitled second CD - minus Anders' vocals. Of these songs included, "Gently", "Do Nothing", "Slipknot", "Tattered and Torn", "Me Inside", "Carve", "Coleslaw", "Scissors", "Windows" and "May 17th" a song written by Shawn. To cope with Ander's departure a new member was brought in, he was named Greg a.k.a Cuddles (a tattooist @ axiom piercing). Cuddles was extremely insane and very much like Slipknot's DJ, Sid. He would smash up the sets and even throw his drum kit into the crowd. Cuddles joined the band despite warnings from family and friends and he is also responsible for the tribal "S" tattoo on Anders' leg. Cuddles had previously drummed for the "Havenots" a band which Joey and Paul had been in. Cuddles is the naked guy in the MFKR inlet. Cuddles played his lst show in the Summer of 1998, he was the only member of Slipknot to be sacked, this was due to his lazy attitude towards the band. He moved to South Dakota and started up the tattoo parlour, "The Ultimate Prick", this has since been shut down. Following Cuddles' departure there was one show in Malibu which took place wile auditions were occurring, hence there was a replacement and that was Brandon, he played one show and wore the "liar" mask. One night Joey and Shawn checked out a clan named "The Sound Proof Coalition" at the Safari containing the DJs, A-Rock, Loodachris, Phase II, Rek, Sub Two, Iniversoul and Starscream. Starscream, a.k.a Sid Wilson introduced himself to them and told them they rocked at Dotfest, Shawn said they needed a DJ, Sid said he was the man. Following pestering by Sid he was allowed to view a practice and following a session of head butting it was decided he was fit to be part of the group. Auditions were being carried out for a Cuddles replacement, these auditions brought about a person named Chris Fehn, he had seen the band played and had previously asked to become a roadie. He was soon added to the group, despite being put through a vigourous ordeal. This included his initiation test commonly known as the secret track on the self titled album. Soon after this event Slipknot came up with the barcode, number and coverall ideas. A new song was also written; it was called, "Spit it Out". Slipknot now had offers flying in from mainly internet reports. However the band really wanted Ross Robinson to work on the project and he was contacted through Sophia. Robinson checked out the demo tape and flew into Des Moines to view a practice session and a live show. After watching the practice (which very few are aloud to see) he knew the band would go far. Ross not only felt the vide of the music but the vide of the passion; a passion he himself had felt. This was the beginning of a wonderful creation. He then saw Slipknot perform live at the Safari on 2nd February 1998. Word soon got back to Slipknot that he was willing to record the album, label or not. Ross later signed them onto his own label, "I am recordings". Ross then got in touch with Roadrunner and the band publicly signed to Roadrunner Records outside of the Axion Studio (tattoo parlour) in Des Moines. Following a call on the 23rd September, Slipknot drove out to LA to begin the recording of their album. The band practised solid for a week and soon began the recording that left the band sore. They then travelled upto the legendary Indigo Ranch to carry on the recording. To add a necessary expression to this music, Ross got Corey to explain his lyrics to all the other members, so they could "feel it". This took the music to a higher level; it made it raw expression and emotion, it added an element not seen before. Despite the many changes that had occurred within the Knot, another was to occur. This time it was Josh's time for departure, he left due to "family life" and would not have been able to cope with the extensive touring that lay ahead. The band knew instantly who they wanted to replace him, the Atomic Opera star, Jim Root. Jim originally said no to the offer due to his desire to stay true to the band he was currently working in. However after a bad show he called Shawn and essentially joined the band.

Original Post: slipknotmetalmusik. skyrock. com /2381521055-slipknot. html

[spaces are only there because tumblr is being buggy]

#slipknot #slipknot history #sid wilson #joey jordison #paul gray #chris fehn #jim root #craig jones #shawn crahan #mick thomson #corey taylor #yeah its instresing i like it #fun to read

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aufox46 · 3 years ago

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Behringer Others Driver

Overview BEHRINGER USB AUDIO DRIVER is a Shareware software in the category Miscellaneous developed. It was checked for updates 63 times by the users of our client application during the last month. The latest version of BEHRINGER USB AUDIO DRIVER is currently unknown. It was initially added to our database on. Download Behringer X-USB Universal USB ASIO Driver 4.59 (Sound Card). Bear in mind that even though other OSes might be compatible, it would be best if you applied this package only on specified platforms. In addition to that, as technology evolves from one day to.

Behringer Others Driver Free

04-12-2020, 11:55 PM

Behringer Others Driver Download

Behringer Drivers X64

I bought the Behringer UM2 interface, since I really only needed the one port for input from my Roland TD-15, which I run thru a Mackie 1402 (along with a condenser mic for chat) and into the UM2. I was dismayed when I found out the driver I had to use was ASIO4ALL, as that is what JamKazam says NOT to use, but it's what Behringer pointed me to, so I downloaded an installed it - see attachment for latest settings used. BTW running on Lenovo laptop w/ Windows 10. On my numerous attempts to setup my Audio Gear in JamKazam, I have never been able to get it to work cleanly when I select ASIO4ALL. on initial setup, it can't determine latency and I have to go to loopback Test page, where (when the test works at all) latency is around 3-4ms, but I/O usually fails test and I can't proceed. Occasionally, for reasons I do NOT understand, it does pass the I/O part too and I am able to add that audio gear setup and then open a solo session. However, the audio in the solo session is either really bad, with lots of noise and odd sounds, plus I see lots of output jitter - but the latency is good (under 5), OR the sound is very intermittent, meaning I can tap one of the drums and only 1 note out ten come thru. (Direct Monior is OFF on interface). I also frequently hear a faint popping sound during setup. I have disabled the on-oard audio devices, so that only the USB Codec device (which is the interface) is active and set both input and output sampling to 48K Hz (have also tried 41K). I have alternatively been able to setup my audio by selecting USB Codec using the default WMD driver and jam, but my internal latency is ALWAYS 20ms, so that is not ideal. I am debating tossing the Berhinger UM2 and buying the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen, but I have also seen some posts where that seems to have problems on Windows 10 and I think I might have seen one where it said that had to use ASIO4ALL too, in which case I am not buying it, if that is true. Wondering if anyone has been able to get ASIO4ALL working with any Berhinger interface, especially the UM2? Or is there another ASIO driver I can use?

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blindrapture · 4 years ago

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DJay’s Introduction to Autechre Masterpost

So, what’s Autechre? Who’s he when he’s at home?

There’s two men from England’s north, they have no formal music training, they met as graffiti artists in the 80s, one of them’s into audio engineering and the other’s into architecture, and over the years they released a lot of music together. That’s all I got.

Autechre (aw-tech-er) make weird music. The early stuff is considerably less weird, especially by today’s standards-- it’s mainly just.. electronic. But there is a lot of it, and it’s overwhelming to get into their discography. But I’ve been doing this journey for a few months, and I found it helped to keep a text file where I wrote short bits to help me remember/distinguish all the songs. And I mean it really did help, this has made it a lot more fun for me. The least I can do is share the file.

(Before we start: We do all know what an EP is, right? If not: It’s like an album/LP, but not called an album/LP. They’re usually a lot shorter, but it’s up to the artist.)

Here’s the general format for what you’ll be seeing:

A L A B R U T M

Autechre, xth album/EP, year of release

Album title: GENERAL DESCRIPTION FROM MY TEXT FILE [Context that I am adding specifically for this post.]

[LINK TO BANDCAMP PAGE FOR FULL RELEASE] track 1 (Song Title) description goes here. track 2 (Soing Ttel) description of one instrument sound + accompanying instrument sound like the drum beat or something track 3 (Tittg Elson) description of how it sounds at first, description of how it sounds when it next changes track 4 (tits noe) description, 1:33 something specifically starts here, 4 min something happens in the general fourth minute

Finally, I will include Cavity Job in this post because it’s just two really early tracks and I don’t want to dedicate a post to that. Everything else will link to a separate post, because links are fun!

Cavity Job: HIGH-OCTANE EARLY 90S ELECTRONIC AMBITION [1991, their first release under the Autechre name. This is, like, in no way representative of their later stuff, but it’s made of mixes and samples and is pretty fun to dance to.] track 1 (Cavity Job) is a banger, "we want to dance for a long time" track 2 (Accelera) has more flow but is a lovely banger

Now, links! With loose descriptions, to pique interest.

Album 1: Incunabula: MOODS

EP 1: Basscad,EP: EXPLORATION OF A THEME

EP 2: Anti EP: INTRODUCING THE ELEMENTS

Album 2: Amber: SHIT, THIS IS ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD

EP 3: Garbage: INTERESTING TEXTURES

EP 4: Anvil Vapre: AN INTERPRETATION OF RAVE

Album 3: Tri Repetae: FUCKING MOOD, CHILL ELECTRONICA

EP 5: Envane: THE DANCE-Y TRANSITION

Album 4: Chiastic Slide: EXPERIMENTAL MOOD, FAIRLY CLASSICAL

EP 6: Cichlisuite: CLASSICAL SUITE STRUCTURE, TECH AESTHETIC, THEMES

Radio 1: Peel Session 1: CHILL BEATS

Radio 2: Peel Session 2: NOISE BEATS

LP5: KINDA EASY-LISTENING ELECTRONICA NOISE, FEELS CONCEPTUAL ART AS HECK

EP7: CONTINUES LP5 BUT I PREFER THIS

Album 6: Confield: CONCRETE GHOSTS

Single: Gantz Graf: THE NOISE IS THE SINGER

Album 7: Draft 7.30: AN INTERPRETATION OF A HIP-HOP ALBUM

Album 8: Untilted: COMPLEX TECH BEATS AND SUBTLE SOUNDS, REFINED

Album 9: Quaristice: THE MIXING IS GODDAMN EVOLVED

EP 8: Quaristice.quadrange.ep.ae: A QUADRANGE OF MOODS AND JAMS

Album 10: Oversteps: BLOWN-OUT JAZZ CHAMBER MUSIC

EP 9: Move Of Ten: SICK BEATS AND PRETTY PIECES

Album 11: Exai: HERE COME THE WOBBLES, WUBBY BEATS

EP 10: L-Event: ADDITIONAL WUBS FOR THE JAZZIER EAR

Album 12: elseq 1: HOT, CINEMATIC, ELECTRICAL

Album 12: elseq 2: THREE JAZZ JAM EPICS

Album 12: elseq 3: HARD TONAL AMBIENT NOISE

Album 12: elseq 4: AND THE SONG IS BORN

Album 12: elseq 5: GRAND MOODPIECES

Album 13: NTS Session 1: ABSOLUTE DISTORTION, MONSTROUS AND DOPE

Album 13: NTS Session 2: ...WHAT.

Album 13: NTS Session 3: ABSOLUTE DISTORTION, GROOVING NEW SOUNDS

Album 13: NTS Session 4: ...AMBIENCE.

Album 14: SIGN: BEAUTY IN THE SUBDUED

Album 15: PLUS: WEIRD BEATS AND HAUNTING TECHNO

If more Autechre albums come out, I will almost definitely cover them too. I can’t even guarantee that this is the last time I’ll post about any of these albums. I’m wired into the Weird Techno world now. And, theoretically, you can be too!

I leave you with a bookend. As I started with Cavity Job, which I didn’t want to make a separate post for, I will end with a similar two-song release that’s much more representative of Current Autechre.

The MacMillan Cancer Support Single: NEW AUTECHRE REPRESENT [2017. Released to support the cause of cancer research, this single is referred to by its track titles. It came in between the two monoliths, elseq and NTS Sessions, and its sound is.. well. It’s definitely a far cry from Cavity Job, no?] track 1 (JNSN CODE GL16) staccato synth + ambient sustains, percussive outro track 2 (spl47) chaotic synth tones + fast beat, rhythms and wobs

See ya.

#autechre #link post #music #masterpost

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martianarctic · 5 years ago

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Devin’s Playlist -2010s Part 1

This is an unfinished retrospective look at what I listened to during the 2010s. This decade was exceptional for me, as it was the first decade where, for almost all of it, I was not a musician myself.

Being a musician forces you to listen to music like a musician, and being free of that, and able to listen as a listener alone, really made this a spectacular decade for me. I found dozens of incredible albums that were released during the decade, many of which received no significant recognition.

This was a very large project, and I did not finish it. I made it through Retrowave, Shoegaze, and Post punk. If anybody cares, I will finish the entire project, which will add Dreampop (the largest category), Vaporwave, and Dark Ambient.

Retrowave: Retrowave is electronic music that, at first listen, sounds like it may be from the 80s or 90s, mostly because the synths it uses to generate the music are either retro-inspired or literally retro equipment in some of the more extreme cases. It generally features original compositions, often, but not always, is instrumental. Rough vocals would impede the tightness and angularity of the music, so when vocals are used they are often pop produced and highly melodic. This genre gained significant exposure from Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 masterpiece, “Drive”.

Galactic Melt (2011) Com Truise

Electronic artist Com Truise rose to prominence off of this fantastic record, which rallies around the undeniable electro anthem of 2012, “Brokendate”. Starting with some found audio (chopped and screwed found audio becomes a big deal later on in Vaporwave) and then dropping in an absolutely thick beat we’re met with a song that eventually, as layers are dropped on, ends up being meditative, romantic, and melancholy. Emotions to that point, not well associated with dance music, but definitely would come to color the entire decade.

Era Extraña (2011) Neon Indian

Electronic solo bedroom pop was pretty cool at the end of the 00s being pushed hard by guys like Twin Shadow. I am not sure how I got ahold of Neon Indian but this album was, in a lot of ways, the true start of my musical decade. I had not been so excited and enthusiastic about a record since I had retired from making music. It really gives you a new perspective to not feel like you’re in competition with everything and trying to learn from everything- just as a listener, I was enthralled with this entire record.

Visitors (2012) Lazerhawk

I did not get into dark retrowave until after 2013 and thus discovered Lazerhawk and this record after the fact. Visitors is, in my opinion, the best dark retrowave album ever made, more consistent and listenable than competitors such as mega drive or carpenter brut. Also. This album absolutely sticks the landing with the street-strutting powerhouse “Arrival”.

I am the Night (2012) Perturbator

Made famous by soundtracking the indie game hit Hotline Miami (one of the best games of the decade), Perturbator carved a niche for himself with fast, brutal, high energy dark electronic music and absolutely bonkers live shows. Perturbator has a large catalog of content- I am the Night is definitely the starter kit. Starting off with a thick minor chord, a church bell, and a sample of Peter Finch’s speech from “Network” you immediately know what’s in store- dark, dystopian and undeniably French electronic dance music, complete with breathtaking beat breaks, big bass synths, and complex compositions.

Innerworld (2014) Electric Youth

I had mentioned that Drive was a major popularizer of retrowave- and one song in particular, a collaboration between another retrowave artist named College, who created the low fi, catchy bassline for the song “A Real Hero”, and the vocals and lyrics, created by an artist called Electric Youth. Their record, 2014’s “Innerworld”, is one of the best retrowave efforts, with the second track, “Runaway”, even better than the song that made them famous. The pop chorus “Maybe we could just run away for good/cuz we’re both mis understood” soaring over thick, atmospheric synth pads will have you slapping the roof of your car, as you race through the freeways of LA at 3AM.

Atlas (2016) FM-84

Speaking of roof-slapping bangers, “Running in the Night” is probably retrowave’s most popular anthem, boasting one of my absolute favorite vocal performances of the decade. A group claiming rock and roll city San Francisco as their home base (despite being both British), FM-84’s Atlas is absolutely packed with a mixture of the atmospheric instrumental Miami Vice type music suggested by the red and purple setting sun cover as well as vocal driven pop songs such as the single mentioned above.

Hardwired (2018) Mitch Murder

Mitch Murder is a retrowave institution, having made the soundtrack to the viral youtube movie Kung Fury, and also, I suspect, the original music used by twitch personality Dr. Disrespect. However, he almost entirely releases 3-5 song Eps, making it tough to pick out a standout. However that all changed in 2018 with the release of Hardwired, the most accomplished mitch murder release to date. Starting off with the Jan Hammer style “Altered State”, it stays on brand throughout but tells a very unified instrumental story of cyberpunk dystopian adventure. Vangelis-style synths bring in the closer track, “Revision Control”, one of Mitch Murder’s greatest tracks. Evolving through different moods, different scenes, we can imagine the “human” protagonist confronting his cyborg nemesis he has been tasked to execute.

Retrowave Album of the Decade:

Dark All Day (2018) Gunship

As the decade wore on, retro wave slowed down for me. I thought it might be over but- without warning, Gunship, an artist I had listened to but not been completely impressed by, released what is probably the most accomplished album in the genre. Spanning various tempos and musical themes, utilizing several guest vocalists, the scope of “Dark All Day” keeps you listening to the record again and again. This record represents an evolution in a format that was at risk of being just a fad. “Come on lost boys, lets stay alive” over a ripping saxophone lead suggests mere 80s fetishism, but there is more substance than just that. The following track, “When you Grow Up, Your Heart Dies”, takes an upbeat electro jam, and really goes for emotional impact with a series of samples of characters from pop culture saying inspirational things, my favorite being “Everything worth doing is hard” which I think is just Teddy Roosevelt. My favorite track of the record, the slow ballad “Artemis & Parzival”, begins with swooning, Vangelis-style pads and then into guest vocalist Stella Le Page’s gorgeous vocals. This track definitely belongs on anybody’s make out playlist. “Were all gonna die that’s just how it is, there’s no escaping the future, nobody gets what they want in this world, even for you and me” is one of the greatest lyrics of the decade.

Nugaze/Shoegaze-Adjacent: Shoegaze is a genre of music that features highly layered guitar effects (often run through 10 or more effects, creating a signature “vacuum cleaner” sound with a ton of distortion and white noise) and breathy vocals. Relying heavily on the depth of character of the sound, shoegaze guitar tone and production is a major creative point and almost all of these records are self-produced. Vocal themes are usually depression-inspired and lovelorn meditations, the music sounds, to most, dull and dreary, but to some, it speaks deeply to their feelings about the past and future. Shoegaze is often mixed with other guitar genres on this list, from Post Hardcore(Nothing, Title Fight), Black Metal(Deafheaven), and Thrash Metal (Astronoid).

Road Eyes (2010) Amusement Parks on Fire

Around 2010, I was promoted at my job to a new role that would require a bunch of travel. I was not a big fan of riding on airplanes. Also around that time, my brother had moved into my apartment, then out of it, and I only had a few months left on the lease. My favorite shoegaze band of the 2000s, Amusement Parks on Fire, played a gig at 330 Ritch, a club in san Francisco. I had a fantastic time at the show, and particularly loved their new material, which made it onto a record they called Road Eyes. 2 months later I moved out of my apartment in San Francisco and never would go back to living as a single dude.

Anyways, the travelling. The opening and title track to the record came to symbolize change for me. And it also was the song I would listen to every time my plane would take off. It helped me deal with the fear that something might happen- no matter how insignificant the chance – and if it did, while that song was on, it would be okay. Indeed, this was, and I will warn you I am not qualified to treat mental illness, but this actually really made flying much easier for me and it is a ritual I continue to do to this day, whenever possible.

Pipe Dreams(2013), Sway(2014), Feels like You (2019) Whirr

San Francisco nugaze/dronegaze band Whirr, large and complex, problematic, aggressive, are behind some of my favorite music of the decade. Their three album career reflects to me upon the primary feelings of youth: euphoria, anger, and sadness.

Pipe Dreams is a blissful set of jams, meditative, energetic uptempo and with almost totally co-ed vocals. Noisy production casts a hydrocarbon haze over the songs, raw vocal melodies reach out of the fuzz and suck you in. “Junebouvier” and “Toss” capture the euphoric and youthful energy of a summer in San Francisco: starting off with breakups May thru July, and hot hookups until September or October when people settle into relationships. Two hungry eyes emerging from straight-bangs to make eye contact with you, and hold it- the exhilaration of touching somebody new.

Sway, the band’s masterwork, starts off with a heavily muff-distorted major 7th chord suspending us until the massive drums, now a hallmark of the band’s sound, kick off the beat into the opening rocker Press. The band switches up rhythms between drums, guitars, and bass to bring rock and roll-type turnarounds and breaks that really keep you on your toes and engaged. The lead guitar is classic legato shoegaze, using delay to achieve a long, sustained scream. Compositions are key on this record- not following just simple A/B patterns there’s some thought to the structure of the songs and record. “Dry”, in particular, demonstrates some of these ideas. A/B sections, underscored with “Drown me everytime… Dry”, give way to breaks, ethereal echo guitar solos, giving a hint of the powerful ending. A 4 chord progression accented by breathtaking drum fills finaly flourishes into a screaming cymbal-laden guitar finish.

Feels like You, the bands purported final album, starts off with some quiet echo piano. The melancholy major 7 chords the band has leaned on throughout their music are laid bare as we press play on the record. Add guitar. At a little after 90 seconds the band jumps in after with a thick blanket of lonesome self-reflection and chemical depression. The bands penchant for composition remains to the end, with changes keeping you engaged as the noise soothes your heart. “Younger than You” is one of the band’s greatest tracks, starting with an almost Smashing Pumpkins/Silversun Pickups esque clean unison guitar/bass into distorted and layered noise, ending with a drum-guided, rock and roll style outro.

Guilty of Everything (2014) Nothing

One of the things I mention in my preface to this is, for me, the 2010s were the first decade of my life that ended with me not being a musician. And it opened some doors for me, creatively, to be able to hear music and think about it purely as a listener and a person. Something others have frequently described to me, that I had never really done, was just spend an entire weekend listening to an album.

I saw Nothing on KEXP 5 years ago when Guilty of Everything was out and they were on tour. I’ve seen them twice in person since them and bought every one of their records. The weekend that I got Guilty, I was attending a close friend’s sisters wedding, and pretty much was in a hotel room drunk in overcast-as-fuck santa cruz all weekend. And you know what was being played through headphones at practically all times.

Nothing is mostly the musical project of a guy named Dominic Palermo, a punk from the Philly scene that had spent more than a year in prison for a stabbing. He isn’t much of a vocalist or guitarist, but he is a fantastic artist, writer, photographer, and visionary, and the creative force behind what is now a rotating cast of other musicians.

Guilty of Everything is definitely their best record, opening with the massive meditation Hymn to the Pillory, into the definitive single Bent Nail, a perfect marriage of hardcore punk and shoegaze elements, falling apart into the 90mph crash, into a wall, final outro chorus “If you feel like/letting go…” repeated over and over over pure drone guitars, seamlessly flowing into the romantic slow jam “Endlessly” The closing title track is one of the best closers of the decade, perfectly sticking the landing on this brilliant lyric: “My hands are up, I’m on my knees I don’t have a gun, you can search me please. I’ve given up, but you shoot me anyway, I’m guilty of everything. I’m guilty of everything”.

Hyperview (2015) Title Fight

Nothing wasn’t the only Pennsylvanian post-hardcore band to bend their sound a bit shoegaze. Title Fight also sneaks onto this list with their outstanding record Hyperview from 2015. Appealing compositions and melodies combine with harmonized vocals, even some 16 beats on the hats- things we expect from post hardcore, but slowed down and smeared out a bit into the shoegaze aesthetic. My favorite track from the record, “Hypernight”, combines some screamo hype man chorus, math rock inspired guitar and bass lines, and is just all in all one of the most unique tracks to come out of the decade. “I don’t want to see things differently, its what I am taught myself to believe”.

Grandfeathered (2016) Pinkshinyultrablast

I admit that I bounced off of Russian electro-shoegazers Pinkshinyultrablast the first time I listened to them a few years ago. There was just too much going on and I didn’t really have the inclination to jump in and grab on. Operatic female vocals, noisy djenty guitar, shimmery, clean guitar, all swirl together in what is undoubtably a great record for having a tinder date IF, and I say IF, you’re willing to run a musicological acid test on them.

Whether it was listening to a bunch more music, particularly ambient music, or just changing taste now I can’t get enough of this band. They do slam from idea to idea in a song, but it’s a controlled speed- it’s not pleasant to a lot of people, but once you get yourself situated, you’ll wonder how you ever missed this band to begin with, if you’re not one of the people reading this and thinking, naw dude, I got this shit RIGHT AWAY.

The compositions on the record are, in fact, carefully considered and composed, combining noise rock with clean ambience deftly and changing up styles repeatedly throughout each song and the record. Everybody knows we can no longer control dynamics via volume in today’s world of headphone/device listening, ultramaximizing mastering, laptop speakers, etc. So Pinkshinyultrablast controls it with style. This record is definitely the more guitar-driven of the albums from this decade, with their release 2 years later being more electronic and vocal focused.

Slowdive (2017) Slowdive/My Bloody Valentine (2013) mbv

There are two bands that are credited with creating and or popularizing the Shoegaze movement during the late 80s and early 90s. Those bands are My Bloody Valentine, and Slowdive. Both of whom released albums during the 2010s. And frankly, both records are damn good for two bands that have been basically on hiatus for 20 years. Neither has really stood the test of time for me, although I listened to both exhaustively upon release.

The opening tracks of both records are absolutely mesmerizing, this slow, sexy intro is clearly the part of them that became stronger with age. The manic rock energy of their more upbeat tracks however is absent or at least forced, and I think is what keeps these from being really what I’d call strong records. Nevertheless, both albums belong on any shoegazer’s playlists both for the quality of the music as well as the nod to the progenators of the genre we love so much.

Time n Place (2018) Kero Kero Bonito

KKB was already one of the biggest indie rock groups in the world when they released this their second full-length album. Making a big move sound-wise from super squeaky clean hip hop style production to sloppy shoegaze guitars and drums, they alienated a lot of fans with Time n Place, but I don’t see how. For me, coming in for Time n Place and then going back in the catalogue to Bonito Generation, I see it as a very natural progression. As the artists become more confident and mature, it’s natural they should explore some other emotions and moods.

That said I am not the usual KKB fan. Actually at their show in San Francisco in 2018 I was probably in the top 95 percentile of being an old fart. Around me, mostly twentysomethings on the first half decade, casually doing key bumps right on the show floor, something scared old gen Xers like me, still remembering their friend’s divorced dads in cigarette boats they sold for coke in the 80s, are still too paranoid to do. The crowd definitely starting pogo jumping at the chorus to “Only Acting” a grungy, poppy metaphor between acting on stage, and being young and in love.

Right after that, “Flyaway“ is the upbeat shoegazey manic anthem that really got me sucked into the band to begin with. Combining fuzzy guitars that are more reminiscent of Japanese rock bands of the 00s than shoegaze with a crystalline clear melodic vocal line from Sarah, this is the track where I grab a handful of dirt from my dying hill, and say if you don’t like this song, you don’t like the band, the record, or my musical taste.

Miserable Miracles (2018) Pinkshinyultrablast

Reinventing themselves record by record, Pinkshinyultrablast keeps on the cutting edge and doesn’t make a habit of anything. Miserable Miracles is more electronics driven, lead and pad synthesizers bringing in the music with their trademark soaring, operatic vocals. Guitars are present as well, but heavily stretched with cathedral reverb and long delay. A smoother sound than Grandfeathered, but well-poised to issue a majestic, meditative prayer such as “Find your Saint”, my favorite track. Like walking into a Germanic church on Sunday, the vocals rise to the ceiling forcing you to look up at the light breaking in through stained glass synthesizers. At about 100 seconds, all of the pieces drop in together to lift you into wherever it is you are going. “I used to talk- about it” brings the heavenly outro to bear, one of the most powerful musical moments of the decade.

Astronoid (2019) Astronoid

I am part of a few music groups on Facebook, and one of them mentioned this band, calling them “Dream Thrash”- a combination of dreampop and thrash metal. I’d say its more thrashgaze, with heavy effects/djenty guitar and the more whispery vocals than are a hallmark of the shoegaze genre, not the clear pop produced vocals that are the hallmark of dreampop.

That out of the way, this is possibly my favorite record of 2019. The opening track, “A New Color”, brims with energy and hopeful optimism and replaced Road Eyes as my airplane take off song. Right around 3 minutes in, when the plane is airborne and gaining climbing u to cruise, when we’re often breaking through the clouds, comes in possibly my favorite guitar solo of all time. On this record, Astronoid are unquestionably uptempo metal yet somehow at the same time being slow-changing enough to carry the emotional weight of shoegaze. The second track, “Dream in Lines”, is an aggressive, more metal-informed rocker, and the third is a power ballad that absolutely sealed the deal for me in terms of loving this album.

Other high points include the uptempo thrash jam “Breathe” and “Water”. Again infusing the metal, djenty mute strum guitar with soaring vocals and heavy backing harmonics, this record continues again and again to deliver head-banging jams that touch and heal a deep sadness in the soul. “Water” is a darker exploration, starting with a heavy chunky two-guitar & bass instrumental, virtuous breaks, and expansive echo and reverb. The band sounds like they are playing in the middle of an interstellar arena, fists human and alien in the sky.

The album sticks the landing with the penultimate track “Beyond the Scope”. This incredible song starts slowly, but upon reaching a turn, goes double-time as the melody and music climbs in pitch at 100 seconds in. This transition takes us into a greater urgency, with sustained, over-flying guitar notes keeping the harmony rich and complex.

Then, the beat drops out and a single guitar chord rings- “My hands are on my ears/They won’t stop ringing” smashes into your brain and your heart. Then again, the building section- “Feeble-minded/I can not decide/in my world, now I know/there’s no such thing as dying/so leave with a goodbye” and into another build and back to the chorus-

“My hands are on my ears/they won’t stop ringing”. I don’t think any lyric can better express the decade than that. If it were somehow possible for this album to end on this song, it would be at the head of this category.

Everything Starts to Be a Reminder (2019) Echodrone

As a former musician, I have a lot of friends who are musicians. I am very brutally honest about my feelings in music and that can make it awkward to have to comment on a friend’s hard work. Echodrone’s latest record made this very easy- the record is simply amazing. Echodrone’s earlier records bounced off of me a bit, but this one has just the right mixture of drone-drenched empty space, ethereal vocals, emotional anguish and euphoria, and a strong connection to the last 10 years in my mind. The tracks are named after the four seasons, starting with Winter and ending with Autumn. Interestingly, the tracks do not really stand out as being separate in my mind, much like how you cannot easily separate a season from another season in the same year.

“Winter” explodes with an epic, cymbal-laden meditation, that continues to grow and grow and expand, then finally becomes quieter, more melodic, and less drony in the second half of the 18 ½ minute song.

“Spring” features a finger-pick echo guitar interspersed with a beautiful co-ed vocal line guiding us down a pathway of different melodic and harmonic ideas. It then enters into a several-minutes long jammy contemplation that is utterly ecstatic to me- synths layered with effects-laden bass and more echo guitar into a full stop.

The best song on the record, “Summer”, begins with a vocal sample into a more or less straight-ahead rock and roll jam. This gives way to a downtempo effects section, then at right after 4 ½ minutes, gives way to a sound I can only call Olympian in hugeness. Fuzz bass, echoing guitars, and multilayered female vocals create this trance-like atmosphere that is rarefied and deeply marked with potent and everchanging imagery at the same time, like cream on top of coffee.

The sound continues to change and becomes quiet again once again with echo guitars carrying the music through. Back to a rhythmic return at 12 ¾ minutes. A synth flute melody flies over the whispered vocals, complex drum patterns- an opine to the end of life’s summer, the bitter sweetness of being old enough to not be hurt anymore by unlikely things failing to fly.

Shoegaze Album of the Decade:

Sunbather (2013) Deafheaven

A single distorted guitar chord progression holding several notes through the chords for changing harmonics, exploding into double kick and even more guitars, into black metal screaming- this is the unmistakable beginning of Sunbather by San Francisco black metal band Deafheaven.

Due to its downtempo sections, overall distorted and layered production, and emotional scope, this album is loved not just by black metal fans but also by shoegaze fans such as myself. It is a perfect example of a successful crossover- not anticipated or forced in any way by the creators- but it just happens to work on so many different levels.

There are really only four songs on this record, the tracks in between them are much needed interludes. Something all Deafheaven songs do very well is compositioning. These tracks play out, in a way, like classical pieces, with many different sections, transitions, themes, changes, openings, closings, callbacks- it’s so incredibly dense and accomplished that you can listen to this album for weeks on end and still be surprised.

“Dream House” is the blazing opener of the record and puts on display everything we love about every song on here. To make this song the first track is insane, simply because of how over-the-top insanely powerful it is. After a brief interlude of just picked echo guitar, a single chord strum, the entire band comes back in a beat later, and this isn’t even the most emotional part of the song. That’s going to be at 7 minutes, 20 seconds in “I watched/It die!!!” screeches the vocalist as a guitar ostinado plays over the key notes that have been presented throughout the song in brutal crystal clarity. Then at 8 minutes- the vocalist and guitar break down, screaming and double picking guitar notes. It is difficult not to cry at this ending- and this is only the first song on the record.

“Sunbather” is both the title track and the album’s dark heart. Thrumming with a complex beat from the start, the other instruments are layered over this like a tangle of vines across an iron fence. Skillful use of double kick and drum fills keeps the band on target as we get to the breaks and turnarounds. The cymbals and guitars swirl creating complex patterns. Listening to this song from far away with extremely poor speakers would sound like static- similar to how Jupiter looks like a pale gold smear- turn up the volume a little, get a little closer, and you see the rich, threatening complexity of the swirling clouds of music and emotion. The song ends with a slow section about ¾ of the way through the 10 minute piece. An unforgettable echo guitar line plays sparsely over drums- invoking a Cure-like gothic sensibility. Then the band comes back in, playing the same melody and expanding upon it, a lighting bolt magnified to a thousand forks and twists going in all directions. It is the melodies at the end of Sunbather that were stuck in my head, unforgettable, after listening to this record. Unlike Dream House, this song ends on a down note, a question- the rest of the album is to give an answer, and incredibly, you will not be disappointed.

“Vertigo” is the longest song on the record at 14 ½ minutes, a blazing, minor key rocker that is meant to emotionally drag us down as far as we can go after Sunbather. The ending of the song invokes the Beatles “She’s So Heavy” before heading into “Windows” an ambient and spoken word piece featuring a drug deal gone bad- unquestionably a node to The Tenderloin, one of the more drug-laden districts in San Francisco and likely location of the band’s rehearsal studios.

Into “The Pecan Tree”, a song that has an seemingly impossible task: To somehow stick the landing of an extremely powerful and emotional record. We are looking for something coming into this track, but we are not totally sure what it is. We need something, but we can only follow the lights. The song opens up with insane double-kick guitar madness, 2 step rhythm, and then at 1:20 we see a glimpse through the storm, a hole of blue, that we can make it to, if we keep on going. Keep on going. Keep on walking. Smashing, swirling guitars and screams return, our view obstructed. Everything seems to be going at maximum at the end of this first section of the song.

At just after 3 minutes, the sonic assault finally begins to slow down, a march tempo into double kick continuous cymbals, back to march tempo, then, at 4 minutes 19 seconds, only picked echo guitar heralds us into the second section. The star of this section is a piano ostinato combined with the echo guitar, with a second guitar playing playful melodies over it. This is the starry night we can now see that the storm has cleared- this is the most optimistic and life affirming music on the record. A found audio recording of a detuned radio signals the ending of this section.

Eventually, this music fades just before four metal beats brings us to the conclusion- an octave-fingering guitar line and screeching vocal that is in my view one of the most awesome emotional turnarounds that I have ever experienced musically. The remaining outro sums up the entire record- life is big, difficult, unknowable, chaotic. Great albums stick the landing- and this ending does so, with incredible energy, on a record that did not even need it. Sunbather. One of the greatest rock records of all time and one of the very few of those albums to come out now, just about half a century after the 60s.

Post Punk Revivalists: The king of indie rock genres in the 00s, post punk was largely set down at the end of the decade with the major acts of the decade releasing milquetoast or downright laughable fare (are we human, or are we dancer?). However, post punk exploded back onto the scene in 2012 with The Money Store by Death Grips. Some returning groups from the 00s did end up releasing fantastic records, Roma 79 and Daughters being my favorites.

Cardinal Star (2014) Roma 79

I discovered north San Francisco bay area band Roma 79 through their single from the 00s, “Gold”, a sort of heavy, post-punk rocker with a few-thousand views on Youtube. I was very surprised when they reunited and recorded this followup album, which was one of my favorite records of 2014. Featuring a good amount of synth and dreampoppy guitar lines, the main standouts are the vocals and the brilliant drumming, which is a hallmark of great post-punk records of the 00s such as Fever to Tell or Turn On the Bright Lights. The strongest single on the record, “Seventeen”, features a complex drum lines, interlaced with vocals and synths. The song slowly builds up in emotional intensity and drops in layers of vaguely Phil Collins-esque drums and backing vocals, blossoming into a powerful meditative love song. “I’ll wait for it with you.” The final song on the record, is almost an answer to this track, closing the record on a strong point.

You Won’t Get What You Want (2018) Daughters

Daughters is another post-punk band that returned to release a followup nearly 10 years later with 2018’s “You Won’t Get What You Want”. Like all great post punk records, there are a number of characters in this room, and they all can be heard, each having their moments in the spotlight and their moments in the shadows.

One such character is the drums. A crushing combination of live and multitracking effects create a rhythm that provides both the constant heartbeat required by driving rock and roll based music, but also the texture, the complexity, that we seek out in the genre. Lots of tom toms used to keep the beat as opposed to cymbals, practically no hat. Invoking Killing Joke, except when they don’t want to right away, but bring it in later.

Another character is the vocals. Spoken word/sing song type delivery, where the mood and the words and more important than the melody. Lyrics invoke isolation, depression, contraction, abandonment, decline. It would almost be enough with just that, these drums and vocals- but this will also be added by another character, the music. The music seems to be generated mostly by guitar and bass, but there are clearly some synthesizer elements as well, used sparingly and to great effect. I can’t really describe the guitar tone, I would say, it shimmers, but not in an enlightening way. It’s like flashes in the dark, disorienting more than illuminating. The sound is like wood coming off a circular saw. It’s definitely this guitar sound that draws people into this record. All elements are moody, dark, aggressive, but it’s the guitar that really lays down flashes over the blackness.

“Satan in the Wait”, one of the best single tracks on the record, features an off-balance drum beat, carried by toms, and an air-raid siren like guitar sound. A throbbing, distorted bassline in time with the kick drum. At 1:30 in we are given a guitar riff that is beautiful and invoking of a banjo, lending a sensation of urban, southern gothic emotions. Horror film soundtracks come to mind, a combination of unsettling ambience and clear, unforgettable melodies. “Their Bodies are open” the chorus goes, making me think of world-ending events, a transformational death as seen in Arthur C. Clarkes Childhood’s End.

Another of my favorite tracks, “Daughter”, begins with a “bela legosi is dead” kick and snare rim drum beat, possibly electronic, along with a shimmery, surf-rock toned guitar riff. As the song proceeds, more elements are dropped in, and the drums are of particular note here, at 1:23 or so, they drop into a complex beat involving toms, cymbals, and snare. At 2:05 they drop in a clear guitar riff on top of raw noise, building to a climax with the vocal “There’s a war!” At this point, the noise drops out, just a clear guitar riff reminiscent of “Satan in the Wait”, drums coming in at 3:15 or so are particularly impactful.

The final track, “Guest House”, opens on a nearly unbearable sonic assault, the lyrics invoking somebody trapped outside of a bomb shelter during an apocalypse. Once again the gap between unbearable noise and beautiful melody is bridged, as the final dissonant chords give way to deep, harmonic, peaceful orchestra swells.

Post Punk Album of the Decade:

The Money Store (2012) Death Grips

The first time somebody played “Get Got” for me, it was during a really chillwave phase in my music taste and I was completely lost, and didn’t really understand what people saw in Death Grips. I was intrigued enough though, and circled back on some tracks from Exmilitary, their prior record. The more laid back tone and empty space present in tracks such as “Culture Shock” kept me interested enough to give The Money Store another shot a year or so later.

As my interest in chillwave started to fade, and I sought more emotional substance to my music, I returned to the Money Store, and was hooked. Each track is a relentless blast of aggressive drum beats, synthesizer driven melodies, and of course the unmistakable rap vocals of MC Ride.

A strong comparison for me, is between this record, and Joy Division’s second and final record, “Closer”. Relentless beats, but never getting boring, always inventing new rhythms to cast a texture over the musical landscape. Short, fast songs, transitioning from one beat and tempo to the other, never giving you a chance to catch your breath.

The music is highly influenced by hip hop, appearing to be a chopped and cut style, with synthesizers combined with production on the vocals, adding vocals, filter sweeps, reverses, etc- so much energy and craft went into creating what is on its surface very simple music- drums, vocals, and production. Standout track “Hustle Bones” does a fantastic job of expressing what is so great about every song on this record. Everything barely makes sense, but then it all comes together in a singular moment that anybody can nod their head to.

MC Ride’s best is on display in the classic hit, “I’ve Seen Footage”. In his relentless, attacking rap style, he tells us the story of watching gore or wtf videos from reddit or 4chan (or Stile Project if you’re really old like me)- describing what he’s seen, and then underscoring that with the chorus, “I stay noided”- the character Ride creates is deeply anxious and paranoid, while at the same time being insatiable in the quest for knowing more, something I believe is nearly universal to the experience of the internet-informed human, a phenomenon that would later in the decade lead to diseases thought dead brought back by anti-vax movements, and the election of conspiracy theorist and popularizer Donald Trump as president of the united states.

And that’s the formula to each track on Money Store- working around something more or less literal, Ride’s poetry brings us into the dark state the world was only beginning to enter at the start of the decade.

Closing track “Hacker” opens with a recording of Ride, yelling, presumably at a concert “No ins and outs!!! You come out, your shit is GONE”, then into a 4-on the floor dance beat to end the record on an absolute banger. The music, carried by the beat and Ride’s systematic delivery, is left to its own devices, with glitchy, cut-off synth arpeggios, everything getting out of the way of the beat. “Having conversations with your car alarm”, “you speak with us in certain circles, you will be dethroned or detained”, and “Gaga can’t handle this shit” are some of the lyrical gems that Ride has saved for last here, closing out a post punk record that stands alongside Closer or Turn on the Bright Lights as one of the best of all time.

#music postpunk shoegaze retrowave vaporwave ambient darkambient dreampop nothingmusic whirr deafheaven astronoid deathgrips

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continuo-docs · 5 years ago

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February 2020 reviews

Rölling Stëins – Rölled Göld (2020) https://tribetapes.bandcamp.com/album/r-lled-g-ld Short, exquisite 18mn album of sound collages, spoken word, synthesizer and found samples. Sound sources include audio detritus from films, documentaries, interviews, TV features, and other YouTube or Freesound channels. The equivalent of found footage in music, the project is not so much an ironical commentary on the mass media (like similar project The Tape Beatles was in the 1990s, or VaaticanRs164mp's Dreams In The Absence Of Oxygen in 2011), but rather to champion a free rein, nonsensical collage strategy within the limits of 2 to 4 sounds per track. The album may be short, but Rölling Stëins nonetheless take the time to deliver a proper conclusion (track #8 The Wörd) where one "member of the band" lists all three musicians who performed. Though I love the idea of a spoken conclusion, it doesn't seem 3 guys are needed to cut and paste sounds, and I wouldn't be surprised if everything was actually lifted from the internet by one US undergraduate. The puerile obsession with diacritical accents, especially the diaeresis, is part of the fun, I süppöse. Excellent cut+paste job, anyway.

Will Guthrie – Nist Nah (2020) https://willguthrie.bandcamp.com/album/nist-nah I had some expectations regarding this album considering the Indonesian gamelan instruments used throughout. Granted, the sounds produced by Guthrie with the bronze and mallet instruments are gorgeous, but the compositions are disappointing and unadventurous to these ears. Indeed, Nist Nah largely eschews in-depth microtonal exploration in favor of endless repetition of simple patterns, though without recourse to counterpoint or parallel development, as in Steve Reich, say. I feel Guthrie didn't really engage with the specific intonation and rhythmic complexities of gamelan. As it stands, this album misses on something great. On a side note, NY trio Asa Tone similarly fails to engage with the idiosyncracies of gamelan in their oversimplified Temporary Music album of February 2020.

Patrizia Oliva – Celante (2020) https://www.setoladimaiale.net/catalogue/view/SM3990 A collection of lullabies for voice, synth and loop pedal developped, I suppose, during Patrizia's various live performances of recent years, or at least conceived for a live set up and ease of travel. This is quite a departure from previous endeavours dominated by synth textures and dream-like, Surrealist mixing strategies –cf. Numen, life of Elitra Lipozi, 2016. Typically in Celante, a slow rhythm is installed –made of voice+synth loops combined– over which Patrizia intones a mysterious chanting with her warm, close-miked voice singing mostly in English. I was literally under the spell of this voice's soft texture and timid yet exquisite vibrato – not to mention Italian accent. We are in the domain of high poetry here, and the timeless vocabulary of the lyrics tend to avoid any reference to our contemporary, prosaic era. Musically, I would have enjoyed one or two more uptempo tracks, some joyous dance-like song to contrast with the rest. As it is, the album is more introspective than life-celebratory, but this is an enchanting album, anyway.

Savvas Metaxas – Transmitter (2020) https://otomatikmuziek.bandcamp.com/album/transmitter Brilliant amalgamation of musique concrète sounds, radio, synthesizer and spoken word, with great interplay between well structured sound elements. Metaxas avoids piling up thick layers of sounds, taking great care instead to let the music breathe, evolve at its own pace, with a life of its own. The sounds collide with each other in quasi-Surrealist collages and chance encounters, to create a music which is full of surprises and inscrutable apparitions – not to mention a pinch of psychoacoustics along the way. In this strange world, the music itself sounds like a foreign language, while the Greek spoken word seems vaguely familiar. Transmitter is an ambiguous album, a hall of mirrors where sounds are trapped, endlessly reflected in Metaxas' hypnagogic visions.

Manuel Pessoa de Lima – Realejo (2020) https://blacktruffle.bandcamp.com/album/realejo Brilliant collage music by Brazilian composer Manuel Pessôa de Lima (b1981) currently living in Berlin. His debut LP Realejo explores the psychoacoustic effects of widely diverging sound sources channeled through unusual composing strategies. Side 1 explores homophonies between a Stuttgart church organ played with organ stops half-way open, on the one hand, and whistles of a night security guard in the streets of São Paulo, on the other hand. Short sound excerpts of each are interspersed so as to compare, contrast and counterpoint each other, in a kind of radical cultural clash. These 2 sound sources are complemented with a variety of other found sounds, like child babble, street recordings and scraps of digital detritus, the ensemble forming a kind of mental map of an itinerant composer trying to make sense of the multiplicity of sounds in his head. Side 2 features the same sound sources plus English lessons for Portuguese speakers undertaken by the composer, as well as more pop songs, TV excerpts, folk festival, etc. Points of comparison for this kind of music would send us back to 1980s Sound Art – think Arsenije Jovanovic, Roger Doyle or Alber Mayer.

[L.F.]

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jobtypeblog · 5 years ago

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As a label we have made efforts to properly engage in marketing bureaucracy and online visibility tactics that are required if you wish to engage certain audiences with your brand (especially younger internet-integrated generations). However, for creative satisfaction, and as experimental speculation with these micro-capitalist tendencies, as a transmitter of audio/visual media, we confront the orthodox of music marketing and media consumption by subverting these conventions in through poster design and music branding. We have continuously worked very closely with Gabriel Thomas, a visual graphics designer and 3D animator who has been instrumental in developing the accompanying visual language to our sound work. With 3D clay simulation software, we have designed typography and graphics that presents our collective warped vision of futurism and accelerated rave culture. We take inspiration from the radical science fictional and virtual visual styles of techno EDM music that has evolved through the 20th and 21st centuries. Below are some scans from a book titled Techno Style: The Album Cover Art, put together by Martin Pesch in 2003:

Below this is the artwork for DJ Haus’ Artifical Intelligence EP on Rinse:

Below are various Slump Sounds visual materials, flyer posters and visual branding eperiements:

^The above typographical experiments quite literally embody a visual comment market capitalist consumerist branding, by integrating the words ‘YOU MUST CONSUME’ backwards within the name ‘SLUMP SOUNDS’. To this end, we started plans for a website (shown below), and with Gabriel’s experience in web design assistance, have put together a conceptual mock-up that successfully incorporates the virtual potential of digital software and immersive screen art with DIY cyber-punk imagery. The visual concept is to can be accessed here: https://elated-shirley-a5af24.netlify.com/

These are collaborative efforts that involve a dialogue with Gabriel and direction from me and Al on the visual concepts behind the website, and though i consider this project a successful ongoing collaboration that will form a major part of my sonic practice, and that of the future of Slump Sounds, I am personally relatively unexperienced with design software and coding. Therefore I wanted to explore an alternative avenue of creativity, with the intention of a decidedly lower-fidelity visual language as a possibility for my final graduation exhibition in April. I have been drawn towards physical and more laborious methodologies of visual and sonic art, such as collage, printing, zine-making and sound production using analog hardware, without the need of a laptop. This sensibility can be seen in the virtualisation of non-virtual things such as graffiti or a marsh.

The search for meaningful and creatively satisfying sound work has led me to the world of analog art and audio programming with physical machines and tactile buttons and nobs. Admittedly, I’ve been very slow to embrace the potential of analog gear for a long time. I believe this has something to do with a sense of not believing myself to be as scientifically inclined as I felt was needed, or feeling the need to learn more about the engineering and mathematics of synthesis or sequencing. In hindsight, this is an unproductive outlook, especially considering the lineage of radical electronic artworks that were born from mistakes or glitches in systems of sound creation and reproduction that characterises a cyberpunk reading of experimental music. This desire intensified through a process of familiarising myself with pre-digital sound gear; what began as the need to hear cassettes and not owning a cassette deck, which forced me to choose one, locate it, buy it, and figure out how to get it to play what I wanted to hear, which then turned into vinyl and a mixer, and then cheap and simple drum machines. It still remains a part of my practice that I believe requires much more actual play and practice time... Still I contemplate the elusive nature of analog signal processing as when I first played a Casio electric keyboard at a young age. It is important to point out, however, that this does not thus lend me a masterful understanding of digital media processing either, only an ability to abuse to it to my own indulgent ends. Any effort to demystify this practice is a step in a right direction. Since my introduction to the keyboard, I can say for certain that my interest in electronic sound production and the history over human-machine interaction that defines parts contemporary society and techno-futurism has become a creative obsession. To live and work with meaningful creative disposition within the modernity of media noise and cultural saturation, and having been introduced to the infinite-possibility blank canvases of digital audio work stations at an early age, where my lateral creative mind quickly fostered an addiction to the stress of sonic novelty, erratic compositions that quickly deconstructed or changed an idea or process without allowing time for deep listening or trance-inducing sonic immersion, it has become impertinent for me to seek more visceral, authentic and tactile methodologies. Efforts to correct this habit of laptop art-making are a defining feature of my current personal interests, and my efforts to engage in a more authentically rooted and personal relationship to my sonic practice, extending beyond music and sound production into physical and visual art practices that steer clear from the transience of digital media online allow me to distance myself when I want to from digital work. My peers and I working within Slump Sounds are slowly making progress with collaborative analogue hardware production systems and studio building. Money and time are major factors in this process, though, as Simon Reynolds explains in his lecture on DIY, in some ways the romanticism of investing resources into more meaningful outcomes more appropriately reflects ‘a convergence of energies and passions‘. On the rare occasion I can return to Leeds during term time for longer than a day, I take the oppurtunity to connect with the label crew to work on the upcoming releases and discuss label business. Al owns a Roland SP808, an Arturia Microbrute and some decent speakers. I brought along my Korg Volca Beats, a reverb pedal and a folder of samples and noises from my own work and sampled from floppy disks and youtube videos. The attached Soundcloud file at the beginning of this post contains the resulting noises we made over about an hour of twiddling and listening. To me the sounds are an evocation of our collective interelations with Grime, Electro and DIY electronics. At the time we discussed as much as we could about the potential of performing with such a setup, and how possible it would be to get a project like that underway, with a focus on the ‘total package’ concept of physical releases, sleeve inserts, flyer promotion etc. that was conceptually a step back from the hyper aesthetics and digital marketting of Slump Sounds. We shared our fascinations with symbolism and aesthetic reflections of experimental arts cultures and avant-garde modes of living, carried through subversive strategies of music branding with the politics of contemporary DIY culture and cyberpunk. In an age characterised by rampant commercialism and media saturation, to what end can alternative practices provide meaning or transcendence from societal norms? Our decision was to begin developing a more DIY post-punk inspired subgroup uber the banner of Slump Sounds, where we could experiment with tactile art-making and more ambitiously conceptual projects not necessarily intended for club systems or commercial profit - enter, LosBundazGanks.

During this session, I talked with Al about my visual investigations into truth, hyperreality and simulation for my Major Research Project, and we decided to begin working on and combining the sounds we were producing with the visuals I have been collecting and researching. Of the 300 hundred or so images that we curated, all of them relate in some form to the idea of simulation and reproduction. The examples below consist of digital cuttings from an online version of the Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office: Trademarks, which were selected on the conditions of their visual or conceptual affiliation with the idea of simulation, truth or audio/visual fiction. My intrigue in the catalogue, which gives a written description of each logo, was in the symbiotic relationship between the written definitions and meanings of the symbols, which in turn represented aspects of market capitalism and commodification. These first drafts were then processed through effects on an old version of Microsoft Word. The ‘edges’ function can, with experimentation, produce a digitally rendered appearance of stamping or screenprinting, much like the DIY Zine making methods of hardcore music and art communities:

After this, we highlights the inherent entanglements of audsio/visual simulation and truth by juxtaposing these images with other found visual materials. The intention was to build moodboard for reference in the future when we will have the time and resources to develop the idea of a Los Bundaz Ganks physical release or performance.

This process has completely shaped my outlook for future projects, and I have decided to introduce a significant portion of this research into the ideas for the graduate exhibition in April. For an effective audio installation or performance, I consider it important to side-step the context of a gallery situation, which too often in my experience has provided little to no communication in some form other than the actual pieces/sculptures/sounds of the conceptual analogies or research methods that brought the artist to design/build/draw attention to in the first place.

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vapormaison · 5 years ago

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2019 Best Press 3/4: カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title by TANUKI

While for many vaporwave vinyl is doubtless equal parts collector’s item and audio source, I don’t want to lose sight of the goal of this blog here: developing a canon of the genre for high fidelity enjoyment. That said, when I come across something remarkable or noteworthy about a particular piece of wax, even if it is not a “purely audiophile” object, I want to make mention of it.

And TANUKI’s カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title wax release is not only noteworthy, but contends for hi-fi consideration despite it’s status as a picture disc.

But let’s back up slightly.

Going back to the previous thesis on why we buy records, sometimes you just want to own a vinyl just because. Just because you’re a collector trying to compile a discography on wax — or, better yet, just because you truly love the album art. For me, カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title (Double EP) was undoubtedly all of the three “just be-causes”.

A while back, I noticed that the LP was going into its 3rd press, and decided to snap up a copy because I like Tanuki, I like Lum, and because of those other just becauses. Unfortunately the only format available was not the pink vinyl, but the picture disc. As I’m sure is well-known (because audiophiles are very loud about things they dislike), picture-discs are a big no-no in the audiophile community. This is because while a beautiful objet d’art, a serious listening session of a picture disc release will usually produce greater amounts of surface noise than any other type of vinyl. You can, of course, with the right system, neutralize and mitigate this process slightly, but true-blue hi-fi heads pursuing that elusive muse of “pure sound” would never give a picture disc a second look.

I’m not one of those people.

Tangentially, I’ve heard whispers of ghosts of rumors from when I was living in Shenzen, China — that various record suppliers (small batch Makers) are working out manufacturing and material processes that minimize these issues on pic discs to create appealing records that cover all the bases: hi-fi suitability, collector oriented visual esoterica, and price. I should also admit I have no idea where those companies are in terms of R&D and/or producing these. I end up catching a lot of very fast talk from extremely motivated enthusiasts, but Chinese is still as elusive a language to me at times as “pure sound” can be. With that in mind, however, it’s logical to surmise that advances in technology will eventually render the differences between picture discs and traditional black wax undistinguishable. So long as the world isn’t destroyed in some cataclysmic climate disaster (very real possibility), or -- as we are watching evolve now: World War 3. My view is that it’d be pointless to dismiss the format out of hand when there are active attempts to innovate it as we speak.

That all said, I know what to expect when a contemporary, big-label picture disc plays. During my college days, I used to spin wax at the university radio station. One of the previous catalog managers had a fetish for this “collectible” format, and was convinced he was doing the station a favor by purchasing all these vinyls, noting a pre-supposed resale value later. I remember throwing these on the well-worn Technics SP-10 we had as our main turntable, and listening to the occasional scratch, frequent popping, and constant surface noise, that for the uninitiated (bless you), sounds like a sustained “cracking” in your Rice Krispies — or for those born in the analog age, CRTV static.

So when I sat down with the Tanuki picture disc, I had this laundry list of preconceptions and prejudices about the format. I thought that I could listen to a moderately scratchy record once or twice, keep it as more a visual boutique item and then eventually include in an article where I bemoan the poor quality of the genre’s releases.

But then, I actually listened.

And it sounded… well, I won’t get ahead of myself. Here’s the full review:

THE MUSIC

BABYBABYの夢 — is doubtless the reason why many of us have bought the EP from a sonic perspective —especially if the band-camp reviews are indicative of trends. I still maintain that this is the Mariya Takeuchi sample/remix work par excellence. Tanuki hits all the essential notes here, a genuine respect and love for the sound-staging of its original source, Yume No Tsuzuki. I still get echoes of the original arrangement in my system, (ever so slightly) with a bright and dance-infused collection of unique sounds — particularly in that delicious, wide mid-range — that flesh out the track into its own sort of masterpiece.

何がGoin' On — the curatorial and conspiratorial side of my brain tells me that Goin’ On will probably go down as one the under-appreciated vintage bangers of this era of future funk. I can envision hipsters two or three decades from now sussing out a neophyte with pretentious questions about this track’s pitch-shifted sample draws from. It has that sort of vibe that you know hits with a certain subset of electronica fans — rich & vibrant, making the tweeters on your system work out in all the best ways — it’s just great.

がんばれ — Tanuki is at his best when he gets playful with brass samples. I firmly believe that the titans in this genre each have their go-to piece in their best arrangement — like Dan Mason’s creative vocal array, or greyL’s manipulation of micro-samples. For Tanuki, it’s whenever her gets a horn — synthesized or otherwise, into his production workflow.

ファンクOFF — continues Tanuki’s magic act, taking another city pop track more iconic for its soulful electric guitar riff and turning it into the most slap-worthy single on this EP. I prefer it when Japanese pop samples are fundamentally re-imagined, although I can see how the perfectionist tweaking of someone like Yung Bae is more appealing for some. Tanuki is undoubtedly one of the innovators of this genre, and there’s no more solid evidence of that talent than this track.

腕の中でDancin’ — if I ended up hosting a sort of mythical vaporwave grammies or something like that, (I’m available, folks!) I would probably go off on a Ricky Gervais style rant on how artists aren’t in touch with “the people” (read: me) because all we really want are more remixes of Meiko Nakahara songs — who given her impact on City Pop should have way more play in this genre than she does. This one, like most of the Meiko mixes I’ve heard, is a banger with an absolute fire bass riff punctuated throughout.

Radiant Memories — this might be my first certified “hot take” in the publication (they’ll be many more, I imagine) — but as far as I’m concerned this is the superior Plastic Love edit. I’ll just leave my thoughts there, so they can soak in with a portion of the fanbase who split my reddit account on an open fire of downvotes for suggesting that other artists than Macross 82-99 (Praise be upon him!) are allowed to touch this song as well. While Macross’s mix is definitely the more up-temo of the two, and that for some is the very essence of the genre, this slightly down-mixed version is both the perfect conclusion for the EP and ideal antithesis.

THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE

Signal to Raise ratio on the following albums:

カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title: ~61.9db (1 db MoE)

Tron Legacy, Daft Punk: 58.4db

Love Trip, Takako Mamiya, Kitty Records Press: 65.8db

(ratings based on averages 5 minutes of sustained play on the testing unit, the machine actually complied this data on its preset, which is another fascinating part about this sort of vintage press-testing tech). The margin of error is because the machine, according to my mentor Dr. Juuso Ottala formerly of Harman International, informs me it was never meant to give accurate readings of picture discs, and to add about a dB of error margin.

One of the benefits of growing up in New England and, subsequently, New York, is that there are no shortage of heritage professional audio brand HQs in operation around a 200 mile radius from Manhattan to Boston. Off the top of my head, there’s Harman/Kardon, Boston Acoustics, Bose, NuMark, Marantz, and Rane headquarters within an hour’s drive from my two hometowns. Early on in my audiophile quest, I got my hands on some cool vintage gear — vinyl lathe testing equipment that has collected dust in both an old Harman technician’s storage unit, and now my parent’s basement. Over the holiday, I recently brought it out to do some surface noise testing on it to get a rough confirmation of what I was explaining in yesterday’s hi-fi guide. The innards of the machine looks eerily like a plinth-less linear tonearm and plate pair attached to a monitor. After making sure I’m not violating some kind of Harman International trade secret, I’ll post it on instagram.

Wanting to also get a firm idea on just how good my ear-test sounded, I grabbed another picture disc vinyl I had received as a gift a few years ago from my brother — the Tron Legacy OST. While I found the film passably enjoyable, my own preconceptions about pic discs, and a general exhaustion with french house — left me with no discernible desire to spin the thing. I hadn’t even broken the seal on the plastic wrap, so it seemed like as good as a blind test as any. I also grabbed what my ears tell me is a “good”, “heavy” press, a 1982 original dead-stock copy of Takako Mamiya’s Love Trip LP pressed by Kitty Records Japan. I’ve played it maybe a half dozen times since I bought it, so it’s as close to “new” 80s audiophile pop record as you can get. The Japanese are infamously anal about low SNR on their vinyl.

And, well, the results speak for themselves. The sweet spot for most black vinyl records is between 60-70db depending on age, weight, and a host of other frankly uncontrollable factors that aren’t worth getting into detail here, as I’d go on forever. The main takeaway here is that Neoncity’s and Tanuki’s record sat at the low end of the audiophile vinyl reference spectrum. Which in itself is a remarkable achievement for a pic disc. It’s worth taking a look at Tron Legacy, which just barely scratches 8db above a cassette tape, and 7db a Japanese vinyl from 1982.

This is all in an effort to say: damn, this is pretty good.

This also somewhat counters the usual “picture discs sound like shit” narrative that’s prevailed pretty consistently in the audiophile community. Tron Legacy? Yeah, that probably sounds like shit if I could bother to suffer through a listen. But whoever Hong-Kong based Neoncity is using actually makes “good” — if such a qualifier needs to be attached — image-pressed records. And that devotion to audio fidelity should be rewarded.

It might be time for me to re-asses picture discs on the whole, and that mind-expanding moment is something I owe to the fine folks at Neoncity.

#bestof2019 #bestpress

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 5 years ago

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Chapter 39: Many Matters Up For Consideration

Content warning for this chapter: some unintentional misgendering of a gender-fluid character occurs. Walt knows Bernie's preference is "if it's unclear which pronoun set I'm currently using, use 'they/them'," but Walt is also out of practice checking if there is a pronoun set Bernie is currently using other than 'they/them', and so refers to Bernie as 'they/them' while the audience knows Bernie is using 'she/her'.

Becoming the Mask

[Tumblr used to have a line break option but for some reason it isn’t here anymore?]

"So, what did Blinky say when he dragged you off earlier?" Toby asked Jim.

The Changeling rolled over in his sleeping bag and propped himself up on one arm, facing the bed.

"He apologized for some stuff he said when he found out what I am, and he told me where troll babies come from. Whelps incubate in Heartstone chunks called 'birthstones' – which I think explains the thing about Gunmar's Birthstone being 'a rotten Heartstone'. It makes a lot more sense now. Like calling someone 'a bad seed' or 'a bad egg'. Birthstones are kind of like fish eggs, except both parents fertilize it externally. And it takes thirty years for one to hatch."

"Wow."

"I know, right? I wonder if some Changelings might've been taken as birthstones instead of whelps. I mean, it's got to be easier to carry a rock than a squirmy baby. I know I'd already hatched by the time I was changed, because I kind of remember it, but that's probably just so we actually know stuff by the time the age pause switches over to our Familiar."

"You remember getting turned into a Changeling?"

"Kind of," said Jim again. "It hurt a lot, especially my hands because I grew an extra finger on each one. And there were other Changelings there, too, and … our Creator."

He said the last part softly. Toby took that to mean Jim didn't want to talk about it. Them. Whatever.

"… Do you remember anything from … before? Like, your first family?"

"No, that's mostly blocked out. I half-remember being warm? And some blurry noises and smells? But I don't know if any of those are real memories or just something I invented. Like, I figure one of my parents must have been blue, but I don't remember that, I just think it because I am. And I've always been really drawn to soft things, so I think one of them might've had fur and I subconsciously remember that? But I don't actually know."

Toby didn't mean to snort, really, but –

"One blue and one with fur? So, Blinky and AAARRRGGHH?"

There was a moment of silence before Jim huffed amusedly. "Well, Blinky did just give me The Talk. But if I were going to claim any troll as my dad, I'd probably say Stricklander."

"Wait, if you guys are both Changelings, doesn't that make you the same age?"

"No, no, he's, like, centuries older than me. Enrique's around my age, though."

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Bernie increased magnification and switched forms. It was a habit of hers. Trolls and humans had evolved in different lighting conditions, so troll eyes could catch a detail that human eyes could not, and vice versa.

Bular's death was tragic, of course, a deep setback to the Order's plans and an agonizing blow to the Underlord (or would be, once someone was brave enough to bear the bad news), but his remains offered a wealth of knowledge. Bernie intended to wring every scrap of information possible from the stones.

The Janus Order had not had troll remains available for study since before most of Bernie's lab equipment had been invented. Changelings who died in troll form tended to explode. Bernie had samples of the dust and was eager to see how Bular's chemical composition compared. She felt like a human paleontologist studying a mostly intact dinosaur fossil after decades working with tiny bone fragments.

First she was running a series of passive tests on the stones. More intrusive testing could wait until she and Otto and Stephan had rebuilt Bular enough that she could take samples from pre-determined areas. There could be any number of factors differentiating between what had been his horn or his stomach or his tail, and the chemical analysis would run more smoothly if she knew what she was testing.

The stones were not responsive to blacklight and showed no response to infrared other than warming up. Bernie hadn't quite dared expose Bular's remains to ultraviolet light yet – it shouldn't do anything, with the tissue already dead, but she didn't want to risk degrading the samples so early on when there was such a finite quantity. She was using infrared and ultraviolet cameras as well as a standard one to record everything.

"So far," said Bernie aloud to the video cameras, "Bular seems to be composed of a sedimentary version of the same mineral that comprises Changeling dust. That suggests we aren't as different from unaltered trolls as previously believed. Possibly the changes are more noticeable in live tissue."

She wished he had been willing to provide tissue samples while still alive. The Son of Gunmar had made it clear in life he was not interested in indulging Changeling curiosity. Decades ago, Bernie developed a formula that should work as a sunblock for trolls, but the Gumm-Gumm prince had taken offence at the request that he, as the one sun-sensitive troll available, consider testing it, and the Changeling scientist had gotten broken ribs and a broken wrist for the 'insult'. After that, Bernie stopped asking for the troll's aid in experiments.

Between comparing Bular's remains to Changeling dust and cross-referencing that with some of the old notes recovered from the Pale Lady's workshops, Bernie might be able to reverse-engineer how Changelings were made. Their numbers were limited with their Lady currently inaccessible, but if new technology could substitute for raw magical power, then their numbers could grow once more.

Bernie would meditate at the gramophone to seek Her Ladyship's approval before actually trying to recraft the formula, of course. Bernie Sturges was a lot of things, but not a blasphemer.

(Bernie thought of herself as 'Bernie' all the time, regardless of how her gender fluctuated, but classically-gendered names like 'Bernard' and 'Bernadette' were a useful verbal shorthand, to sidestep having 'the pronoun conversation' with every casual acquaintance and speed up telling those 'in the know' which pronouns to use at the moment.)

She switched back to human form to write a few more notes. She liked having a written record as well as audio-visual.

"The fact these remains are Bular's, specifically, raises another possible field of comparison," Bernie mused. "A comparison to the Eye of Gunmar may yield vital data, not only on how our eyes work, but on how genetic ties manifest in living stone. It is hypothetically possible some Changelings are related and don't know it."

Maybe siblings, maybe cousins, maybe an aunt or uncle and their niece or nephew.

"Will investigate the vault and determine which security measures I need to override to access the sample."

Bernie had been living on the base since Stricklander had sent the Order into deep cover. She was between human identities at the moment, so her disappearance would draw less notice in the world above than trying to slap a new cover together in a rush. Fortunately, she maintained a small apartment just off the lab, in case of projects which couldn't be left unsupervised.

The base had three underground stories. Bernie's lab was on the middle one, but off to the side so that any explosions could be contained by the emergency blast doors and nothing was directly above or below.

The vault was down a level and on the opposite side of the base. It had been built to store the gramophone, before it was determined that the magical wards interfered with the signal, pieces of Killahead Bridge, before construction had begun, and two other artifacts which were considered too vital to move about without direct instructions from the Order's head or the Pale Lady herself.

Bernie swapped her safety glasses for a mask and brought a few of her smaller scanners along. If she could get into the vault, she could run some tests on Gunmar's Eye before reporting the security system's weaknesses.

To her surprise and concern, the Order's head was already standing at the vault's door.

"Stricklander," she greeted. Bernie never bothered with introducing herself to him, because –

"Dr Sturges."

– Stricklander always called her that. She had a few doctorates by now, from decades infiltrating human universities to keep up with their scientific progress. 'Bernadette Sturges' was not so accredited as 'Bernard Sturges' yet, but the degrees under Bernadette's name were more recent.

"I'd like to access the Eye of Gunmar," she said, because it wasn't like Bernie had any other excuse for being on this level and Stricklander usually supported her studies.

"… Why?"

"I've been examining Bular's remains," which he'd know if he'd read the reports she'd been leaving on his desk, but he might not have been to his on-base office recently, "and I wanted to do a comparative study. Since we know they're related."

Stricklander frowned.

"You have fortunate timing, Dr Sturges," he said after a moment. "The Eye of Gunmar is about to be moved to a classified location." More classified than a secret underground bunker? Well, if Stricklander was the only one to know where the new location was, that would be more secure than a vault most Changelings knew about. "I see no problem with you studying it under supervision for the next few hours."

Opening the vault was a complicated affair. There was a Changeling lock, of course, to keep out any other trolls or humans who somehow got into the base, and then a combination lock, and then some other form of combination lock involving floating, glowing runes that Stricklander rearranged into what was probably a password – Bernie could read trollish but it still looked like gibberish – and then some kind of scanner for which Stricklander changed to his troll form.

Inside was dark and surprisingly spacious. Perhaps not surprising, considering it had held about half of the Bridge at one time. There was a shelf along the back wall, which held two boxes, kept a respectful distance apart from one another. Each box sent a faint light up the wall and to the ceiling.

Bernie was mildly surprised that both boxes were open. One would think they'd be kept sealed so that, on the off-chance a thief made it this far, they might still grab the wrong artifact.

One, the Eye of Gunmar, glowed blue. The other, the Inferna Copula, glowed golden.

"I should study the Inferna Copula as well," said Bernie. "Not now, but at some point. Legend says it's a metamorphosed piece of Angor Rot's own flesh, which he sacrificed as an offering to our Lady when he swore himself to her service."

Stricklander took the box with the eye. Bernie stayed near the vault door, ready to bolt for it if her presence set off another security system.

"He could avenge Bular," Bernie realized. "He's slain Trollhunters before, in our Lady's name."

Stricklander let out a sharp but quiet gasp. He handed Bernie the eye box and took the ring box.

"I think I had best keep this close for now."

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Walter was nearly positive that Dr Sturges was working with Otto. Sturges hadn't been told the full story of Bular's demise, or they wouldn't be so open with Walt about their current project.

As Sturges examined Gunmar's Eye, talking to the various recording devices set up in the lab, Walt examined Sturges' notes. Sturges had copies of papers recovered from several of the Pale Lady's workshops, which the Order's linguistics and cryptography team had done their best to decipher and translate. Sturges was no linguist, and only a hobbyist cryptographer, but insisted on having copies of the original pages as well as translations.

The papers Walt was studying had to do with Angor Rot.

Angor had turned to the Pale Lady midway through Gunmar's first war for the surface. A few history records that Jim had recovered from Blinkous' library claimed Angor had been a hero, once, defending trollkind from the Gumm-Gumms. Perhaps that was what had driven Angor to Morgana, seeking the same power that her rival Merlin had bestowed on the Trollhunters?

If so, it seemed she had gifted him with even greater power, because at least four Trollhunters were confirmed to have died at Angor's hands, and half a dozen more were rumoured.

Angor was controlled by the Inferna Copula, the ring which contained his soul. Wielding it was hazardous; every past bearer had died gruesomely, either as or shortly after it was taken from them. The assassin himself had vanished centuries ago, supposedly having been imprisoned by Merlin, but the Janus Order had acquired his ring.

Walt could not let Otto get it. If there was a chance Angor Rot was still alive, Otto could set him against Jim, and Walter himself.

But, looking at Morgana's notes about her Champion, and the weak and sentimental heart which brought him to her … If Angor were alive, and Walt were to get to him first …

It would be a foolish quest; more foolish than the quest for the Triumbric Stones, considering that those, at least, were known to still exist.

Walt couldn't just pack up and leave Arcadia. It wouldn't look entirely suspicious to his fellow Changelings, for him to up and leave the town guarded by a Trollhunter strong enough to slay Bular, but it could incite panic and mass exodus.

And who could he leave in charge in his stead, who wouldn't be killed or overthrown but also wouldn't overthrow him? Nomura, maybe. 'A last chance to redeem yourself after the Bridge was stolen from your post.' But could he trust her that much? Could he afford to put her in the position of becoming the scapegoat if anything went wrong with the Order in his absence?

He couldn't send someone else to retrieve Angor Rot. That only raised the same questions, of who wouldn't either be killed or keep the assassin in their own service.

And could Walt really afford to take away the token protection his presence gave Jim against Otto, even for a short while in exchange for a chance to acquire a more powerful ally?

He put down the papers and examined the ring. Gold, chunky but spiky; its bulk reminded him of some Borgia rings he'd seen or worn in the past, with their hidden compartments for poison. He couldn't find any mechanisms. More out of curiosity than anything, Walt tried it on.

Vines and moss and the crushing weight of stone. Sunlight filtered through gaps in an old roof, not quite able to reach him and burn him. Arms and legs spread uncomfortably and held firm, even after centuries. Tired. Hungry. Thirsty.

Walt pulled the ring off quickly. He didn't have a perfect internal compass, but the connection between the ring and the troll had created one, if only for a moment.

Angor Rot was alive, and Walter Strickler knew exactly where to find him.

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In the episode It's About Time, Jim gets a vision of where Angor is when he puts on the Inferna Copula. This 'inner compass' idea explains how he found him so quickly when Arcadia has a lot of sewer tunnels and there was no reason Jim should recognize that particular spot, and in this fic I'm using it to explain how Strickler finds Angor without Otto also along on the journey.

I'm ignoring the spinoff novel which claimed Angor made his deal with Morgana after the Battle of Killahead, because I don't think that makes nearly as much sense as it being a pre-Killahead thing. Angor specifically mentions that Gunmar's war ravaged his village. It could be interpreted as Angor wanting to protect his vulnerable displaced/rebuilding people after the war is over, but I think his phrasing makes the most sense if Gunmar is still free to threaten them further.

I am keeping, at least as a rumour, the spinoff novel’s claim that Merlin was the one to chain Angor up and trap him under a pile of rubble in an isolated building.

#Becoming The Mask chapters #Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #fanfiction #Changeling Jim #Tobias Domzalski #Original Character #Changelings #Walter Strickler #also #Angor Rot #There are many names for Pale Lady Morgana Argante Baba Yaga Mistress Of Shadows The Eldritch Queen #TOA novels and comics #My Fanfiction #Monday is fanfic day!

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