the unraveling

a Treatise on Discovered Sounds, 2011

I don’t usually do this, but if you are reading this it’s safe to assume you are a music fan, so I’m going to share my own “best” list for music released in 2011. I couldn’t round off to ten, which in any case would be discriminatory to my non-human readers, in that it reflects the anthropomorphism of our digits, so 14 it is. And in “stream of consciousness” order too. Hopefully you can find something in here to inspire you. Cheers.

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

Ulver - Wars of the Roses

Austra - Feel it Break

Radiohead - the King of Limbs

Esben and the Witch - Violet Cries

the Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - From the Stairwell

Chelsea Wolfe - Apokalypsis

St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

Toro Y Moi - Underneath the Pine

British Sea Power - Valhalla Dancehall

Junius - Reports from the Threshold of Death

M83 - Hurry Up We’re Dreaming

Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972

Haujobb - New World March

The unraveling

So, it’s getting bad out there. The occupy movement has camped themselves into near-irrelevancy while the plutocratic oligarchs continue ransacking the public good, lining their pockets and putting a down payment on a coffin for democracy. Obama has proven himself to be completely soul-less and self-serving, dialing in platitudes for maximum effect, kicking back with his feet up on his desk while every hedge fund rapist and corporate courtesan on both sides of the political spectrum grab what they can of the last great gasp of our American experiment for themselves. So Congress has suddenly become “Agnostic”… at least when it comes to the question of whether or not US Citizens should be imprisoned without trial. Good one guys! It’s all a big joke. Watching the election machine start up for next year has been nauseating. Even the candidates seem to be playing it like the farce they know it is. The connection between the people and their representatives has become so corrupted that nothing that any sane person on the outside of the political circle would deem necessary ever gets done. The 1% isn’t afraid of the government because they are the fucking government! When is the last time the military budget was seriously questioned or reduced for fiscal necessity? It’s just a big fucking joke and most people are too busy watching TV and cramming cheetos into their face to do anything about it. And the best thing we can come up with is camping in a park in the freezing cold holding a sign? It’s laughable. We need better. We need more. We need ad-hoc flash mobs popping up in inconvenient places, over and over and over. We need non-violent guerrilla warfare. Yes, the system will overcorrect… they will unleash the full power of the machine to crush us. But it is a lot harder to crush a movement that can form and re-form at will, with multiple parts, in multiple places at once… as opposed to simply sending the riot police to a park.

Ouroboros 3.14159265 Available now!

The new Ouroboros 3.14159265 record is now available! Free download or limited edition CD package. Head over to our new bandcamp page for the details.

Oh, how the world burns!

While London burns and stock brokers ponder bridge diving technique, I admit that there is a certain “rightness” to the chaos seeming to erupt across the world. It just seems natural - more natural, than say, fraudulent bubble-producing bankers getting billions of dollars for their golden parachutes while the middle class is getting smaller and smaller and hard-working law-abiding families everywhere are getting kicked out of their homes. I can’t believe there aren’t riots springing up all over the US, as the terminally disenfranchised wake up to the realization that the engines of prosperity don’t work for them… that their government is playing the equivalent of a reality show where the drama is mostly fixed around a plot outline and the details of the script are just being filled in to make it seem authentic. It’s just one big gargantuan intellectual fraud masquerading as democracy. I’m not, by the way, encouraging rioting, but it does seem to be a more fitting response to what is actually going on, doesn’t it? And really, don’t you think that the looting of TV sets and ipods pales in comparison to the looting of billions of dollars by corporations and banks whose obscure financial instruments of personal wealth creation were, metaphorically, just underground tunnels dug underneath the vault?

The whole situation was encapsulated clearly in the following post from Laurie Penny’s blog Penny Red:

The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

“Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you.”

The only real surprise is that it isn’t happening everywhere. Then again, maybe it’s just a matter of time.

Ouroboros 3.14159265 - Track list

I’m still wrapping up the last couple tracks for the record (and busily remixing some of the demos to even everything out), but the track list has solidified to the point where I wanted to share…

 OUROBOROS 3.14159265

INFINITUS

DREAM PARALLELS

RE:VISIONS

TEMPORIS

SOMNIUM

WIRES

THE EYE of LEVITICUS

ISOLAT

EXCESSUM

AND THE GREAT SHALL BE MADE SMALL

The record relies more on space than structure - I don’t feel that I wrote these songs in as much as they formed out of some primordial mass. I wanted to create an atmosphere that was heavy, but also distant, weathered, and dreamlike… like an old gravestone worn down by age, it’s partial fragments and eroded symbols a monument to death and time. It’s going to be perfect for an Autumn release…

Wires

Something happened. A few sounds were generated, shaped; faded sepia-tones, sparse yet insistent. A few words were hastily scribbled. A desert expanse birthed in three short lines. Claustrophobia, a nothingness that devours the edges of thought. A nagging sense that something is no longer there; it’s shadow on the walls.

 WIRES

How to Alienate and Destroy (in 12 easy steps)

… is the title of the forthcoming Assassination Project record. I’m reclaiming my “industrial” roots somewhat… but going for something that feels modern and progressive at the same time. Aggressive and sardonic and full of snarling synthesizers. Here is the first finished track, 256kbps m4A for your listening pleasure. Lots of little headphone bits so wear the cans if you got ‘em.

A SLOWLY TIGHTENING SPIRAL

for a second

the Eye of Leviticus

Four years ago on Easter Sunday I sat in an outdoor cafe on a hill near Malá Strana in Prague listening to the church bells ring all around the city. The sound from that vantage was incredible… inspiring, powerful… it invoked feelings of the profound. I captured what I could using the built in mic on my cheap video camera, and what little there is of this recording that was not obscured by noise in the cafe has found it’s place in the latest Ouroboros 3.14159265 track.

This sound shares the aural landscape with Lili’s drumming debut (in the intro), and my first attempt to create a slightly unusual stringed instrument sound by using (or more likely abusing) a ukulele. So while it’s a bit of a mishmash of different things it somehow works, perhaps apropos to it’s namesake. Happy Easter.

the Eye of Leviticus

rejoice
in these, our flaws
for we should all proceed
through the eye of a needle
sooner than
walk unburdened beneath
the accusatory gaze
of this dead
and apoplectic age

senescent strictures
writ as scripture
for the garbage heap

amen

in honor of All Hallows Eve… some creepy new music…

I’m excited to announce the first “completed” track from my Ouroboros 3.14159265 project. It seemed appropriate to release this one on Halloween since it has a slightly creepy feel and prominently features a dual theremin solo (yes, that is me playing, please forgive my amateur theremin skills). Best enjoyed in headphones by candlelight. Also goes well with a fine ale. For those celebrating today and those relaxing after the festivities of the night before… I give you DREAM PARALLELS.

temporis

In honor of pi (Ï€) day I thought I would post the latest mix of one of my new tracks (from the forthcoming Ouroboros 3.14159265 ep). Best enjoyed at high volume with a good set of headphones.

TEMPORIS