Well, here it is. This really isn’t a new album exactly. It’s more of a collection of things, doodles, and some seriously intentional music that I had made all by my little self. Most of this stuff is posted on this blog, but NOT ALL OF IT. This album compiles everything I’ve done on my own that I found worthy to put together in an album offering. The interesting part is some of this stuff dates back to 2013. I have acquired a lot more equipment, moved a lot, learned a lot, repaired a lot, failed a lot, but at least had fun along the way (with frequent backups).  I just bought another piece of equipment that may change everything a bit (Novation Launchpad) and I wanted to compile everything I did personally up to this point and put it in an album.

Credits? Well, ALL ME!!!! I PLAYED AND DID EVERYTHING HERE.

Song List and commentary (Also known as “liner notes” because I miss the day of vinyl record album sleeves):

1. Charging Ahead, Blindly (1:56)  This was formerly named wowneewow project.  I have no idea why.
2. Red Box Hotty (3:33)  I have always loved this track and it managed to slip off of all the CHOB and Hozpitality albums.  It’s a drum loop from the Kaossilator tortured lovingly through the Mini KP (red box) effects unit.  This is reminiscent of Brian Eno’s Over Fire Island track (in my opinion at least).
3. Blinkin Asteroid (3:48) This was inspired by Brian Eno and Karl Hyde’s song The Satellites.
4. Arpeggiate Your Ass Off 1 (3:30) Behold the power of the MicroKorg Arpeggiator.
5. Rain Keys (2:49) Someone left the Harold Budd record in the oven and it melted.
6. Funkola (4:33) Inspired by a million repeated listens to Kamasi Washington’s, “The Epic” album.
7. Arpeggiate Your Ass Off 2 (4:09) Because one of these was simply not enough for me.  You get to decide which you like better (or not).
8. I’m Keeping This (This One is Mine) (4:14) Selfish little robot voice.
9. Out of Sync (5:25) Rhythm was never my strong suit but I try.
10. The Stinky Finger Boogie (4:59) This was paired with an animated GIF of Donald Trump pointing his finger nearly rhythmically in time.  Inspired by the GIF not by the “man” himself.
11. Out of Time (6:48) Companion piece to Out of Sync.  Pick a winner.
12. Volca Waves (11:40) I feel that this is one of my best stabs at doing something melodic and “mellow”.  It is one of my favorite experiment results.  Love this.
13. The One Measure Masturbatory Jam (3:38) This one barely made the cut.  It is a bunch of instruments piled on one 16 beat measure then subtly (or not) altered throughout its’ repetition.  Patience and a keen ear are required to understand its’ purpose and existence.
14. Bruford Gives Up (0:43) A silly tribute to one of the best drummers in music, Bill Bruford, who was always really great with the tuned percussion.   This sounds like him just flailing about and saying “to hell with it”.  It makes me laugh.
15. Fugue U (10:54) A fugue piled up like a mile high jenga tower.  Collapse eminent.
16. Wooda Womp El Grande (9:27) This title came from the sound of this song.  Part march, part hat dance, part goose step.
17. The Black Keys Thing (12:23) Played on all the black keys because, why not.
18. Jamola Number Three (14:23) Obviously Jamola Number One and Two just weren’t worth it.
19. Those Three Notes (9:26) An experiment built on three notes.
20. Behringer Mixer’s Last Stand (So Long Sucker) (0:16)  This may be the very last recording done on my old Behringer mixer.  At this point it had become so caked with dust, it had to warm up a good 10 minutes after power up.  It became an investment of frustration and canned air.  The hiss and uncontrollable distortion were a disaster at the end.  New Audio Interface now in operation (THANK GOD!).

Here’s the 110 meg zip file of all the tracks and the cover!  Enjoy!

And as always, like Todd Rundgren said, “Yer gonna wanna get out yer headphones, cause they’re really gonna help ya on this one.”

This is a bit I made called “Fugue You”.  Let us now define the “Fugue”.  There are two definitions.  First one musical, the second one psychiatric.

1. In Music. a polyphonic composition based upon one, two, or more themes, which are enunciated by several voices or parts in turn,subjected to contrapuntal treatment, and gradually built up into a complex form having somewhat distinct divisions or stages of development and a marked climax at the end.
2. In Psychiatry. a period during which a person suffers from loss of memory, often begins a new life, and, upon recovery, remembers nothing of the amnesic phase.

Either of these definitions seem appropriate.  I thought the image above suited the musical concept the best.  At least this is how I felt while performing it, with middle fingers everywhere.

There is a four note simple melody that was banging around my head from The New Deal song Navidrome.  I reproduced this as best I could on the Volca Bass (at the very beginning), then just built crap on top of it.  The final turned out to be 10 and some minutes (originally 12… I deleted some off the top before I was done).

Geek Notes (All are Korg products unless noted):

• Volca Bass does the 4 note bass melody at the beginning and throughout.
• Volca Beats carries the beat the whole time.
• Volca Keys is played live then eventually I give up and sequence it.  It provides that Moog Modular mono sound that solo’s over top of the mess and finishes the song.  For those of you scoring at home, Volca Keys has it’s own delay/reverb effect used heavily in this song.
• Kaossilator Pro is (once again) the master clock used for looping MicroKorg sounds (poorly) and provides some studio drums near the end that go out of timing for unexplainable reasons (so I fade them under the mess).  I apologize for the stumbling around with the MicroKorg arpeggio near the front of the song.  I need more arms and hands.  This was looped (safely thankfully) into the Kaossilator then NEVER TOUCHED AGAIN.  This, unfortunately, is how I work with the Kaossilator looper in my rig at this point.  I need to figure this crap out a little better.
• MicroKorg provides some soloing and (as usual) bitchin’ arpeggios.  There’s also some neat techno metal noise arpeggio  on the MicroKorg that goes kling klang ping pong pang in there that I thought was cool.
• MiniKP (red box) provides reverb (setting 62) on most MicroKorg sounds.
• Tempo is a BPM of 80.

Let’s play the game, “see if you can hear Chad screw up in 10.5 minutes”.

“Did you hear it?”

“I HEARD IT!”

“All right Janet!”