Back by popular demand, I’ve decided to make Until the Sun Rises publicly available again. I wrote and recorded this song in 2006 as a birthday present for my girlfriend at the time, an awesome gal and an amazing artist.
This song was a first in a lot of ways for me. I’ve been singing since I was little but this was one of my first attempts at singing on a track, as well as writing lyrics. Listening to this now, I’d love to redo this song with MUCH better vocals (which I’ll probably do at some point), maybe change up the lyrics a little bit as well. I also utilized some techniques I had never tried before, like adding vinyl sounds underneath to give it a little bit of an old feeling … in hindsight I’m not sure how successful it was at making it sound “old”, but I do like the vinyl sounds regardless (haha).
There are a few influences for this track, including Radiohead (the vibe, harmonic decisions), Tortoise (tremolo guitar lines), and Wintersleep/Kary (some of the vocal chanting towards the end). I might have been listening to The Postal Service at the time too because I think it does feel a little reminiscent of a darker equivalent of that group at times. There’s also a hint of chip towards the back end, though this stays mostly outside of that realm.
I did this track in Garageband my first semester at music school, and recorded the vocals in my dorm room.
MP3: Until the Sun Rises
Back in 2007 I was hired by UIEvolution (they’ve been gracious enough to allow me to share this material) to write 16 one minute loops of general MIDI music for a puzzle game. Over a span of about three months I wrote these tracks, which generally speaking have very little specific direction, except a request to make them somewhat dancy.
This track I’m sharing is the eighth track, and probably one of the better ones of the bunch. Given the requirements I took the opportunity to use my favorite tool at the time Tabledit (MIDI Guitar Tablature Editor Software) to create all of the music. This was one of the first game-related projects I ever took on, and the experience helped at least somewhat in getting me interested in writing for games in general. Since then I haven’t really looked back. Check out my portfolio if you’re interested in what I do when I’m not writing for the sake of writing.
MP3: Wasabi: Track 08
Posted in Vault | Also tagged game, non-chiptune, soundtrack |
I thought it might be cool to share with you guys from a different perspective. I try to approach my music from a lot of different directions when it comes to coming up with new ideas … sometimes I write on the piano, sometimes in Logic with a synth … other times I will write straight from my head to a sequencer. In the past I’ve used guitar to come up with a lot of ideas, and while it’s not really my go-to anymore (maybe it should be!), I do pick it up on a regular basis.
This recording isn’t very old at all — July 27th, 2009. The truth is I’ve been wanting to do some music with singing for quite a while. I’ve done a little bit — there was a track on my myspace a few years ago called Until the Sun Rises (I’ll talk about that one another time), and there’s Lullatwerp from the Disastertron record Cereal Code (does that even count?!) but since then I haven’t released anything with vocals. I’ve been slowly and quietly putting together some lyrics, and hopefully I’ll have something to show for it soon.
About this recording — Some time last year I started using my voice as a means of improvising new ideas with guitar, with varied amounts of success. This is one example of that. I’ll generally jam on an idea for a couple of minutes, and try different things, before editing things down afterwards (notice the clicks from rough editing and the pitch-shifted section at the end) so that I can return to the idea and not have to fumble through lots of excess fat. I read or heard somewhere once that the Beatles wrote “Yesterday” with fake lyrics about scrambled eggs and other random things. It’s a very useful tool. When I try it I usually wind up talking about the sun. I like the sun.
MP3: Jelly Sandwich
Posted in Vault | Also tagged non-chiptune, process, vocals |
I have an Aunt in New York who has a piano. When I visit I always make time for the ivories — playing piano is one of my favorite things to do. This somewhat well defined, somewhat unfinished piece started with some simple piano voicing and evolved into a couple of piano overdubs … some of the overdubs could have been done easily by a good player I’m sure, but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of hand independency.
It was April of 2007 and I have a vague recollection of it raining and being at night. I got a hold of some storm sounds to hammer that home, and whipped up a Garageband session (my tool of choice at the time) complete with Apple Loop drums which I’ve never had an opportunity to replace. This is a very straightforward tune, but for me there’s always been something about this kind of downward motion that I find appealing. There’s a piano ostinato that is established and eventually mimicked by a synth, and that’s really about it!
MP3: April
Posted in Vault | Also tagged non-chiptune |
Marathon is a track I wrote in 2007 but was never really sure it was finished. It sat on my hard drive for about a year and then I made a few cosmetic changes and gave it to Pterodactyl Squad for a compilation. The whole introduction and pad sound was heavily influenced by late 70s/ early 80s horror soundtracks such as “Solamente Nero” (1978), composed by Stelvio Cipriani and performed by the Italian group Goblin. I wrote and produced the track in Reason, which I’ve always found lends itself well to writing mechanical sounding music. Reason also has some nice effects that you can automate to do cool things, like the bitcrushed swell-out around 03:30.
There’s also some glitchy drum elements, though those are less prominent. Around this time I was exploring Squarepusher a bit, so I could probably make a connection between the two. The melody was originally vibraphone, but I switched it out with a pulse lead which I think works out better in this case.
MP3: Marathon
Posted in Vault | Tagged Vault |
