Always

Always, hosted on Box.



A songlike waltz featuring electric guitar, glockenspiel, bass, melodica, toy echo feedback, vocals. Initially recorded back in '07, mixed recently.

Cymbal Tap

Cymbal Tap, hosted on Box.



Features a few cymbals, each used in a feedback loop with a contact mic and a small battery powered amp. Plus feedback from a Realistic Electronic Reverb and ebowed violin drone.

Recorded months ago, finally mixed down in a year-end press to make things count, as it were.

Last I Drove To Value City

Last I Drove To Value City, hosted on Box.



Some cheating here, with whatever software tremelos could be had and a pitched-down doppleganger track or two to bring the warm (if not the low).

Otherwise just garden variety mic feedback/amplification with the cheep karaoke machine, its aliasing echo, some ebowed gitbox lost in hazy recollection. Plus the on-the-fly pitch shift quiver of the Ohio Art DynaMike voice changer.

Regarding the title, more haze within tethered to an actual place name.

Happy Holidaze

Over To Pons

Over To Pons, hosted on Box.



Features Yamaha VSS-30 via a trem/'verbing Twin Reverb and the pervasive karaoke machine. Ebowed to varying degrees of squeeeness is the zitherish Music Maker, an old acoustic and a clunky homebrew zither of sorts cobbled together years ago. The clunky zither of sorts is also plucked, picked.

Foregoing the ritual mention of influences in this garage manifestation.

Previous October

Previous October is an instrumental hosted on Box.



It used the Yamaha VSS-30 with a few different sounds sampled.

June Bug In August

June Bug In August is another instrumental hosted on box.net.



Features more of electric guitar, but much of that is processed thru the venerable Korg X-911 Guitar Synth. Or the guitar is controlling the Korg.

Long Gone Away--video

Homebrew music video of Long Gone Away using old Super-8 footage and some of the Night Wanderer stills.

Whisper Down The Well

Whisper Down The Well, on box.net.



Something akin to Whisky Drinkas, but without the shambling drums & heavier on the ghostly vibe.

Wandered Past

Wandered Past by krseward

The words that come to mind are: "Who can say?"

Beyond that open question, there's the not-so-sympathetic (indeed, plucked) strings of an electric sitar, the thrum pulse of low feedback (our old friend, the cheesy karaoke machine), the squee and swoo of high feedback (ditto the karaoke), and something that's likely my voice as quoted by the ever glamorous Yamaha VSS-30 sampler. Some bits are fooled with via a MadShifta pitch shifter VST of yore but are mostly just as God made them.

With that density of musitech geekery who can hold back?

Comet to Raynor

Place names and puns often mislead. But this is short long time of suspended animation. Something like a swampglacier, as if that were a word or a sensible notion to have.

Comet to Raynor by krseward

Yet again with the almost zither, this time ebowed. And sometimes amplified/echofied thru the mighty aliasing karaoke machine. Sometimes not.

Downward Rise

Downward Rise by krseward

Again with the droning & feedback & dubious karaoke amplification.

Along with something almost melodic played (again & again) on every museum gift shop's favorite almost zither, the Music Maker.

Last March Out

Last March Out
Last March Out by krseward

posting records to the hinterlands

As I've said, I was a hick from the sticks.

Mark, a friend from high school, was one in a vanguard of people who would turn me on to the wide world of music. Post-punk music in particular.

Aside from his mixtapes bearing the likes of the Velvet Underground, he got me ordering from the Rough Trade Records USA catalog.

Meantime, someone was working in San Francisco, filling those mail orders & posting records to the hinterlands: Hilary, the bicoastal city mouse to us two country mice.

During our summer of discontent back home from college, she was our vinyl connection/muse/friendly crush and all around beacon of cool things happening in the big world.

scans slightly stalinized/click to make bigger . . .


And yes, the grass is always greener, even when the paper is pink . . .




This note probably piggybacked with one of my orders:


By summer's end, it was back to college (& college towns with better record stores).

Maybe for Hilary, too, since the next RT order was sent out by Bill.

Eee-noid Wonder Pt.2

Eee-noid Wonder Pt.2

Eee-noid Wonder Pt.1

Eee-noid Wonder Pt.1

Dream One, Meat's Meat

Dream One Meat's Meat More 12-Bit Jimson found on cassettes of yore. One spooky but arguably soothing, the other creepy in a Modest Proposal sort of way.

Falling Upward

Falling Upward


This ol' tune is being hosted over at the Internet Archive.

Indeed, tho' it's hard to say for sure, I'm not so certain how long the Ovi hosted stuff (pretty much everything else here) will hold up as things seem in flux over there.

So, if you're just dropping by & have more than a few curious bones in your body, you may want to poke around while the audio players are up and the links are still good . . .

Hornets In The Elevator

Hornets In The Elevator


Titles aren't meant to be too literal-minded and are open to broad interpretation (insofar as titles ever bear any relation to the instrumentals named).

But the elevator I've in mind is a grain elevator. A sort of enclosed conveyor belt draws the grain way up only to let it slide down one chute or other to a truck or storage bin.

Taken as a figure of speech, hornets in said gizmo might be like bats in the belfry. Or worse.

And again with the feedback . . .

Garysville Route

Garysville Route


Yet more feedback, through a Zube Tube.

With a very filtered Yamaha VSS-30.

Dogwood Fabergé

Dogwood Fabergé


More fun with feedback.

Geese Flyover Broadmoor 28 August 2009

Geese Flyover Broadmoor 28 August 2009


Yesterday's entry brought an instrumental that used a field recording in the background. This is more straightforward.

Four geese flew overhead at Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary in Natick MA. One of them can be heard calling out.

I like the diffuse reverberation in the nearby woods. Reminds me of a cow recording a couple of years back.

Backyard Flicker

Backyard Flicker


Couple of bits of fun feedback sampled into a Yamaha VSS-30 equal the warbly tones and the slapback percussion.

A recording of last night's backyard sounds becomes the background, with occasional pitch shifting to bring about the varispeed of epistemological doubt.

pinned down again

This is a pin I homebrewed circa 1982 to commemorate a fave post-punk band, Orange Juice.

The fine construction/New World craftsmanship is easily seen . . .


Their "Breakfast Time" (b-side to "Simply Thrilled Honey"), their work in general and that of other bands on Postcard Records was some influence on my own more rusticated inventions:

Instrumental for Plug


Something in the mood of another Orange Juice song, "In A Nutshell", might be heard in these:

Be Here Soon


A Love For All The Ages

the author of Grunt Grunt Pig

I couldn't fully claim that distinction without crossposting here.

Waver Patient

Waver Patient

Bring May Flowers

Bring May Flowers, supahshiftah version


This supahshiftah version features some pitch shifting (with extreme prejudice) of a vocal percussion track. Let's say I liked "ch" snare sound but was less into the rest, so it gets mangled in the name of fun and springtime.

Bring May Flowers, original version


To be fair, cover all bases, etc., here's the original version without pitch shifting.

Rajan Clik

Rajan Clik

Shookup Hollow

Shookup Hollow


Answering the question: "What is life like inside a light bulb?"

That is, assuming the light's not on, the filament's broken and one is touching some point of contact for the sake of sound conduction.

(And all heck's breaking loose with some other objects as well.)

A no longer functioning aquarium bulb and some also-over-with cheepo bulb were touched by a cheap toy spy mic and sometimes a contact mic. Everyone's friend, the E-Bow actuated salvaged reverb tank, was also brought to bear on some mic. A toaster oven rack, too.

In the faint mists of time, use of the ever audiophile-quality Danelectro battery powered HoneyTone amp gave some or most or all of these sounds some, uhhhh, characteristic bandwidth and grit.

Red Mellow Carry, version with added bass part

Red Mellow Carry, version with added bass part


As opposed to the original mix, which was just the funky old acoustic . . .

All Nite Ramble

All Nite Ramble


This, like many things recently posted, is long and wicked discursive.

But one gloss, this features the same wayward saxophone heard on Grunt Grunt Pig and other such.

Also on SoundCloud:

Drake Return

Drake Return

Sunshine Sentry

Sunshine Sentry

Bloom Mesh

Bloom Mesh


Sparse as this is, there's an even sparser alternate version . . .

Blue Eyed Shamble

Blue Eyed Shamble


Long winded fun with various mic feedback, distorted mouth percussion and the Korg X-911.

On The Drift

On The Drift


On SoundCloud:

Shorthand Jive

Shorthand Jive


And the SoundCloud player:

Wound Beneath The Ferns

Wound Beneath The Ferns

Walker Rumination

Walker Rumination

Delray Rumination

Delray Rumination


A not-so-trippy, more structured sort of rumination . . .

Weeds 'Hind The Rose Room

Weeds 'Hind The Rose Room


Yet another trippy rumination. This time approaching a swampy nightspot by way of outer space . . .

a legacy

My middle brother passed away late last month.

And for better or worse, for anyone in earshot, he had made some contributions to my music. Direct or indirect.

His old sax that he used to play fell into my untutored hands to be used in numerous tunes:

the ever popular Grunt Grunt Pig


the skronky Bobo


the comparatively refined Music and Candlelight


And tho' I'm leery of words like "inspiration", my brother was somewhere in mind when I wrote these:

Cascade


Who in the Heck Are You?


as well as . . .

Slide Back

Slide Back