Not Brite now out on Bandcamp

Ghosts Of New Jerusalem -- now on Bandcamp

On The Drift on Bandcamp

On The Drift is on Bandcamp now.

Surfy Meditation

Surfy Meditation, an instrumental hosted on Box.



Some famous art dude wanted to have a robot likeness of himself to attend art openings in his stead. Some of us remaining humans wonder if passing the Turing Test is really a slam dunk. Or a thing desired in times to come.

While no one's making more real estate, virtual space has been building out and more or less improving. What was spring reverb is surplanted by digital reverbs which are obviated by software versions of all the above. A commonly available entry-level home studio software contained as it were the amp and the ambiance heard herein. Even this low rent bit of Any'verb USA sounds kinda cool.

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.

Long Gone Away--video

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

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.

On The Drift

On The Drift


On SoundCloud:

Before During and After

Before During and After


Again with the feedback. Mostly a phone pickup interacting with various (by now forgotten) mini-amp/speaker combinations.

Long Gone Away redux

Long Gone Away





A largely identical, slightly different mix.

This song was playing in head most mornings late last month. (Now playing: a song I haven't written yet.)

Long Gone Away

Long Gone Away


The Marble Index is one of my favorite albums.

Still I had to laugh when I read (some damn place) how the professionals mixing the record did as much as they could as fast as they could. The songs, written and sung by Nico and arranged by John Cale, were simply making these guys suicidal.

One might cite Plato and Aristotle and argue than music and the broader swath of arts & culture may either invoke bad feelings or deliver us from them through catharsis. I'd guess it works either way, to the point that positive thinking and primal screams can by turns harm or help.

In any case, if a song or whatever really wants to be written and played and recorded--well, good luck doing otherwise. Tho' you may have to mix it yourself.

Tho' not the iced over river crossing that is The Marble Index, such was the story of the song above. At times couched in broad social terms, an elegy for & goodbye to what's behind.

Better Set Sail, Guide, Wearier and Wary Of

Better Set Sail


The wraith of Herman Melville would not be impressed. Tho' he might find his toe tapping and his voice joining the chorus erelong . . .


Guide



A more arch variation on the theme of composite identity found in say Wire's "40 Versions".


Wearier and Wary Of

Wheel's Reinvention, My Sweet Plaything, Fried Chicken Blues

Wheel's Reinvention



My Sweet Plaything



More spookiness of the unreliable narrator variety.


Fried Chicken Blues



Another scary tune . . one that pushes some of the already dark lyrical impulses of the Blues clear 'round the bend.

Comfort Waltz, Winter Palace, Hear Me Call

Comfort Waltz



Winter Palace


Hear Me Call

All three songs were written in the mid 1980s. All bear some grandiose notions-- the latter two wanting to be something like Fairport Convention circa "Tale In Hard Time" with a touch of Mission of Burma, Hüsker Dü, et al.

(Yeah, go ahead, laugh . . .)

Whatever they are or aren't in terms of concept or execution, they are some of my faves.

Gratuitous geek note: Hear Me Call might be one of the first things I recorded with anything sequenced besides a drum machine. Indeed, I used the band's Roland TR-505 drum machine as a rudimentary sort of MIDI sequencer to drive my bandmate Dale's Korg Poly-800. Still doing the passing between two cassette decks trick, I could record the drums, a very basic synth bass and whatever live stuff in one pass.

The versions of the others were recorded later on with, at the very least, the best MIDI gear a Caldor or a Lechmere could offer.

Never Young, Sweet Days Gone, Sun Rises

Never Young


Sweet Days Gone



Sun Rises

Buttadjust 2, St. Barley Day, Whiskey'd

Buttadjust 2



St. Barley Day




Whiskey'd

On The Fall Line, Someone's Giving It All Back, Goin' Down

On The Fall Line


When I was a kid, I was into light reading like The Book of Revelation and Hal Lindsay's pop concordance The Late Great Planet Earth.

It was a matter of time before some song of mine would reflect an end of the world vibe. Though this could have as much to do with Randy Newman's "Burn On".


Someone's Giving It All Back



From water in flames and sundry apocalypse, we turn to the mystery of a world suddenly ours.


Goin' Down



Ah, that ever lovin' debt postmodernity (or life of any stripe) owes the dust beneath the dust beneath. Or, if that's too opaque or somber, I'll quote Futurama: "vaguely folkish alterna-rock."