Red Mellow Carry

Red Mellow Carry


A short instrumental. All parts were done on a funky old acoustic electrified and played slide.

Cakestring

Cakestring


Long, spacy instrumental that meanders, strums, taps, stretches, flexes, wheezes, drones & cries.

Plastic, elastic and voice changer type gizmos. Steady state melodica and kalimba. Nothing bigger than a cakebox.

Till The Very End

Till The Very End


Another upbeat song (as in not so much).

Featuring such earthy things as a funky Kay acoustic and a humble Nashville strung companion.

light beneath a bushel basket

St. Barley Day


A fun, spritely instrumental. Previously posted, just not too often heard.

Shambelle #1


Shaking and shuffling along, holding together as it falls apart, it's a fave. And also not so often heard.

22 May 04


I rather like this one too. One of a few late night/early morning meditations that fell together.

Maybe it needs a better name than a date, but long phrases come to mind:

"at night a pulse arrives"

"the last one found"

Low Field


Spacing out just a little more . . .

Turkey In The Storm 31 May 2008

Turkey In The Storm 31 May 2008


Another field recording, somewhat louder than the one last posted.

A roosting turkey make numerous "gobble" sounds along with other birds. A thunderstorm moves in and for a while mostly drowns out the sound of the turkey.

Birds & Turkey Gobbler 29 May 2008 AM

Birds & Turkey Gobbler 29 May 2008 AM


A rather quiet field recording, so turn up the volume . . .

A little ways into the track there's the "gobble" sound of a turkey. Probably this fellow.

Tag Sprung, False Alarm

Tag Sprung


Elastic sproingyness sampled to a VSS-30, bells bowed & struck, distorted voice, more mic feedback, dead battery glitchyness and so on.

False Alarm



Fun with different sounds on a venerable Korg Poly-800 MkII.

21 May 2008 Improv

21 May 2008 Improv


Spacy improv fun with live mic feedback and a Yamaha VSS-30 sampler. Recorded open air with the trusty Zoom H4 Handy Recorder.

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.