Thank you for listening

There is some drama on a board I frequent. Something regarding some label not paying an artist for a bunch or releases and the someone getting an advance for a remix and not comming correct with anything more that a few unfinished bits and pieces. The popcorn came out and then someone posted this gem. Sometimes I feel like doing this to people I know.

Shit. I can talk about things I know nothing about till I am blue in the face, but once I need to do my job my brain gets scarce.

4 songs make up one E.P. The lean includes techno, ambient, experimental, dubstep. All recorded with broken dolby, tape-hiss real/faked, real pianos, faked horns, real/faked drums, faked talent, and no urgency to publish the damn thing.

Available exclusively today at www.dbtrx.com

and soon at itunes, amazon and everywhere else.

Just buy the damn thing so I can buy a new bike or fishing pole. Bling Bling.

Synth porn, like I have never seen it. Beautifully shot, and beautifully played, here is Charles Cohen pwning playing a Buchla Music Easel. Only 14 in existence and I have a feeling that I will never afford one.

Click through for the HD full screen.

CHARLES COHEN AT THE BUCHLA MUSIC EASEL from ALEX on Vimeo

This colorful video features sound artist Charles Cohen improvising on a 1970’s Buchla Music Easel. This extremely rare instrument is one of Don Buchla’s 200 series. Buchla (a pioneer of audio synthesis) only manufactured 14 of these units. The entire film was edited from an hour-long set of free improvisation, with audio was taken directly from Charles’ mixing board.

All of the photography and editing was produced by Alex Tyson, a sound and video artist from Pennsylvania. The film was shot in 16:9 720p High Definition format, using the Letus35 Extreme and a 35mm LensBaby 3GPL

I hate letting people hear my original music. I always get asked by people “Why isn’t this out?” and I always give some lame reply, talking about how I don’t like shopping stuff around, or that I am preparing a calculated attempt to get something picked up or whatever. The truth is that I was made fun of when I was 16 for doing a bad knock off of the music that the Pet Shop Boys did 10 years before. This was joyfully delivered by an overweight ex-DJ who I realize, I have never forgiven. As my heart sunk into my colon I promised myself that I would never play my music for anybody, ever again. I meant it, though later on I decided that this rule did not apply to getting into a girls pants. Frankly, girls would listen to just about anything and proclaim its worth when they was a boy attached to the cassette player. For the record, boys will say just about anything to attract the girl attached to the other end.

Love Tip for Girls: Everything a boy says before he sleeps with you is a lie, especially when he means it. When you accept this as fact and look at all the personality traits that are not directly attached to his hunting instinct, try to decide if you want the honest part of him around after you sleep with him.

Back to the topic. I get uncomfortable playing new music for people because I am too aware of the differences between what I write and what I think people hear when they listen to it. Does that make sense?

Early last year I started reading about Dubstep (late comer since day one) and what I heard did not seem any different to the dub I was listening to when I was a kid. What the press and the blogs described sounded miles better that what I was hearing, and I was getting more inspired by the words I read, rather than the music I heard.

I played some stuff for a fantastic DJ named Michael Lakeman and he wrongfully assumed that I had been listening to Burial. Late last year a local mailing list I am on lit-up in both praise and annoyance of the new Burial album and Dubstep in general. Again, all verbage that spilled out interested me greatly, but I avoided listening to the albums that were talked about, as I did not want to get my ideas tainted by what the “proper” guys were doing.

After I had given Burial a proper listen I came to two conclusions:

1. Burial is the goods, and anybody who thinks otherwise can suck it.
2. Burial is about as related to Dubstep as Dubstep is related to House. You might have some dubby House, but please, Burial is a dubby Two-Step artist.

Oh, I get it, If you put the words together and you make Dubstep. Is anything with echo’s dubstep? Or is it defined by a…. Who cares.

With a deep breath, here are a couple samples of what I have been working on.

Track 1. Kicked in the ribs. I was having a ton of fun recording the drums into a tape player, playing with extremes in the noise floor, and using various noise reduction techniques to achieve the sound on the drums. I was looking for that compression sound that you get when using shitty mp3 encoders, but by tweaking with the dolby 3 ways to Sunday I was able to be really happy with it.

Track 2. Without works I sampled the piano, a turn of the century Steinway that is in good condition, with the exception of some moisture that caused a few of the tines to crack. Most of the percussion is samples from the sound of a hammer hitting a dead note, ect.

Track 3. We all must sleep. This has been developing for about a year, and is in what should be its final state. Lots of Jupiter 8 in there. There were these birds that woke me up everyday, and I recreated, almost perfectly their phrasing. Nature is crazy.

-Mat

 

 Kicked in the Ribs [2:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Without works [2:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 We all must sleep [3:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Spring is here! This is my contribution to this years sound track. Play it in your car on your way to your mom’s. Listen to it with your windows open while you are cleaning your apartment. Barbecue food to it.

There are limitless ways you can listen to this mix. Its up to you!

 

 Spring Opening at the Poly Clinic: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Download Here

Tracklisting:
1. Mouse On Mars – Send Me Shivers
2. Yi Miyake – Wanda Wanda
3. Ben Mono Ft Capitol A – Mindsweep
4. Siriusmo – L.I.Z.I.
5. Seu Jorge – Chatterton
6. Michael Fakesh – Escalate
7. Soundhack – Double Hammer
8. Infinite Lives – Wake Up
9. Jagoff – Southside Mojo
10. Mark De Clive Lowe – Slide
11. Harco Pront – Dancefloor
12. ????
13. Pezzner – Shasta
14. Global Communication – 8.07

Enjoy.

I did Vocals on this track a while back, “Original Sinner” with Tom Blacksoul from Croatia, It ended coming out on Deepfunk, Craig Law’s label in Los Angeles. I got paid $100 for the vocal, “more to come off the back-end” and 10 copies to be sent “next week”… “the week” after.. “I swore I sent them”. Whatever. That kind of flakiness is so common it doesn’t even waste space in my head anymore.

By the way, Craig seems to be a nice enough guy, and we all the conversations we have had were nice. I am not knocking him in any way, I am just telling my side of the story as a whole.

I looked for a few copies in shops, but just could not bring myself to actually buy one. Assuming that Deepfunk paid royalties in this case, I would hate to pay taxes on top of the sales tax. Jesus.

Side-thought: Could you imagine the black-hole if I had received an advance large enough to merit a recoup, and my record sold so poorly that every record sold meant less I got, and I got caught shop lifting my own record? Or downloading it? I would be begging people not to buy my record.

Side-Side-thought: I have downloaded my own music using slsk. I didn’t mind it AT ALL.

Anyway, I was trudging the path through hell that is Discogs today, trying to convince some guy that “the proof I have is that I AM THE DAMN ARTIST YOU NERD LIVING IN YOUR MOMS HOUSE” Jesus.

I stumbled across a copy of the record, and you know what? Its being sold from Seattle! However, he wants $14 for the record. It’s not like it’s an import. It’s a shitty little house record from LA that probably didn’t do more that 500 copies. At least I can avoid shipping, right?

On 01/12/08, 12:15PM, armsupaudio wrote:

You have a copy of “Blacksoul’s” Original Sinner off Deepfunk?

I actually co-wrote and sang on that record, but never received a copy of the record.

Can I take that copy off your hands?

-Mat

On 01/12/08, 01:39PM, xxxxxxx wrote:

Hi,
That’s great!
I have only the 1 copy in stock so just buy it of this site and then we will invoice you!
Thanks,
xxxx MUSIC

On 01/12/08, 01:43PM, armsupaudio wrote:

I am in seattle, what store are you?

On 01/12/08, 01:47PM, xxxxxxx wrote:

We are only online.
xxxxMUSIC

On 01/12/08, 02:14PM, armsupaudio wrote:

Ahh, I thought you were in seattle. Its bad enough to buy it, but not at an import price, with shipping from seattle.

On 01/12/08, 07:56PM, xxxxxxx wrote:

We are in Seattle!!…We charge $6.25 for USPS Priority Mail which will have the record to you in 2-3 days.
xxxMUSIC

It’s not like I am trying to get the guy to take the loss and give me the record or anything, but his price is seriously jacked up, and I am really, REALLY annoyed at having to pay over 20 bucks (1/5th of what I was paid ffs) .

Fuck it, I don’t need the record.

-Mat

I think we are close to actually launching (for srsly guys) the first release, TKFLONEa. I think that we will stop using “we” too, as it is just “I” and my poodle. Maybe “we” works.

Grammar is like math, if you are the suck at it, just go with the flow. If someone calls you out on it, then question their own answers and motive out loud until you win.

I keep meaning to drag the blog onto a newer version of Wordpress, unfortunately my work picked up from 8 hours a week to 60, in about 3 days. I have a few new posts ready with link to the new songs, but will need to wait until I get some rest and fire up my studio computer to see what damage I did to some of my gear at my last show.

I was set to play at the Baltic Room at the end of Oct, a live set, but my computer went really haywire, refusing to even blink at my midi controller and then ignoring my soundcard. I had another card handy, and stuck it in, but since I was missing the main controller for fx and track tweaking, I gave up after 3 songs and pulled out some old records. I was bummed and called up Dave from Jacob London and chewed his ear off for a few minutes until I calmed enough to go play. The Baltic room seems to be in a change of hands and they took down the curtains, and brought in a Mackie system. It was kinda washy sounding, a bit muddled with out any people curtains to absorb the sound. They did have the DJM-800 mixer. Its a nice mixer. Fun as heck. I wonder if the high-pass filter or the roll/reverse roll is going to be the new flanger for dj’s?

It is really cold in our house. No heat, except from the radiator in the bedroom. Abbers (the poodle) has started barking at us for no reason. We have thought about putting her down (“You are fat and poor and dumb and eat all our books”) or trading her in for a younger, cuter version but then she does that thing where is really really loves you and we forget until 4am when she starts barking for attention.

This is the first off-topic post, and its about fish.

I’ve been bummed recently as the Sockeye run has been seemingly slim this year. You might be saying “Oh.” or something similar but since I have a creek in my yard, and there are runs of Sockeye, King, and Steelhead that literally are 30 feet from my studio window, it is on my mind a but. Cool, eh? It might be early yet, but there has only been less then 20 seen this year, compared to the 10-15 each time I looked at the peak last year. I hope that we are early in the run and I am just eager, but after I say the first ones a few weeks ago, in my heart I was thinking that “The run started, now its going to grow and grow.”

Today I went out and didn’t see any flashes of red like the Sockeye show, but I caught a flash of something. I stopped walking for a sec and realized I was looking at a monster. At least three feet, longer than my arm. I knew we have runs of King (Chinook) salmon, but was not expecting it at all. The thing was massive and really strong. The Sockeye are pretty tuckered by the time they get to my place, and we are seeing a few just barely alive floating down stream. This King was just cruising around the creek, stopping here and there. Abbers (my poodle) saw it, took a few calculations on velocity and decided to sit this one out. It got spooked by us and tore off downstream so fast it make a wake and an audible spash in a creek that was running very fast and heavy. I got crunched at work so I am waiting a bit till I can get my waders. I can’t really afford to get them, but I will try to work something out. I can’t imagine not fishing this fall and more than I can imagine standing in the river in shorts anymore.

This is the view from the studio. The bend where I saw the King is on the other side of that tree in the yard.

I just set this up to make myself familiar with Wordpress. Over the next few weeks I will be learning all about web publishing (I am webdumb) and getting things ready for an October launch. What am I/We/Us launching? That’s a good question. Right now I would like to see a mish-mash of content presented here. Cool stuff, like interviews with musicians and producers, free downloads of great songs, and have a place buy great songs. I/We/Us will never endorse anything we don’t just love to pieces.

What kinds of music makes my chest get all tight? House, soul, disco, funk, hip-hop. Stuff like that. But it’s all the same genre to me. Just some of it is played faster, some of it trades out a drummer on a four piece for a 909 on every beat. Some of it was made 30 years ago and some of it will be made next week.

Thank you for listening,

-Mat