Man Of Arun – Carnival (New Mix & Mods)
Annals
The history of everything noise related but mainly The Gits (in excruciating depth)
Man Of Arun – BIWT No. 1 You Won, Get Over It
The first in a new series, Because It Was There.
Not abridged.
Main Ingredients
Eastwood ‘Skinny Rats’ guitar – The reason for the name I’ll leave for a moment as I’m curious to see if anyone recognises the reference but what was the ‘Californian Rebel’ was a bit of a disappointment on purchase but after modifications is now a favourite. Expensive way of doing it though.
The only person I’ve seen very occasionally use one in anger is Enon Kawatani of indigo la End, ゲスの極み乙女 and @gesunokiwamiotome and ジェニーハイ amongst others.
Lace Alumitone Pickups – Bought mainly because I liked the idea of someone trying to do something a bit different with pickups and it didn’t hurt that they had square corners like the one’s they replaced.
Swope Descedent Vibrato – available in the UK from James’ Home Of Tone. Though I use every type of vibrato going this is the first alternative to the original Strat type to match it for feel and sensitivity – to my taste in those fairly nebulous concepts at least (upwards bends excepted). Not used heavily here but will feature in the future. I’ve paired it with a Schaller roller bridge which has made its way round a number of my guitars over the years.
For ease of dangle I plugged into my computer and used Scuffham Amps S-Gear modeller which doesn’t offer the earth in options but has the best basic sounds of the plethora of modellers to suit me. On this occasion I’ve used the free Alberto Barrero Producer Pack as a starting point and didn’t muck up the settings too much.
I forgot to mention in the video that the backing synth and bass parts were created using Orb Producer. Careful selection of the ‘wrong’ plugin instruments and patches to follow it can create interesting results such as by sending the output of the ‘Chords’ module into mono synths and let them decide which note to use.
For anyone who’d like a bash themselves here’s the backing track.
The Spectator
The inevitable release of the recent Phantom Circuit Session along with various of the more ambient / airy fairy tracks I’ve recorded in recent years. Except the first one.
Compare & Contrast
About 43 minutes into this week’s Phantom Circuit is the conclusion of the session I recorded for it.
The video below is what the first part of that is based on before it became electrified, synthed and effected.
It’s the sort of thing I’d lumber Richard with to make up a tune and lyrics back in the VTOR days.
Chromatic Input
On this auspicious day, Thursday 2nd February 2023, Beachy Head Radio played a few new tracks of mine as a Phantom Circuit session, archived here.
They kindly mentioned my Bandcamp page which I realised didn’t have much music in the same vein so I did a summary of vaguely similar tunes on social media which I now collect here.
In the same ballpark, ‘Wickham’ from Amateur Hour
A bit more tenuously, ‘The Streaming Suite’ as found on Ne me quitte pas
Mr Slater’s Parrot fit the bill when not in guitar mode with ‘Openshaw’ from a previous Phantom Circuit session and anything from On The Beach the likely suspects.
The ‘long track with lots of different bits’ came into it’s own when my 4 track broke down whilst recording the ‘Field’ albums in 1998 with Voice Of The Rain and whilst it was being mended I just had my Alesis MMT8 hardware MIDI sequencer and a Roland JV1080 synth I won in a Sound On Sound magazine competition to play with. Wishworlds, the second of a couple of tracks here, was the result.
Going further back to 1992’s Other People’s Angels from the tape of the same name is the first of the completely effect driven guitar numbers in what would now be called the ambient style.
But even something like 1988’s ‘Mesmerise’ by The Gits has the airy fairy guitar and reverby drums.
There are s number of other tracks which incorporate the same approach but within more usual structures and a lot of the YouTube stuff, soem of which I’m thinking of sticking on a release with tonight’s session.
NB. Video thumbnails for embedded Playlists only show if the YouTube API is used and as I haven’t they don’t here. They will nonetheless still play.
But this is probably enough to be getting on with for now.
M.O.A. Presents: Chords Of Orion – The Elements Shall Melt With Fervent Heat (Reconstructed)
YouTube blurb…
An entry in the Chords of Orion Trial by Remix from back in the twenty first century. I’ve half-inched some dialogue to add a little impetus half way through from ‘You Will Become an Old Musician | Bring it on!‘ where the great man himself reads out a less than polite comment he’d received.
The only other additions are new drums and a synth part derived from Bill’s playing where I add an extra bar to the melody to fit the imposed structure. Plus special guest appearances from tam-tam and kangling 1.
Everything else is done by editing, effects, and of course – mirrors.
This is the original.
- Sample – this product is certified free of human bones. ↩
The Gits (UK) – Turn Away
Filling a hole in the video catalogue.
Man Of Arun No.3 Amateur Hour
Coming in at sixteen minutes ‘Amateur Hour’ continues the mix of new and old material as I have a very deep barrel to draw from.‘Indiecompetent Band’ crosses generations with a riff from 1987 crowbarred into a new song whilst ‘Node’ is mainly a demo from 2009. ‘Rows’ is also new and bringing up the rear is ‘Wickham’ is an edited version of a track from… actually I don’t remember. Hold on while I look it up… 2014.
Man Of Arun No.2 Happy Fun Tunes
After a bit of a battle against with my ageing music computer I’ve managed to knock out an EP. It features a a track that sadly looks as though it’ll be topical for some time to come.
Also contains reheated filler from the era when I was tidier with genres. I had a sore throat when I did the words but sadly it didn’t improve my voice at all.
Man Of Arun No.1 Ne me quitte pas
The main track, Bandcamp (Come Back), turned out a bit long as the lyrics on the faster bit were meant to run together but proved confusing like that so I split them into two sections. Given the length I’ve also done the ‘radio edit’, Bandcamp (Slight Return), which omits part two.
The Streaming Suite Consists of:
- Descent Into iTunes
- The Third Circle Of Spotify
- The Pandora Paradox
- Bandcamp Regained
and is not at all a collection of oddments tenuously tacked together.