(various) The Platzangst in 2017 thread (cassette out 9/15)

[platzangst]

EDIT: I've been appending each new release to the end of this post, but I keep getting hits on the first one posted (Quality Brand Magnetic Media) - which is nice, but it's like the others are getting lost. So I'm rearranging this post to be in reverse order...


The cassette is out, 9/15/17: Call Before You Dig

Sampler, 9/1/17: A new album will be released in September, in digital and also cassette form, from OTA Tapes in Portugal. Here's a sampler of what will be on the tape:

New album, 3/2/17: image filters and lower-case helvetica

This is the RPM Challenge project I was talking about. I may talk more about this further on in the thread, but I think I'll keep a running tally of the albums in this first post for easy reference.

ORIGINAL: My New Year's resolution for 2017 is to release more music, hopefully a lot of music, but at least more music than I have previous years. I've got a project cooking right now that's almost halfway done, so I'm confident of releasing it this January. There's also the RPM Challenge in February,
which ought to result in an album release. I'd like to keep that momentum and motivation going through the whole year. Will I make it? We'll see.

For now, though, I've decided to digitally release an old album, which was originally part of a cassette trading event over on a now-defunct noise music forum. For 6 years it's only been released as a limited edition of 12 cassettes; 12 bands were involved in the trade, each providing copies to the other bands, over the course of a year. So from January 2011, here is Quality Brand Name Magnetic Recording Media:

Warning: it's noise. Sometimes haunting and ethereal, but other times just loud non-melodic distorted screech. Each track of noise textures was bordered by very brief, interstitial audio collages, heard mostly at the ends of each digital track. It's interesting to me to note that it was recorded not in Reason, per se, but Record.

The original packaging of the cassette was meant to suggest that it was a "blank" cassette, and featured such things as promotional graphics and text, a spot on the j-card where one could write down track info, and sticky labels to put on the cassette. Even the cassette itself had hand-printed slip sheets inside the cassette to try and complete the illusion, such as it was.

Enjoy. Or don't!

[Aggie]

Hmmmm.... my New Year's Resolution is to try new things. Here goes....

Track 1: The 2:00'ish portion reminds me of white noise frequencies across the lower HF Bands, whereas the 3:00'ish portion goes somewhere to what I imagine (IoT) devices might emit, in a semi-autonomous manner. 4:00'ish moves me to interstellar comms... perhaps microwaves... 5:00'ish - given the overall context - is a bit too uniform for me (almost like it had a beat?)
Track 2: Just plain scared the sh*it outta me - I thought the frequency range was going to clean out my ears without the aid of sterile instruments!
Track 3: Opened my mind's eye just a tad - we got shipping, whales, lapping waves, tugboats, fog...
Track 4: I'm picking out snippets of other songs and instruments - maybe an (unplugged) electric guitar? I tried to hear beyond, into the backing - but I failed!
Track 5: Nope - my ears are too old for that! I skipped to 3:00'ish and found it to be a different experience. Eyes closed I get the rush, burn and crackle of fire, all around - and distant voices, too...
Track 6: Getting mainly static and can't seem to get beyond it... made me squint my eyes quite a few time but can't pick anything out.
Track 7: A nightmare? I dunno!
Track 8: Definately more ethereal - spacey - distant worlds and distant calls... ambient forests and lurching animals.... nice!
Track 9: Randomness - just randomness. I like that it doesn't settle, which doesn't allow me to, either.
Track 10: A beat..? My brain is telling me (acid) jazz funk but I don't believe it... curiouser and curiouser
Track 11: Musical undertones... born slippy.... trainspotting.... gives way to rockerfella skank... that's what my brain is interpreting...

Interesting stroll - thank you!
aggie

[platzangst]

Hey, thanks for actually listening! That album is intentionally challenging to listen to, although genres like Harsh Noise Wall probably beat it out on that score.

This album was made in Record, which at the time had introduced Propellerhead's time-stretching capabilities, and many of the tracks are processed with the time stretch in some way, to an extreme degree, experimenting to see how far it could be pushed. As an example, the music you pick out in track 4 was derived from a recording where I scanned through Top 40 radio stations for a while. That recording was then chopped up with a little freeware utility, and then imported into Record. I set a tempo change from fast to (very) slow through automation, and the result is that the beginning of the track has rapid fire chops going by that gradually turn into extended drones.

Other tracks achieve noise through different processes. The "nightmare" on track 7 is mostly the processing of the "London Bridge" singing at the start (which is from a cassette found in a thrift shop). Some source material was from old vinyl records, and I do recall dragging the needle across some no-name dance track once for a base (and bass) sound.

[Aggie]

You're welcome!

[ionly]

I'm up to Oxide - I had a sense of something falling behind that veil of interference. Reminds me of Jonathan Glazer's film Under The Skin, particularly the extroardinary opening sequence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOVJsTc_HMU

Type IV is my stand-out so far - Max Ernst comes to mind. Maybe this:

T01988_10.jpg (231.28 KiB) Viewed 2227 times

That change at 4:36 was a surprise.

I'm getting plenty of visuals from your designs - they're like sonic installations. They would be great with physical theatre also.

Cheers

[platzangst]

That change at 4:36 was a surprise.

That's one of the "interstitial" bits. Not really part of the track, but a bit that lies between tracks, and each one was different in tone and method than the actual track (often humorous or absurd). Since there's no track markings on cassettes, normally playing a tape side would have all the parts flowing one after the other. In transferring it to digital, I had the option of giving the bits their individual tracks, or folding them into existing tracks. Putting them at the end of preceding tracks gives them a slight covert existence; only those willing to endure an entire track (or skip to the end) will hear them.

If it were a CD I would use track coding that places the items between track listings. If you've ever played a CD that unexpectedly counts time backwards for a few seconds between tracks, you've seen the effect.

[jonheal]

Very interesting and inspiring! Thanks for creating it.

[platzangst]

Well, my January project didn't get done by January so it had to be put on hold because of February's RPM Challenge. And here is the album that resulted from that:

When I have more time I think I'll add this to the first post, maybe muse a bit on the album or something, but for now, just here it is.

[platzangst]

I swear, I've remixed this thing 4 or 5 times now. Mostly EQ and level adjustments.

I have a problem that I've known about for a while, in that what sounds perfectly finely-balanced to my ears as I'm composing in Reason often does not sound nearly so nice when removed from my computer and played in other environments such as my car. That's not so important when dealing with a rough noisy thing such as the first album I posted in this thread, but it becomes a bit more troublesome when trying to produce something more in line with professional music releases.

On the 28th, I make a "final" mix to burn to a CD to send off to the RPM Challenge. I rush to the post office and send the disc off.

So I pop an extra copy of the CD in the car player - I have to go from the post office right to work - and am dismayed to find that in the car the thing sounds like it was recorded in an empty coffee can. Not enough high end, not much bass. I must have misjudged something. Even worse, I notice that on some tracks, instruments and effects appear to be missing! That turned out to be me finding the bug in the Devoloop DynaRage Compressor which makes its distortion switch swap its on/off settings. When off, the distortion-less signal is so low in volume that it can effectively disappear in the mix.

So now I need to restore the tracks on which the DynaRage appears, and fix the overall EQ. Plus I have to contact the RPM Challenge to wheedle them not to use the crappy disc for any future playing. There will be a problem later where I can't get their digital file upload system to work for me, but that's a different issue.

The problem is that if I'm using my car stereo to judge my tracks that means that each time I think I've got the mix down I have to burn it to a CD and take it to the car to test it out, which is kind of a time-consuming PITA. So I get it so it sounds passable in the car. Then I upload it to Bandcamp. So then in Bandcamp's player it sounds off. Then I remix it again and try it in the car and Bandcamp and it still has issues.

I'm on yet another mix, which may not be pro-level but if I can play it on multiple things and not think "that sounds like crap", at this point I'll settle for that. And then I have to upload it to Bandcamp (again) and RPM HQ (again) and hope it holds up next time I try it in the car.

All that aside, I'm pretty happy with the album, for a month's effort (and when I say "month" I mean "mostly the weekends", what with the full-time job and all). Musically, they aren't particularly complex tracks, but I was aiming for mood and atmosphere more than music theory, and I think I got the feel I was looking for.

In fact, I like it so much that if I can find a reasonable mix to go with, I think I'll try to crowdfund a vinyl version through Qrates. Not that I really expect it to succeed, but I think it would have a better chance than the more abstract work. It won't cost me anything to try.

What's more, at the beginning of the month I spat out an excess of little sketch bits and loops, so that with what's left over I have a stash of starting points for other tracks that could possibly be another album of its own, in time. And I've got the January thing I could get back to... go, me.

[modecca]

....

A taste of the world beyond done to death generic synth/drum loops.

Not obnoxious lazy noise , but intentional,clever,STRANGE and desirable to listen to.

How very refreshing!

[platzangst]

Thanks, modecca!

Hey, does anybody like vinyl? Well, we'll find out!

https://qrates.com/artists/platzangst/items/13272

[platzangst]

A new album will be released in September, in digital and also cassette form, from OTA Tapes in Portugal. Here's a sampler of what will be on the tape:

[platzangst]

The cassette is out! Go to https://ostresamigos.bandcamp.com to see it and many other interesting things.

[aeox]

That's some interesting noise you have there.