I love the sound of the Stylophone. It's so tweezy. So cheesy. So... annoying?
I've been wanting to make a Stylophone sample set and I finally found the time today. I made it for personal use but I thought I'd share it. It's a little clunky but hey, so is the Stylophone.
I sampled each of the three different sounds both straight and with vibrato, and both through the audio out and via the speakers. Each note was individually sampled. The audio files are in 24-bit, and there are .exs files for you Logic users.
Back in the day, I had a studio full of outboard gear. Around 10 years I started selling it and am now entirely in the box, as they say. But before I sold some of my synths I made sample packs for personal use. I was listening to the sounds again the other day and they're not bad so I figured I'd make them available to the public, it being the holidays and all.
The pack contains 100 samples from a Moog MG-1 (the one made by Realistic and sold at Radio Shack), a Roland Juno-106 and a Sequential Circuits Prophet 600. They were run through a Mackie mixing board and recorded straight to computer at 16 bits. They're aiff files.
My new album Slow is now available to download but it's for a limited period of two weeks only. The album is comprised of three experimental songs, all of which have used elements from modern pop songs and slowed them down.
"Airhorn" is built entirely from air horn samples, those ubiquitous blasts that seem to show up in every dance and pop song. It's like we've become so susceptible to distraction, the only way we can stay focused on one thing for more than a minute is if there are warning sirens shocking us into paying attention.
"Texture" was made by slowing down the Japanese version of "Mister" by Korean pop group, Kara. All of the melody has been washed out, replaced by undulating metallic waves.
"Transient Voice" is another treatment of a Japanese language song, this one of "Voice" by Perfume. The song has been slowed down but the melody and tone unaffected, transforming a pop song into an epic dirge.
Downloads are now closed.
Cover design: Marya Villarin/maryaonfiyah@gmail.com
Photo: Lee Chapman/tokyotimes.org
Thought I'd take a moment to update everyone on my musical endeavors.
First, I have a new ambient mixtape out, Sometime/Somewhere, featuring tracks from Itsuka, Itsuka Extras and my forthcoming album on Architects and Heroes, Ultimately Always.
You can stream and download at Soundcloud, and stream at Mixcloud.
On October 4, Ultimately Always will be released through Architects and Heroes. It's a glitchy drone affair and I'm quite fond of it. This will be followed towards the end of the year with Ultimately Always Remixes, featuring reworkings of the songs by Digital Rust, Zygote, Asymmetrical Head, Borful Tang aka Lord Tang and myself.
I'm also happy to announce that Drift, the 1994 ambient album released under the name Arthur Dent and Deeper Than Space, will be re-released next year via Architects and Heroes. It will be packaged as a double album and include a never-before-released album-length track.
Well, it's been a few months since Itsuka came out but have I been resting on my laurels, so to speak? No, I've been busy preparing the release of Itsuka Extras, the companion album to Itsuka.
See, I worked on the Itsuka album over the course of 7 or 8 years and there were a lot of songs that didn't make the final cut. I liked these songs just as much as the ones on the album but they didn't fit the mood as well. Instead of letting them languish on my hard drive I figured I'd join the 21st century and put them out on the Internet myself.
This is the first release since the cassette trading days of high school (Factsheet 5 wut?) that I've handled entirely myself, and I have to say it's been a lot of fun. From the mastering to the promotion to the distribution, I've done it all myself. (Well, not entirely—the incredible artwork was done by one Marya Villarin.)
After quite a long gestation period, my album Itsuka is finally out. Thanks to Muti Music, the album has moved from my hard drive to the Internet. You can find the album on iTunes, or if you're more DJ oriented, you can pick it up on Addictech or Beatport.
Last year I wrote up the back story to this album. I'll reprint it here:
"Itsuka" is the title of my album on Muti Music, and it's a long time coming. I started working on the album in 2004, and contributed to it off and on over the past five or six years. Along the way, the tracklist changed some but the core feeling remained, and that's what I want to talk about.
In Japanese, "itsuka" (いつか) means "someday." All my life, I've been the kind that always looked to the future. "Never to what you are doing," as Yoda said. I like to think of myself as a dreamer, but if you were inclined to call me an escapist that might not be far from the truth too. In 2004, I dropped everything—quit my job, sold my car—and went to Japan. I lived in Tokyo for two months until the money ran out. I had intended to get a job but because I never finished college that was just about impossible.
Because of Japan, something changed in me. After 30 years of drifting through life I finally knew what I wanted. I wanted to live in Japan. But I couldn't. That pesky college degree. So I went back to school to study Japanese. Along the way, I made this album. All of my longing for Japan is in these songs. "Someday I'll be back there." I guess you could say it's a love letter to Japan. Love songs for a country.
In 2009 I gave the album to Muti Music, a label I had worked with back in the breaks days. I had no idea if they would like it, if it would fit their roster. Truthfully, I had almost given up on the album ever coming out. It was such a personal thing, I couldn't imagine anyone else liking it. Listening to it is like crawling into my head. But Muti liked it, and it's finally coming out.
I'm probably more proud of this than any other music I've ever made. I hope people enjoy it.
Lastly, here are the three promo videos I made for the album. Enjoy.
First is "Paper Deer," the lead track. The song was inspired by the art of Midori Harima, who does sculpture with paper and multimedia. Midori graciously allowed me to use some images of her art in the video.
Next up is "Train Song." It's not hard to figure out what this was inspired by.
