Too Much Filler.

Mother, in a fit of insanity, has bought six litres of sandwich filling (because it was reduced); we've hardly any bread to sandwich it in.

I will come back to this blog soon. I will. I have a lot of studying to be getting on with at the moment, so I'm letting that take up my time. I have, however, decided to share this little thing of mine. It's a piece I composed back when I was doing my Music A-Level. There are five versions of it here (really, it's the same piece five times over), with occasionally subtle variations due to changing the instrument set in the MIDI to MP3 converter I chose to use for the task. This alone makes it more interesting than some remix EPs I have heard, and the tracks are short, which makes it better than these same remix EPs. May it do what it will:

The Isola Pedonale EP

The Eternal Pause.

Things have not been so hot at home lately. Besides this I find myself desperately busy of late. As much as I want to get away and upkeep this little project for me, it has been nigh on impossible to do so. I know I have spent more time on hiatus than not, but now is not the right time for this blog. Give me a few more weeks to get things in the real world back to a relative state of normalcy and I'll be back with you as soon as possible.

Intermission: Bull of Heaven - UPDATE!

The month-long MP3, entitled Nisan Moon Phase (Extended), is now online. Because of its decreased bitrate (though given the lo-fi nature of this 786 hours, 3 minutes, and 4 seconds long piece, the lower bitrate is not going to be entirely detrimental to the enjoyability of the work and it'll save your hard drive the strain of what would normally be a file of approximately 70GB - about a quarter of the average of today's laptops' storage) at the 192kbps standard they have so far gone for), the file is not being considered part of the a larger Bull of Heaven project and is consequently being hosted on the Clayton Counts blog instead.

EDIT: I had to change the information in the entry because it was wrong. It was wrong because I am dumb and tired, in order from highest to lowest of proportional blame.

Intermission: Bull of Heaven

Bull of Heaven is the name of a posthumous project of one Clayton Counts, of The Beachles' Sgt. Petsounds (in)fame, collaborating with a host of others (particularly Neil Keener, co-compiler, former member of Planes Mistaken for Stars*, now of Git Some), exploring the possibilities of sound art and music in the rapidly-advancing digital age. They have released several works of noise art under this moniker and, ironing out the problems with distribution of large files in the past couple of weeks, have now successfully surpassed the longest piece of recorded** music of which I was previously aware, Leif Inge's 9 Beet Stretch (and even this 24-hour extension of Beethoven's 9th Symphony was broken down into individual 80-minute files). At first they managed to match it (#028), before beating it with a single 37½ hour MP3 (#044). Subsequently they have blown this out of the water with a week-long (168 hours) MP3 (#045).

Word has reached me that work is being completed on a month-long file, with several more diverse pieces - they have already dabbled found sound (#013), rock music (#039) and cut-up (#040) - being planned in the near future, including one release that will mate the hitherto unmarried genres of doom metal and Hindi death chants. I also hear tell that whilst the recent long pieces are deep drones with very subtle changes, for the really long tracks they hope to have more noticeable progressions. Eventually, Bull of Heaven aim to have released one recorded track that spans a whole century.

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*At the bottom of this Wikipedia article you'll find a link to the PMFS's official website. Don't bother to follow said link as, instead of the promised website, you'll find one of those holding pages full of adverts which tell such charming miniature narratives as "American Singles | Diamond Engagement Rings | Real Estate Commercial | Interior Design | Debt Management | Hot Brazilian Girls | Medical Billing". Instead, you might prefer to drop by the band's MySpace page.

**So as to rule out non-recorded pieces such as John Cage's 639-year ORGAN² / ASLSP and Jem Finer's millenium-long Longplayer (streamable on-site) neither of which have, as yet, actually been set in any retrievable (which is not necessarily the same as physical) medium as complete pieces.

Intermission: My Chicken Gone to Heaven.

This is a site of unspeakable horrors. Be sure, if nothing else, to watch Rob Rouse talking about his love of chicken Maureen.

That Chicken CD? is still available here.

S5: Button Moon - Button Moon (Closing Theme)

We're off...

This is just so I feel like I'm back on track. Really, I've not much to say on the thing, nor on my (undoubtedly oversized) collection of poorly recorded 1980s children's television show theme tunes. One thing I will say is that I once saw, presumably in 1988, Button Moon's live theatre show (which probably makes this my first outing to the theatre, shortly before my days* as a catwalk model), and I've a badge somewhere to prove it.

The official website does not rule out the possibility of a return of Button Moon to the stage.

Download: Button Moon - Button Moon (Closing Theme)

Wikipedia article

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*Read "day". It really only spans actual days if you include the dress rehearsal.

S4: The Alpha Conspiracy - Defend Yourself

Nobody else will.

Knobtweaker was amongst the advance guard (somewhere I shall almost certainly never find myself, as I shuffle along in my esoteric fashion) when it came to its knowledge of present and future indie-dance credibility. Now it is sadly no longer with us, but on re-listening to (part of) their Best of 2005 list I find it still beats in terms of class and dance-ability the set-lists of those indie-music DJs locally - we have them, even here in the back-end of Nowhere - who think they are with the curve, at best.

As it is, I wish I'd made better use of their writing at the time, as I hit upon them exactly when I was trying to take too much in and could have done with honing my blog interests a little, as I seem to have managed now. I read those in my sidebar, a handful of others at times and keep it at that, even though I probably still have somewhere a list of all those I tried to read - far too much to actually glean any usable knowledge from.

My system recently has demonstrated a fondness for instrumental tracks. This song does contain lyrics, but damned if I can actually discern any. Of course, what's important is the sound and to my ears this is an original and intensely palatable slice of driving electronica, quite at odds to those tracks posted so far in this run. Nice to have something a little more energetic about the place on occasion.

Download: The Alpha Conspiracy - Defend Yourself

Official website, where MP3 links are provided, but without evidence of actual MP3s.
Buy Aura: UK | US

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Our latest absence was prompted, as usual, by another computer glitch. The current status is rather more optimistic as we have a good Internet connection in spite of running under Vista. More news as it breaks, which in my case is probably the most appropriate word for it.