Label Description: Once again, I took on the #Jamuary challenge to produce something music-related each day in the month of January, and once again I decided to make that “something” to mean writing and recording a new track every 24 hours. It’s been a challenging month in a dark time, but I did it. Having something positive to focus on, having art to make, is what got me through it. It’s what has gotten me through life thus far, especially when most other things fail me. So I’m very proud to have succeeded.
Decades of attempts later. Escaping the pull of gravity. Released into the void. Yet another culmination. I disappeared, intermittently. I appear, briefly. “Please enjoy this soundtrack to a parallel world. Creating, recreating, and fine-tuning this experience has brought me great satisfaction and much needed diversion. May listening to it provide you with something valuable as well.”
Another collection of orphaned tunes lurking in the nether regions of my laptop.
These are tracks that were lined up for a bit more polish and probable release – but since then my attention has moved elsewhere as I got all excited about new shiny projects and these tracks got left at the ‘nearly there’ stage. So they’re a little rough around the edges in places, but I’m claiming that as part of their charm.
That said, when I played a couple of these to people they got broadly appreciative nods – so I thought another githerments release may be in order.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag.
ether is so old, all I have is the audio file. Which is a shame ‘cos there was a lovely long reverb tail on the end and it’s cut off in the version I found sat in a random folder.
There’s upbeat electro in Storm, Noir-esque noodling with some spoken word in Thomas, and even some guitar on Tom Five.
Streets and Blue Hills are pseudo-themes for some never made US cop dramas.
Of course there’s a tune or two with stuff from my much raided US evangelists sample folder. Will I ever grow out of that?
There’s some sort of poppy songs, some sub Daft-Punk vocoder work courtesy of a Arturia pssst I found that I meant to replace the sample in. And some things I’m not sure how to describe.
All in all – something for everyone or maybe everything for someone.
Label Description: Guitars, bass, synths, beat programming, Kalimba, recording mixing and arrangement: Frank Ehrhardt Mastering: Alexander Kolb Synths and additional beat programming on Broken Shadows: Erdem Cakir (magikkarpetkaravan.bandcamp.com) Additional effect manipulation on Algorhythmic Dreams: Alissa Jäger Additional guitars and additional beat programming on Of Hope and To Go On and additional mixing: Stefan Harth (gigalurgh.bandcamp.com) Drawing: Frank Ehrhardt Design: Marius Schmitt Videos: Korneli Gorbatchev (kogofilm.de)
Recorded on March 18 and 19 of 2023 at the Maplehurst Forge in Newton, New Jersey Engineered by Mark Dempsey Mixed by Matt Gilroy Mastered by Philippe LeSaux
This is a particularly slow performance. I’d gone into it somewhat sleep-deprived, though by the third and fourth pieces, I was getting energy back from the music, enough energy to leave more space and allow the rests to speak. Thank you to the audience for staying with me.
The hollowbody Univox vibrates quite a lot–there’s a lot of air in there. Consequently, there’s a lot of air in these timbres: French horn, muted trumpet, accordion, glass harmonica timbres. This one’s a step toward a collaboration with silence.
The titles this week are references to the visual art of Louise Blyton. Thank you for listening!
Maurice Rickard: Guitar, programming
Signal chain: Univox Coily in Bb F Bb F Bb C tuning > Reuss Effects Understate, Reuss Effects Repeater Fuzz, Balls Effects KWB > Vox Wah > Hungry Robot Wardenclyffe Deluxe > Moyo Volume > Max/MSP eight-delay patch with FFT pitch shift, tremolo, convolution reverb, AudioThing Reels.
Impulses: Inchindown Oil Tanks ( Matt Gray mattg.co.uk ), silent5 Biamp MR/140 (Flat), St. Paul’s Huddersfield (near), Fort Worden Cistern
Cat Temper pays tribute to bands like Rush, The Alan Parsons Project, Def Leppard and Sigue Sigue Sputnik in this celebration of pawsome 1980s power pop.
Music & Design by Mike Langlie Audio Mastering by Von Hertzog Artwork by Mizucat
Music For The Rest Of Us 