dvusMedia - Chiba City Fugue

To return to talking about the tracks on the Chatsubo album...

Later in October of 2000 I returned to the adventures of  "Bang Bang" Johnny the "Outside Contractual Expert" created by Jacques Chester.

Thematically it is another "soundscape" framed by a synthesized version of one of J.S. Bach's Two Part Inventions.

This is a "remastered" version of the original recording. I would have liked to have done a complete re-render of the track but it seems that for now some of the files I used to create this are "lost". If I find them I will re-render the track.

You can find the remastered version HERE.

dvusMedia - Imaginary Skies blues vocal

I have covered the history of the lyrics of this song HERE. So I won't repeat it again.

As originally envisioned this song was intended to be a blues/rock song but I wasn't old enough nor "blue" enough to do the song justice. Well I'm a lot older and way bluer now...

So with the help of my digital audio workstation and a few stupid studio tricks, I present to you Imaginary Skies as it was intended to be played and sung... you'll find the MP3 right HERE.

dvusMedia - Meditation with Variations on the Theme

Today's track is actually a three-bee

At the beginning of October 2000 I composed / mixed a track which was a kind of ambient something or other. It included among other things clips of a thunder storm I had recorded, some excerpts of my fooling around with a Yamaha DX-21 FM synth, and clips of my playing a clay pot... slow... contemplative...  boring... meditative. It acquired the name "Meditation".

Cynthia, my spouse, asked me to put together a meditation something like "Meditation" but something more pleasant to contemplate so the track was remixed and morphed into "Cyn's Meditation"... But I wasn't quite satisfied and kept tinkering with the track until it morphed into another of my soundscapes which I named "Sunrise on the Saraswati"

You can find all three HERE remastered for your listening pleasure.

Now understand I had only been doing this kind of composing / remixing for a very short time [about three months at that time tho' I had been fooling with Electronic synthesizer music for about eight years by that time]. I had no idea [and still don't] know how to define the "genre" or "type" or what have you of these things I had begun to compose... To me if the track expressed what I wanted it to express why then I was successful. If a listener wanted to call it "ambient" or "techno" or even "junk" I am fine with that. Is this stuff music? That's in the ears of the beholder.

A music reviewer friend of mine, Gordon F of Audio-Bomb, could tell you far better than I whether this is of any value as a listener... At the time I was having a lot of fun as a composer and musician as well as a writer. The Chatsubo sure opened my eyes and ears to new things.. and so the music and mixes evolved.

dvusMedia - Chiba City Contract

About the same time as the Mission post [Early October 2000] there was another story thread about "Bang Bang" Johnny the "Outside Contractual Expert" created by Jacques Chester . Naturally Johnny lived an interesting life... especially when he visited Chiba to straighten out a problem with a Ziabatsu... or was it the Yakusa? Whatever the case, it led to Johnny using some of his talents in death an mayhem.

When I read the story line I loved the idea -- so I flipped on the music mixing app and off I went... the result [with a new remaster] is HERE It was announced as "officially released" in the Chatsubo on Oct., 4, 2000. I made a comment about maybe going back to writing a certain writer/music critic replied: "no no man.. stay with the music... we need a soundtrack for our stories."

Sometimes it was fun to write these themes and sometimes a drag... this was the beginning of my painting sometimes vast Musical Soundscapes...

dvusMedia - Mission

Today I'm on a Mission.

The "Mission" mix was conceived in the early Fall of 2000 as an audio soundtrack for one of the story lines that was passing through the Chatsubo. It was one of the tracks included on my first release from MP3.Com - Chatsubo. The story was centered around an "agent on a mission." The one things about being on a mission is that it never really seems to end. You see the same evils, you experience the same dangers and temptations.

This was the first time I wrote and publicly released a "soundtrack" for a Chatsubo story. In fact most of the music on the Chatsubo Album was directly related to the stories or the people posting in the Chatsubo at the time.

My confabulated brain mixed this track up from commercially available audio samples. Over time I seemed to have developed a love of building audio "sound scapes" almost as wide as my imagination.

The above recording was re-master from the original "Wav" Master today to add just a bit of sweetening with a little extra punch. It was then re-rendered into 256kbps formatas the MP3.com album release was only 128Kbps.

Until Next time....

dvusMedia -- Numbers Radio

In July 2000 I stumbled into a dingy little USENET group alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo. I could tell it was my kind of place-- the plastic paint was peeling from the walls. Within a short time I was ensconced in my own corner of that polyhedral cathedral of cyberpunk bars in the fading corner of the early Internet era -- USENET.

I met an interesting crowd of folks... most of whom were at least half my age... but the conversations, stories shared and shared stories worked to jump start my faltering creative motor. Between July of 2000 and July of 2002 I composed / remixed about three and a half albums of music plus numerous "Poems for Voice Synthesizer". I published the three albums on MP3.com before they famously sold all of us out

During my stay in the chatsubo [a name which comes from Gibson's Neuromancer by way of the Japanesse word for tea bowl] I even somehow "de-famed" a famous USENET flame giant... or at least that is what he claimed. At the time I was unaware that fame could be an appendage nor was I aware that it could be surgically removed by a USENET post. But it is true that from the way he howled I guess I must have de-famed him--  not that his fame was strongly attached. But I digress...

So here in this blog I will post now and then one of the old tracks or maybe some unreleased tracks. Please note that these tracks are not for commercial broadcast nor for resale. They are intended for personal listening pleasure only. Void where borked. Do not try this at home. Do not fold, spindle or mutilate. Remix only with permission. Use only as directed. Not all music has the same value. Information wants to be free but all bills must be paid first.

Some of the tracks were better than others yet all of them "stretched" the limits of my creative horizons. Some of my friends from those days are still around... and I hope they enjoy the memories.

Today's track is Numbers Radio.

Since the beginning of the Cold war there have been mysterious radio stations acroos the short and medium wave bands which transmit nothing but spoken or voice synthesized recitation of number patterns, Various spy agencies have been implicated but none has ever acknowledged or admitted responsibility fo any of the trans missions..

As I grew up I had a love of "short wave" and had upon occasion heard the live broadcasts. As I was working up material for Sferic Conditioning [the second of the three electronic music albums] I fell into creating a track which musically expressed

Numbers Radio is a techno-electronic mix of audio samples. synths, synth samples and  three voice synths, Head banging music for thinking. The track consists of audio samples of actual electronic transmissions warped and mashed into musicality. Over this were laid three female voice synths speaking the words. I then added a "morse code" Easter egg for those so inclined to look for secret messages.

I love this track for its quirky spikes and squeeks-- perfect music for thinking geeks... but I don't expect everyone to like it.

Take a listen HERE and tell me what you think.