I didn’t buy any new music in the past couple weeks, but Liz McClean Knight (aka Quantazelle) sent me e-mail about the new free compilation she’s releasing on her label SubVariant, Frequencity, and the day before David Powers sent me the promo for the new EP on Klectik, Back To The Islands by Synox. So I just figured out how to jigsaw that collection together, more or less. It ranges from 95 to 170 BPM, so some serious tempo creeping happens throughout. Not to mention the genre U Turns.

Full disclosure, Liz chose a track of mine for the last Subvariant comp Robohustlin, and I’ve had an artist crush on her ever since she played a show in Iowa City years ago. She does a lot of very interesting work in various capacities, from her music, to her electronic component jewelry, to the brilliant Electronic Musician’s Emergency Pack. Women are still relatively rare in Electronic Music, which truth be told is mostly a sausage fest, but the women who do get involved have something unique to offer.

M50 invited me to do a mix for the Streetbeat show on WNUR in Chicago, and it finally aired October 28th. So Now It Can Be Shared.

Sublime Porte, Istanbul

My obligitory left-field choices are ‘Virus’ from Björk, which is lovely, and Enya’s ‘Boadicea.’ The latter has been going through my head for weeks, after I was reminded of it by an oddball mixtape on Soundcloud. My own track “Anguish Riddim” isn’t particularly anguished musically but a several unpleasant changes were happening at the time I was working on it. We’re all OK, but you know, life has plenty of ugly surprises…

I uploaded everyone’s set from the other night, and posted on the Little village site.
http://littlevillagemag.com/content/2011/08/06/ex-action-model-the-binary-marketing-show-dream-thieves-chaircrusher-blue-moose-2011-08-04/

I played last night opening for Ex-Action Model, Binary Marketing Show, and Dream Thieves. I’d have to say that this may have been the strongest bill I’ve ever played on. Totally rad.

But anyway here’s my set.

Download audio file (2011-08-04-ChaircrusherLive.mp3)
http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/2011-08-04-ChaircrusherLive.mp3

I’ve put a new album up on Bandcamp: For Delia Derbyshire 2011-03-10

This EMS Putney came into my hands when I purchased it from Iowa City South East Junior High School in 1997. It is one of the unique artifacts of electronic music. The Putney & it’s close relative, the attache-case-housed Synthi, were workhorse synths at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and was a favorite of musicians like Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, and other Space Rock bands of the 70s.

It’s sonic character derives in large part from the cheapness of the design and construction. Moog Synthesizers were laboratory grade audio equipment; the Putney is cheap and difficult to use in a traditional musical context. And yet it was seductive. It’s limitations and imperfections enlarged musican’s ideas of what sounds could be musical.

Delia Derbyshire was one of the pioneers of electronic music during and after her tenure at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. She was both a gifted composer and an audacious and precise engineer. Since seeing her in documentaries, and hearing her music I’m both awed by her and have a synth-geek’s crush on her. She was on my mind as I recorded these pieces, and I dedicate them to her memory.

The 5 parts of this piece were recorded in one evening, with no editing or overdubbing. The Putney was plugged into the Stereo Memory Man pedal, and the pedal was plugged into my computer.

The only post processing applied was normalization. These recordings are as close to the original, raw sound of the instrument as I could make them.

Download audio file (2011-03-05-DJSet.mp3)
http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/2011-03-05-DJSet.mp3

A little different than the last few sets I’ve done, as I brought the computer; I just didn’t have enough fresh vinyl for a show. It’s a combination of things that have been on mind, some for months, some as recent as this week. The Darkstar album North has been haunting me since it came out last year. Incredibly moody, emotional music.

Of course, for some of us, Radiohead’s new album King Of Limbs has been a recent obsession. It’s without hit singles, per se, but it does have something of what the Darkstar album has — inventive sound design & production as a way to make emotional connections. The When Saints Go Machine song “Fail Forever” is a recommendation from my son Lucas, who is music director at the Earlham College Radio Station. I never was into Radiohead before Lucas fell hard for them when he was 11; I got him to listen to Arthur Russell, so he knew I’d like anything that had some of that AR magic to it. I’m not sure When Saints Go Machine are Arthur Russell heads, but “Fail Forever” is haunted by him.

And then there’s Anika, who I was turned onto by Peter Kirn’s interview with her. The eponymous Anika is produced by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, and has the sort of dark, noisy, rough production values that make the Jamaican work by Lee Perry and Clement Dodd so compelling. Two of the songs I played appealed to the hippy pacifist in me, Dylan’s “Masters of War” and Greta Ann’s “Sadness Hides The Sun.” Odd, but not that odd, that 60s era protest folks songs are so relevant still. Same assholes killing brown people then as now.

And there are 3 of my tracks, for better or worse. The Pete tracks are meant to get some additional instrumentation added when I can get Pete Balestrieri captured to put down some saxaphone, but I kind of like Music Minus One sounding stuff. Then there’s my shoutout to Muammar Gadaffi, “Hallucinogens in the Nescafe” which I wrote about earlier. He really is an epically evil motherfucker, and sometimes I think he says the hilarious things he does to soften the blow of his unrelenting, remorseless cruelty. He’s not Charlie Sheen, and of course, Charlie Sheen is another real-time tragedy whose humorous aspects can’t be denied.

But I couldn’t resist last night during my show when I tweeted “Thom Yorke doesn’t have tiger blood, innit? Tabby blood maybe.”

On a technical note, this mix is a cleaned up in a few places from the on-air performance — I was warping tracks in a mad rush yesterday and a couple of things were fucked up, resulting in dead air, tracks falling out of time, and one track getting played twice as fast as it ought to have been. There was one hilarious moment when somehow the tempo was following mouse movements when I wasn’t initially aware, so one track swung up and down between 120 and 200 bpm for a few seconds. But I photoshopped that out.

In the Herzog film Strozek Bruno S shows a small sculpture of twisted wire and says “this is a schematic model of how it looks inside Bruno. They’re closing all the doors on him.”

So this track goes out to my boy Muammar Gaddafi; it’s a schematic diagram of how it looks inside Muammar. Thug Life 4Ever, Brotherly Leader and Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya!

Download audio file (ChairCrusher-HallucinogensInTheNescafe.mp3)
http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/ChairCrusher-HallucinogensInTheNescafe.mp3

For those who give a shit about such things:

Drums: Battery3 with tweaked percussion presets.
Funny noises: 2 instances of Reaktor.
High synth: Jupiter6
Bass: FM8
Effects: Audiodamage Dubstation delay, Audiodamage Eos reverb, UAD EMT140 Reverb (on filtered snares), a Reaktor BBD delay simulator, UAD LA2 Compressor on some tracks, Audiodamage RoughRider Compressor on others. UAD Pultec EQ on some percussion sounds.

Sequenced in Live, several passes of live recording of effects tweaks. This was actually a track that came together when I was actually focusing on something else — i.e. it was a scratch track to test something.

There’s some overlap in tracks played with my September DJ Mix, but this mix is longer, and starts out with a sampling of the many amazing tracks by the recently-departed and deeply missed Aaron Carl Ragland.

The funny thing about Aaron Carl is that I knew him as a person first and as a fan of his music second. When he came out with his WARMTH compilation last year I did a mix using its tracks, and I began chatting with AC on line, and spoke with him a few times on the phone. It was only after that that I started exploring his catalog and began to realize what a rare, original talent he was. It’s sad when anyone dies, but in AC’s case, he was really coming into his own as a producer and label head, and he was full of great plans both for his own music and of ways to give back to his beloved city of Detroit. When he got sick he had to cancel a European tour that I’m sure would have been a triumph. I really loved the guy, and he will be truly missed.

Download audio file (Chaircrusher-2010-10-09-KRUI-Mix.mp3)
http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-2010-10-09-KRUI-Mix.mp3

This is what Google Image Search comes up with if you search for “UK Bass”
Sequenced live in Ableton Live — 45 tracks in 99 minutes. Starts at 100 BPM and ends at 142. I find it hard to stick with one particular beat so there are some hectic transitions.

Download audio file (Chaircrusher-SeptemberMix.mp3)
http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-SeptemberMix.mp3

All the hootenanny about PaulStretch got me playing with it again, and this is what I came up with. As my vrave buddies used to say ‘very ambient.’

Download audio file (Chaircrusher-Expemsible.mp3)

http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-Expemsible.mp3

The source material was a couple of samples downloaded from the Internet — a drumloop and a bassline. I added the phaser effect. So the original audio was on the order of 2 seconds long.

It’s been mad stupid hot in Iowa City this summer. I like it that way! There’s nothing wrong with sweating. Which is something you learn if you like to go dancing in a club. Somehow the hotter and sweatier it is, the better.

To satisfy this need for humidty I’ve assembled a mix out of things I’ve bought in the past few months. This comprises what I’m listening to when I’m walking the dogs late at night.

Thanks for promos to: Lenny Burden (Octave One) & Stefan Robbers (2Junxion). Drop me a line if you want to send me promos — chaircrusher at gmail dot com.

ALL OTHER TRACKS LEGALLY PURCHASED. Except for the Chaircrusher ones, which I produced.

Download audio file (Chaircrusher-Summer2010-Mix.mp3)
http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-Summer2010-Mix.mp3

Track List

In honor of DEMF underway right f*cking now — without me.

As Greg Davis pointed out to me last night, making music with just sine tones isn’t an original idea. But for me, the simple setup of 4 sine wave synths in Ableton Live, set up such that I could jam out live felt really good. In the context of live music in 2010 I’d have to say I heard a lot more raw sawtooths and white noise than sine waves. The purity of sine tones is seductive to me. Sines are a mathematic abstraction, a Platonic ideal, that you can perceive with your senses.

I originally was going to record the set in Live –i.e. record MIDI and fader actions, but instead I captured the performance along with room sound using my Zoom H4. Not to get all po-mo, but the people blabbing, cracking open beers, the dodgy PA, and even the sound of ventilation system give what I did a texture the ‘pure’ recording would never have had. There’s a moment about 3 minutes in that I love, where my friend John Schlotfelt shushed the audience. Apparently a fair number of people hadn’t recognized that a performance had begun. That I was cross-legged on the floor, facing the wall, might have had something to do that, but honestly, it would have been just fine with me if they’d carried on chatting all the way through.

Dawn's Back Room, Matt Steele & Stephanie on left, Zoom H4 on right

Somewhere in all the re-mixing and remastering, something screwy crept into my original version of the Sergeant Ridiculous track. So if you downloaded either the Zip or the original track, you can get the new improved version without the drums cutting out inexplicably. Sorry for the very unprofessional fuck up. As it happens, I am an unprofessional fuckup.

Thanks to Stefan Robbers, the sideways namesake for this release for letting me know about this.

Download audio file (Chaircrusher-SergeantRidiculous.mp3)
http://www.cornwarning.com/sgtridiculous/Chaircrusher-SergeantRidiculous.mp3

The zip of the entire release is updated as well. Go to the Sergeant Ridiculous Page to grab it… and tell your friends and enemies and frenemies.

Sergeant Ridiculous, Tumescent In Repose

The “Sergeant Ridiculous EP” is two new Chaircrusher tracks, with remixes by Sean Deason, Mike Perkowitz, Dave Powers, Chris O’Grady, and Andrew Duke. Go here for audio previews and downloads.

Download audio file (ChairCrusher-TheOffice.mp3)
The Office

The percussion is all banging stuff in my office with a sharpie, a bottle opener, and my knuckles. Including banging on the Presonus preamp that I was using at the time, a can of compressed air, etc.

http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/OfficeSamples.zip

Nothing to do with the television show, though I do enjoy it. Unless you see it as an auditory representation of the soul-killing ennui of cubicle life.

The chaotic higher synth sound is the Mopho, bass sound is Ableton’s Analog….

Well it took 4 days, but my shiny new Pluggo is authorized. In honor of this I put together a sort of fake techno jam:
Download audio file (Chaircrusher-Pluggotest.mp3)
Pluggo Test

All sounds are from Pluggo Instruments — Analog Drums, Analog Percussion, Deep Bass, Additive Heaven. Pluggo FX are Feeback Network and Chamberverb. Other than that I used a limiter on the channel playing the Feedback Network.

Of course, Pluggo is wacky, and one unusual wackiness is that the instruments can stumble rhythmically. You can hear this happening at 1:16…

I can see why a lot of people don’t think very highly of Pluggo; compared to a lot of other plugins they’re kind of difficult to control and they can sound really raw, even ugly. Of course those are the things I like about them. They’re a nice compromise between the
low level monkeying you have to do with Reaktor or Max, and the limited sonic possibilities of more straightforward plugins.

Oh and ‘Pluggo’ is also, apparently, the manufacturer of of machines that put the rubber caps on sterile blood sample vials.

I’ve been meaning to do this for some time, so here goes. This is a collection of unreleased songs from my back catalog. There’s all sorts of genres represented, but in choosing the tracks, I tried to pick songs that were the best example of I was doing at any given time. I haven’t dated them here, but some of them date themselves. For example, when was it a big deal to do an Amen break track? When were 90BPM hip hop instrumentals something people made a million of?

These tracks are lousy with uncleared samples; consequently if anyone actually recognizes a sample of their work and objects I’ll remove the file.

If someone takes a particular shine to a track and wants to remix it let me know. Most of these only exist as mixdowns of long-lost percursor files and sequences, but if I can provide individual sounds, I’d be happy to.

So Far So So — one zip file

1. NYEDownload audio file (01%20NYE.mp3)

2. Morton’s Shadow (samples from Morton Subotnick “Silver Apples of the Moon” and DJ Shadow) Download audio file (02%20Morton%27s%20Shadow.mp3)

3. LucasDownload audio file (03%20Lucas.mp3)

4. Noise DubDownload audio file (04%20Noise%20Dub.mp3)

5. Grandiose (with Lucas Williams on Guitar)Download audio file (05%20Grandiose.mp3)

6. Sweetness (samples Lush)Download audio file (06%20Sweetness.mp3)

7. WindchimeDownload audio file (07%20Windchime.mp3)

8. Monked (samples Theleonius Monk and Weather Report)Download audio file (08%20Monked.mp3)

9. The Wrong Trousers (with Axy Jeeb)Download audio file (09%20The%20Wrong%20Trousers.mp3)

10. MaydayDownload audio file (10%20Mayday.mp3)

11. Little Miss (samples Raymond Scott and Elaine Elias)Download audio file (11%20little%20miss.mp3)

12. Inna (samples Inna & the Farlanders)Download audio file (12%20Inna.mp3)

13. Hubert (samples Hubert Laws)Download audio file (13%20Hubert.mp3)

14. Honey (samples (samples Sweet Honey In The Rock)Download audio file (14%20Honey.mp3)

15. Gee WhyDownload audio file (15%20Gee%20Why.mp3)

16. Busy SignalDownload audio file (16%20BusySignal.mp3)

17. AD Remix (based on samples from Andrew Duke)Download audio file (17%20AD%20Remix.mp3)

18. Labor DayDownload audio file (18%20Labor%20Day.mp3)

19. Nativity (samples some crazy bible story 7″ record)Download audio file (19%20Nativity.mp3)

20. Redux Download audio file (20%20Redux.mp3)

SO FAR SO SO by Kent Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.cornwarning.com.