Alley Flights
Youtube user Saboruchan takes us on a journey through a “virtually untouched” abandoned bowling alley in Haikyo, Japan, that opened in 1973 and closed in 2018. Through the modern miracle of a cc-by-sa-nc Creative Commons license, the scene is soundtracked with “Chasing Flight” off my 2016 record Almost X.
Saboruchan’s affection for the abandoned-in-state space and its lost localised grandeur resonates through the video.…
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20220606 nyc sinkhole
music: “Chasing Flight” off my 2016 record Almost X.
The Resurrection of Uncle
That Old Guitar on That Old Guitar
Uncle, a 1934 Gibson L-1 flat-top acoustic, came to me via my wife Cat’s father, Steve, a stellar pianist and big band leader in Chicago. Cat’s great Uncle Ernest, Uncle’s original owner, bequeathed the guitar to Steve.
Cat & I found Uncle (in his original case) in Steve’s basement on a trip to her Chicago home.…
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Almost X
Ten more dice rolls. Records don’t so much freeze as liquify time. I’ve lost years to music. Time is the price you pay, however, to alleviate dreams.
Almost X where X = whom, where, what or even why you want to be. Let’s fly this town, through the looking glass, riding our 99th dream into the stars, towards X.…
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[track] King Jack’s 99th Dream
This track started out life as a disquiet junto challenge a couple years ago:
Assignment: re-tell a single-page comic strip, 99 Ways To Tell A Story [Panel 1], by Matt Madden:
Background (via disquiet.com): “Matt Madden’s single-page comic is the template for a book he created titled 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style.…
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[track] Nothing / Anything
“Nothing means anything.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
LYRICS
There’s no right and wrong or light and dark
There are only in-betweens
When this world gives you no end
And you know nothing but your meansNothing means anything
I crossed state lines and changed my name
Twenty years down that way
Still lost in song; still don’t belong
Nothing’s changed nothing’s changedNothing means anything
It’s how you end,
not where you start
Life is easy –
it’s living that’s hardDispossession, constant rejection
A world designed to keep you low
So the smartest thing you can ever do
Is let goNothing means anything
[track] Since I Heard The Sun
processing darkness with the sun works wonders. may your futures be full of light.
…It’s been so long
since I heard the sun
call my name.
It’s been so long
since I had the power to
light my way.Dreams left me high
and lovely,
(but) in darkness
with life undone.
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[track] chasing flight
ambient.drone.guitar
CHAIN
Pigtronix Infinity Looper –Small Sound / Big Sound Sparkle Motion –SS/BS Mini F*ck –Electro-Faustus EF107 Regurgitator (send/receive: tc electronic flashback –Earthquaker Grand Orbiter) –electro-harmonix SuperEgo (send/receive: EQD Arpanoid –Diamond Tremolo) –EQD Afterneath –Strymon blueSky –Line6 Fender Blackface emulator…
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[track] That Old Guitar
Country-fried me.
special lead guitar guest star: Jason Perkel (switchfactory.com | soundcloud.com/switch-factory | soundcloud.com/halfofsf)
…My wife comes from the South Side of Chicago,
and when she first brought me back in ‘ninety four,
down in the basement of her childhood home
I found an old guitar.She said “That was my great uncle Bill’s,
“I guess he left it to my dad.
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[track] Through The Looking Glass
This track grew out of a poem written in August.
Man, sometimes this world…
:^D
We’re surrounded by people
Who can’t think for themselves
They fear loneliness more than they feel hell
Then take comfort that they can’t even tell
Say goodbye to the world it’s just as wellWe’ve gone through the looking glass
Nothing’s left up ahead we haven’t already passed
Now we’re so alone
We don’t need to turn our backs
We’ve gone through the looking glassWe’re surrounded by people
Who don’t learn for themselves
They buy into the bullshit they turn around and sell
Then take comfort in the lies they tell
Say goodbye to the world it’s just as wellWe’ve gone through the looking glass
But you and me
come from a place beyond time
in the company of love
we live outside the linesWe’re surrounded by people
Who only live for themselves
They drink all the water but can’t dig a well
They say they make love but it’s just a shell
Say goodbye to the world it’s just as well
[track] sedimentronic figures [disquiet0190-missedconnections]
PROCESS
20 bars of Rupert Lally‘s “Sediment Layers”
8 bars of Ahornberg‘s “Digital Frippertronics”
Loads of flying, fluttery harmonics and shifting undertones as these loops cycled together. Rupert Lally’s track loop is 30% right and ahornberg’s is 30% left in the mix and they’re both blended (smeared?)…
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[track] c swells [disquiet0189-tonelayer]
PROCESS
Single notes in the key of C, staggered and stacked to move through different chords. “Attack” was eliminated using a combination of my trusted E-bow fed through an EHX POG2 with its attack setting jacked all the way up for max swell. Tape Delay, Phaser, Reverb added for space travel (or ocean travel as the case may be here).…
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[track] Elena’s Stars
Dusted off some twang for a story of beauty in sadness. Some days, whiskey over absinthe…
…Elena lived on Avenue X,
next to a trestle
all her life.She dreamed of distant places
and of jumping random trains
a thousand times.She craved a sky that let her know she was home.
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[track] fly this town
alan watts reflected in a disco ball
there’s a rip in the galaxy
sounds like wind through a door
it’s headed for us full speed ahead
we’ve got nothing to lose anymoreso no more running from the past
running from the dark
searching through the void
chasing lovelet’s fly this town tonight
dance away from these city lights
take our cues from distant satellites
let’s fly this townover the horizon lies
a ring of endless light
made of the dreams we carried
through our coldest nightsthere’s no more falling out of time
falling for the cons
calling out in vain
waiting on lovelet’s fly this town tonight
dance away from these city lights
take our cues from distant satellites
let’s fly this town