Happy new year. Today I have been playing this wonderful video game & wanted to share some beautiful screenshots I took. Hope you enjoy & if you’re curious maybe check the game out.
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The Breakmagos Collection Vol.1 comprises of two EP’s I originally released under the Breakmagos moniker in 2014 & 2016: The Lovecode EP (tracks 1-6) & The Brinkmanship EP (tracks 7-11). The tracks on the Lovecode EP were created between 2011-2013, the name came from the artwork (see below). The Brinkmanship EP was created from some some files I found of finished tracks from before my laptop died in 2015. The original files were all lost but I’d uploaded these tracks to Google Drive so that I could play them through a BlueTooth speaker. I named the EP Brinkmanship because I felt that the tracks had been rescued from the brink of being lost. Several songs were in fact lost during this laptop death, though I recently recovered more on an old iPod which eventually made it onto another release, Shit From An Old iPod.
The artwork for the collection is a photograph of a safety sticker on a Low Level Order Picker (LLOP) truck where I work which I have digitally manipulated in a piece of software called Hyperspektiv and layered in another piece of software called SnapSeed. I thought that there was a quasi-religious vibe to the image & therefore named it, before selecting it for the cover of this album, Worship False Idols.
This artwork was created by right clicking on a photo of the Beatles playing All You Need Is Love & opening it in TextEdit. I then took a screenshot of a random selection of code.
This is a photograph of a halloween themed dog toy which my dog, Titch, was playing with. It was inspired by the cover art of two Sonic Youth albums: Bad Moon Rising & Dirty.
Take Up Thy Plasma Caster & Vape
The groundwork for this track was begun in 2011 when I was trying to wrap my head around sidechaining in Logic Pro. Its original title was SidechainExperiment. As such, it is built around rhythmic patterns created by sidechaining kick drums to fuzzy pad sounds. The title is a homage to two disparate influences: Fallout: New Vegas (which I was probably playing at the time) & Pink Floyd (specifically their song Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk). I don’t think I was aware of vaping as an alternative to smoking at this point & definitely didn’t use it as a verb. I use the word here as Sci-Fi slang for vaporising someone (usually with an energy weapon).
2. Synaptic Disintegrator
I don’t remember much about the production of this tune except for the fact that the main bass tone is created by running a sampled 808 boom through a VST distortion effect called CamelCrusher. The track is named after a weapon from the tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000. Synaptic Disintegrators are the sniper rifle-type weapons wielded by Necron Deathmarks, a kind of sentient robot sniper to the uninitiated. Think Joe Pineapples from A.B.C. Warriors. I remember uploading this track to Soundcloud as a free download/Christmas gift on Christmas Eve 2012.
3. Cyber Analogue Steam Punk
This track begun life as part of a suite of tracks I composed as part of a community music project centred around the concept of journeys. The suite was based on the journey from Earth to Mars in the Alastair Reynolds novel Blue Remembered Earth. This track was originally entitled Martian Railroad & did not include the vocal sample. The vocal sample is taken from a news broadcast about American politicians debating cybersecurity. The snare sound is sampled from the clack of a steam trains runners in motion & the main textures are sampled from the noise of a cassette tape. At one point the working title was Steamtape, but after adding the vocal sample, it became Cyber Analogue Steam Punk to encompass the disparate elements.
4. Reanimation Protocols
Another one I remember very little about, except for playing around with tiny slivers of noises loaded into a drum machine VST. The title comes from a rule for Warhammer 40,000 Necrons which allows them to return to the field after being destroyed, a kind of advanced autorepair. I remember the synths are all made with a VST called Magical 8Bit by YMCK.
5. Space Powder
I believe this was just an attempt to recreate some of the futuristic Hip Hop tunes I was hearing by artists like Flying Lotus & Samiyam. The synth parts are semi-improvised & the beats are intentionally a bit wonky. The title came from a poem I wrote when I was about 17.
6. Guncrawl
Another one with little memory. The title comes from a table top boardgame/RPG which is a kind-of Sci-Fi version of classic dungeon crawlers like HeroQuest & Descent. I thought it was a great title so I stole it.
7. Cyber Swamp
Cyber Swamp is built around a swirling, evolving mess of sound which is created by a simple sine wave (generated by the aforementioned YMCK Magical 8Bit VST) played through a long, complex signal chain of filters & delays. I think I named it Cyber Swamp because it sounded like swarming cybernetic insects. I added a halftime beat and a squelchy bass synth because it just felt right.
8. Disconnect
This tune is a hamfisted first attempt at emulating the ‘phasing’ techniques pioneered by avant-garde composers like Steve Reich. The general concept is that you have multiple versions of the same part, usually a melody, playing on different tape players. The minute differences in speed between the different tapes would cause the parts to drift in and out of phase with each other creating interesting melodic & rhythmic variations. In this instance I created three instances of the same synth part & time stretched one to be a bar shorter than the original & one to be a bar longer. Despite not quite achieving what I set out to, I was still pleased with the result. Originally made for Week 8 of Weekly Beats 2014.
9. Polystyrene
This is another track which began life as part of Weekly Beats 2014. Week 35 this time. This was a last minute experiment where I, with a massive case of writers block, cut up the intro to an older song into small slices & loaded them up into a drum machine. I programmed rhythmic patterns with them & treated each slice independently with delay, distortion etc. It was a satisfying, if random, experiment & I enjoyed it a lot. I was more pleased with the result than I’d anticipated.
10. Enigmatic Hive Mind
This is yet another song from Weekly Beats 2014, Week 21. This is a slightly more successful experiment with the avant-garde phasing technique. In this instance I have multiple versions of the same drum track playing simultaneously with the tiniest variations in speed. The drum tracks drift in & out of time with each other causing some fairly chaotic rhythmic variations. One Weekly Beats user described the sound as like ‘hesitant sandpaper’. I was, & remain, exceedingly proud of this comment.
11. While My Synthesiser Gently Bleeps
This was another experiment with the same wall of randomised, swirling noise as Cyber Swamp. Recorded entirely in one take, this track was just a fun, experimental jam I performed & recorded one night. I never anticipated that it would be good enough to keep. I think you can all guess what I’m satirising with the title.
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I’ve had an intense few weeks with both increasing workloads at work & other study related stresses. As a result, my blogging has suffered and I’ve neglected to post anything for a couple of weeks. Firstly, my apologies to my regular readers and secondly, I intend to pick up where I left off with Song of the Day from tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a sneak preview of some ‘millennial humour’ I’ve been collecting and plan to write a piece about.This was inspired, mostly, by the first image below.
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Apologies for the long delay between Song of the Day posts. Due to a hectic schedule I’ve fallen behind a little but I’ll attempt to remedy that going forward.
This song (& its great video) have been coming on a lot recently when I just leave YouTube playing & as such it’s getting stuck in my head quite a lot recently. Great song by a great artist that everyone should be checking out if they haven’t yet. Her recent album, Punisher, is a strong contender for album of the year.
I hate you for what you did And I miss you like a little kid I faked it every time, but that’s alright I can hardly feel anything I hardly feel anything at all
You gave me fifteen hundred To see your hypnotherapist I only went one time, you let it slide Fell on hard times a year ago Was hoping you would let it go and you did
I have emotional motion sickness Somebody roll the windows down There are no words in the English language I could scream to drown you out
I’m on the outside looking through You’re throwing rocks around your room And while you’re bleeding on your back in the glass I’ll be glad that I made it out And sorry that it all went down like it did
I have emotional motion sickness Somebody roll the windows down There are no words in the English language I could scream to drown you out
And why do you sing with an English accent? I guess it’s too late to change it now You know I’m never gonna let you have it But I will try to drown you out
You said when you met me you were bored You said when you met me you were bored And you, you were in a band when I was born
I have emotional motion sickness I try to stay clean and live without And I wanna know what would happen If I surrender to the sound Surrender to the sound
Check out the Song of the Day (Chaotic Neutral) Spotify playlist.
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I found this poster on a Manic Street Preachers fan page on Facebook and I just liked it so much I felt the need to share it. Hope you like it as much as I do.
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A bit of a surprise for me. I was getting my music ready for my cycle ride to work a couple of days ago; I wanted to listen to my favourite handful of System Of A Down tunes: Suite-Pea, Chop Suey, Toxicity, Know & Sugar; I’d be cycling into my work’s carpark as Sugar was ending so it’s a great cycle of songs for the ride. When I clicked onto their Spotify page I saw that they had release two new songs. It’s taken me a few days to get around to it but I finally listened to them today.
This is the exact kind of politically-charged agitprop you’d a) expect & b) the world could do with right now. This feels particularly weird in the context of public clashes between frontman Serj Tankian & drummer John Dolmayan over the latter’s support for populist, far-right American president Donald Trump. Nevertheless, these songs – the bands first in fifteen years – are a breath of fresh air in 2020. An enraged call for justice against war crimes in Armenia and indeed all over the developing world & the global south. A polemical roar against western Imperialism.
The songs are about, & in response to, complicated situations in & around the band’s ancestral homeland Armenia. I personally don’t feel knowledgable enough about these events to discuss them in detail but the band released the following statement on their Bandcamp page:
We as System Of A Down have just released new music for the first time in 15 years. The time to do this is now, as together, the four of us have something extremely important to say as a unified voice. These two songs, “Protect The Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz” both speak of dire and serious acts of aggression perpetrated upon our cultural homelands of Artsakh and Armenia.
We’re proud to share these songs with you and hope you enjoy listening to them. Further, we encourage you to read on to learn more about their origins and once you do, we hope you are inspired to speak out about the horrific injustices and human rights violations occurring there now. Most importantly and urgently, we humbly implore you to donate, in sums small or large to help those adversely affected with what are ever growing accounts of crimes against humanity.
In turn, you will receive downloads of these two new songs and the feeling that you’re truly making a difference. These funds will be used to provide crucial and desperately needed aid and basic supplies for those affected by these hideous acts.
On September 27, the combined forces of Azerbaijan and Turkey (along with Isis terrorists from Syria) attacked the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, which we as Armenians call Artsakh. For the following 44 days, civilians young and old were awakened day and night by the frightful sights and sounds of rocket attacks, falling bombs, missiles, drones and terrorist attacks. They had to find sanctuary in makeshift shelters, trying to avoid the fallout of outlawed cluster bombs raining down on their streets and homes, hospitals and places of worship. Their attackers set their forests and endangered wildlife ablaze using white phosphorus, another banned weapon.
And Why?
Because over 30 years ago in 1988, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (which at the time was an Autonomous Oblast within the USSR), were tired of being treated as second class citizens and decided to declare their rightful independence from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic whose borders engulfed their own. This ultimately led to a war of self-determination by Armenians in Karabakh against Azerbaijan that ended in a cease fire in 1994, with Armenians retaining control of their ancestral homelands and maintaining their independence to the present day. Our people have lived there for millennia, and for most families there, it’s the only home they and their forefathers and mothers have ever known. They just want to live in peace on their ancestral homeland as they have for centuries.
The current corrupt regimes of Aliyev in Azerbaijan and Erdogan in Turkey have now claimed most of these lands as their own, and committed genocidal acts with impunity on humanity and wildlife to achieve their mission. They banked on the world being too distracted with COVID, elections and civil unrest to call out their atrocities, and their tactic worked. They have the bankroll, the resources and have recruited massive public relations firms to spin the truth and conceal their barbaric objectives. This is not the time to turn a blind eye.
There is an immediate need for global citizens to urge their respective governments to not only condemn the actions of these crooked dictators, but to also insist world leaders act with urgency to impose sanctions punishing them for their war crimes.
We realize that for many of you, there are more convenient ways you like listening to music, so please consider the opportunity to download these songs as an act of charity above all else. Think of the list price for the downloads as a minimum donation, and if you have the ability and can be more generous with your donation, every single member of System Of A Down will be even more grateful for your benevolence. Band royalties from this initiative will be donated to Armenia Fund, a US based charity organization instrumental in providing those in need in Artsakh and Armenia with supplies needed for their basic survival.
The music and lyrics speak for themselves. We need you to speak for Artsakh.
Peace,
Daron, Shavo, John and Serj
Protect The Land/Genocidal Humanoidz is available now on all good streaming services & digital distributors but to help the cause, why not purchase these songs from the band’s Bandcamp page.
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A fellow member of a Facebook group, the best indie album ever, posted this video tonight, asking if anyone else was into mid ’80’s Wire. Oh yes, I certainly am. I love this period of Wire , this song is a personal favourite & I was surprised to see so little Wire in previous series of Song of the Day (except for Outdoor Miner way back in the A-Z series). As an added bonus, I have included a live version recorded for KEXP in 2011. Enjoy.
Natural splits sunburn jets pride marks smart bets Strikers luck pitch backs heap tips pit slacks Dressed pints demon shrinks bread drunk dead drinks Stretch clubs models box draw skin black shocks
Money spines paper lung kidney bingos organ fun
Flag stunt rock stone dole axe crash dive Breath thrift take speed double take weekends Skull row drugs hall colour bars sex calls Sparkle finds rented rings pretty things clipped wings
Gold street spy fleet scandal food poor treat Fire run club gun rule mob burn some Bomb time pop crime stock frame steady climb Fresh name donor game fair meat all the same
Looking for some great music?
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Thought of The Prodigy’s Firestarter today after hearing a parody by anti-Conservative music group The Iain Duncan Smiths called Childstarver by Boris Johnson (“crony subcontractor, Serco benefactor”).
Unfortunately, I have chosen Firestarter previously, in the Song of the Day (The Chain) series. As a worthy substitute I have chosen The Prodigy’s (in my opinion superior) follow-up single Breathe. I’ve also added the video of Childstarver as a bonus.
Breathe with me
Breathe the pressure Come play my game, I’ll test ya Psychosomatic, addict, insane Breathe the pressure Come play my game, I’ll test ya Psychosomatic, addict, insane Come play my game Inhale, inhale, you’re the victim Come play my game Exhale, exhale, exhale
Breathe the pressure Come play my game, I’ll test ya Psychosomatic, addict, insane Breathe the pressure Come play my game, I’ll test ya Psychosomatic, addict, insane Come play my game Inhale, inhale, you’re the victim Come play my game Exhale, exhale, exhale
Come breathe with me Breathe with meBreathe the pressure Come play my game, I’ll test ya Psychosomatic, addict, insane Breathe the pressure Come play my game, I’ll test ya Psychosomatic, addict, insane Come play my game Inhale, inhale, you’re the victim Come play my game Exhale, exhale, exhaleBreathe with meBreathe the pressure Come play my game, I’ll test ya Psychosomatic, addict, insane Breathe the pressure Come play my game, I’ll test ya Psychosomatic, addict, insane Come play my game Inhale, inhale, you’re the victim Come play my game Exhale, exhale, exhale
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Weird how we’ve travelled from the paranoid, Post-Punk prog of Peter Gabriel’s Games Without Frontiers to this absolute powerhouse of a Pop Punk anthem. I might not talk, or write, about ’90’s Pop Punk artists very often but I do love The Offspring & a bunch of their contemporaries through a mainly nostalgic vibe. All I Want is just the perfect expression of rage against authority. I especially, as a working class warehouse worker, get a shiver down my spine from “I’m sick of not living to stay alive.”
Copying & pasting these lyrics has left it in a really weird formatting. The professional thing to do would be to correct it, but truth be told, I kind of like it:
Day after day your home life’s a wreck The powers that be just Breathe down your neck You get no respect You get no relief
You gotta speak up And yell out your piece So back off your rules Back off your jive ‘Cause I’m sick of not living
To stay alive Leave me alone I’m not asking a lot I just don’t want to be controlled
That’s all I want All I want How many times is it gonna take ‘Til someone around you hears what you say
You’ve tried being cool You feel like a lie You’ve played by their rules Now it’s their turn to try
So back off your rules Back off your jive ‘Cause I’m sick of not living To stay alive
Leave me alone I’m not asking a lot I just don’t want to be controlled That’s all I want
All I want I said it before I’ll say it again If you could just listen
Then it might make sense
Looking for some great music? Why not check out the Song of the Day (Chaotic Neutral) Spotify playlist?
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