2011 – Johan Ess: Occult Celebrity (Solarno’s Death Rattle Remix)
This track steps out of my normal world of writing or remixing. While I have dabbled in industrial in the past and Trent Reznor’s production style has had a significant influence on me at times, the original for this song veers strongly into the avant garde of the industrial scene, and definitely out of my usual sphere of influence. This made for an interesting and very fulfilling challenge as I had to work my usual style around sounds and structures that were basically foreign to me. (more…)
2011 – Moby: Go (Solarno’s Lounge Attack Remix)
This is a jazzy little remix I did back in 2007 of Moby’s seminal 1990 single Go. I recently decided to remaster it to bring it up to my current harmonic standards. The original master had a decidedly muted sound due to my not being overly familiar with multi band compressing or exciters at the time. In my mind the overall mix still has a few minor issues, but I did not want to go in and start making changes just for the sake of making changes as it still holds its own.
I really like the idea of the laid back jazz groove replacing what was considered a techno classic back in the day. I believe that Moby’s learning of classical music theory at a young age allowed him to create more complex music than many of his contemporaries in the late 80′s and early 90′s. This natural complexity and depth that he brings to even his early music like Go is a big reason why it so naturally slides into other genres of music.
Enjoy!
If you like what you hear, you can download the MP3 by clicking the download button in the player.
2011 – SKatterBrain: King Jellyfish (Solarno’s Disco Death Mix)
A little less evil. A little more disco. That pretty much sums up this remix of SKatterBrain’s dubstep wonder, King Jellyfish. I’ve downplayed the prominent dubstep wobbles in favor of a hard disco feel with a driving bassline. The heavy wobbles of the original now become a bit sparser, intending to add variation and interest. The main vocal hook (“The jellyfish are so heavy”) is used a number of times to glue the track together.
To chop up the provided wobble track, I segmented it into one measure chunks and then dropped those individual .wav’s into Logic’s EXS sampler as a new instrument. This allowed me to ‘play’ the short wobble sections as I would any sampler instrument. The new bassline was created using impOSCar, with a secondary bassline from Massive. A new pad track was added using impOSCar to supplement the original synth stab track. Noise sweeps were done with Logic’s ES P synth. And finally, all drums/percussion are from an instance of Ultrabeat.
Hope you enjoyed the track. Thanks for listening. If you like the track you can download the MP3 by hitting the download button in the player.
Cheers!
Jim
The original can be found here: http://music.dan303.com/album/king-jellyfish-machines
And make sure you check out Dan’s main site: www.voltage-controlled.com
2011 – Hark! The Herald Robots Sing! – a Holiday EP
1. Hark! The Herald Robots Sing!
2. Ukranian Bell Song
3. Good King Wenceslas
4. Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabelle
What self respecting robot doesn’t love a rousing round of Holiday carols? Here are four carols presented by my house robot band, The Singing Sines, including two where they decide to sing. (more…)
2011 – Kyanos EP
1. Methane 1
2. Methane 2
3. Stone of Lazhward
4. Starling 520
Kyanos is the first in a series of EPs that will explore the nature, science, and history of color.
Kyanos is the ancient Greek word that eventually became known to describe the color we know today as cyan. Contained here are four songs inspired by the search for information surrounding the color cyan. (more…)
My Name in Print! In Future Music 243!
Navin R Johnson once opined, “I’m somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity – your name in print – that makes people. I’m in print! Things are going to start happening to me now.” Yes, that’s how I felt today after I wandered into my local Barnes & Noble to see if the new issue of Future Music Magazine was in yet. Future Music is a British publication that focuses on production techniques and technology for those who play in the electronic music medium. While I don’t buy it every month (6-9 times a year), I find it to be a highly valuable read and I learn something from every issue. One neat monthly feature is the Demo section where they list their 10 favorite reader submitted demos along with a brief critique. Every month I would see this section and think that I should submit something. So back in July, after I finished the ‘Robot Junkyard – Deriviative‘ album, I finally decided to submit a track to be considered for their Reader Demos section. It’s a pretty simple process. You find the Soundcloud dropbox on their website, choose one of your original tracks, write a brief description with some minimal contact info, and hit submit. (more…)
New Album and Charitable Donations From Solarno
Two announcements to make:
1) ‘Robot Junkyard – Derivative’ is now available throughout the interwebs!
2) Solarno now giving 50% of net proceeds of all sales to charitable organizations!
Yes, ‘Derivative’ is finally available at all of your favorite digital download sites including iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, Bandcamp, and more. ’Derivative’ takes away the sound palate restrictions of the original ‘Robot Junkyard’ and breathes new life into most of the songs by looking at each one through a different lens. ’Deriviative’ includes two remixes from producer Echo Chaser.
I am now going to be using my Solarno music project as a vehicle to raise funds for two non-profits that are deserving of any help they get. 50% of the net proceeds from the sales of Solarno music will be split between the American Red Cross and the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA).
The American Red Cross is an organization well known to most around the world, IMBA not so much. IMBA helps local agencies around the world build and maintain quality mountain bike trails, negotiate for expanded wilderness access, and generally make riding a bike more fun for more people. I can tell you that as an 18 year cycling industry vet, IMBA is one of the most valuable and beneficial assets the industry has. Please check the links for more info on either group. Even if you don’t purchase any music by Solarno, please consider giving.
As always, if you like what you hear from Solarno, please become a fan on Facebook.
2011 – Robot Junkyard – Derivative
1. Last March of the Robot Junkyard
2. Fuzzy Logic (Wobbly Logic Mix)
3. Cyclic Connection (Glytch-pop Mix)
4. Binary Alphabet (Fourth Door Mix)
5. Digital Information (Echo Chaser Remix)
6. Digital Singularity (Orbifold Vocal Mix)
7. Cross Platform Discoteque (Organs of Corti Mix)
8. The Replicators (Cheese in the Cactus Mix)
9. Rise (2006 Blue Sky Mix)
10. La versione per pianoforte di connessione ciclica
11. The Replicators (Echo Chaser Breakdown Edit)
12. Digital Singularity (Orbifold Dub Mix)
13. Digital Information (Original 1992 Version)
A 6-page digital booklet containing full liner notes and album artwork is available here:
Digital Booklet
Robot Junkyard – Derivative takes the simple beauty that is Solarno’s 2010 release Robot Junyard and throws off the shackles of its self-imposed limitations. Where the 2010 album was an experiment with expanding the boundaries of a single instrument, Derivative is an experiment in expanding the boundaries of each individual song. Each song is both remix and re-interpretation, taking the listener to new destinations not imagined when listening to the original Robot Junkyard. (more…)
For When I’m Not Writing Music
Hey, one can’t possibly write music all the time, especially when I still spend the better part of my days helping to save the world from inferior cycling products. So when I’m just not feeling the inspiration to sit down at the synth controller sometimes I’ll just pop a shiny silver disc into my xbox 360 and let my mind wander into another world. BTW, my gamertag on xbox live is solarno72. Feel free to hit me up.
My latest wanderings have taken me into the mud covered world of rally racing courtesy DiRT3 from Codemasters. I’m a fan of many racing games, but rally sims are by far my favorite of the genre. I love getting vicariously dirty, rolling a car multiple times at 100+mph, and walking away from it. (more…)
Review of ‘Vulcan Foundry’ by Dementio13
Clicky drones? Check.
Punchy drums? Check.
Staccato arpeggiations? Check.
The ability to make you dance without a traditional dance song structure? Check.
If we step into the wayback machine and punch up the mid-90′s, cross-referenced with only those four short descriptors, you’d quickly narrow down your search. At the top would be Orbital. (Full disclosure, Orbital is one of my favorite bands of all time, and a big influence on my own productions.) But we’re not in the mid 90′s anymore, so let’s get back to the future-present and punch in those same descriptors. Well, we still have Orbital, but they are not alone anymore. I recently stumbled across a gem of an EP thanks to Twitter. One that joyfully mixes the new with the old, paying tribute to and improving upon a proven recipe. (more…)