The Reviews Are In, And…
Sometimes it is amazing what can happen when you ask. Why just a few short years ago I asked my utterly fantastic wife if she would marry me, and she said yes! More recently, with the release of my EP Rauthaz, I reached out to a UK writer/blogger who had shortly before reviewed the new album Crash St by my friend Paul Foster aka Dementio13. Not a month later I get a couple of e-mails stating that I was tagged in corresponding Twitter and Facebook posts. What those posts linked to was a series of new mini-reviews from Oliver Arditi which included Rauthaz. I was ecstatic, and nervous. One aspect of being a musician, or any type of artist for that matter, is that the creator never really knows how the observer is going to interpret their work. Will they ‘get it’? Will they like it? Will it garner any type of emotional response at all? I was about to find out. Read below for the snippets and links. (more…)
2012 – Chico Mann: I Feel It (Solarno Echoes of Mann Remix)
This is my submission for the Chico Mann “I Feel It” remix contest being hosted by Novation and Focusrite. I really have no idea if this remix is good enough to be considered for the final voting as these contests always draw amazing submissions, but I’m proud of this one. It’s not my usual remix style, but it flowed amazingly well from me as I put it together. I built the remix around the provided vocal hits and some of the guitar rhythms. I decided to something a little different than my recent work so I drifted into the world of Drum & Bass for this with a healthy dose of dubstep for the final quarter of the piece. At 160bpm it’s a bit slow for traditional DnB, but it still moves along with punchy energy. (more…)
2012 – Rauthaz EP
1. The Red Apple
2. Dimmesdale’s Angel
3. Population Inversion
4. 36Ar + 4He = Love
5. Dimmesdale’s Angel (Acapella Edit)
Passion. Intensity. Love. Hate. Power. Fire. Sin. Courage. War. Heroism. Health. Death. Depending on where you live on this broad planet of ours, the color red is used to symbolize all of the above emotions and concepts. Red is among the most visible colors and therefore inspires strong reactions, both positive and negative. Contained here are four songs inspired by the search for information surrounding the color red.
This collection is among the most intensive groups of songs I’ve produced to date. Even the title of the EP, Rauthaz, has a heavy, intense feel. Rauthaz is a Proto-Germanic word that eventually evolved into our modern word red. I hope you enjoy this collection of music.
Rauthaz is the second in a series of EPs exploring the nature, science, and history of color. (more…)
Rauthaz EP release dates announced!
My new EP is finished and delivered to the powers that handle distribution. Now it’s just a short wait until you can download it. Here are the release dates that I am aware of:
2/28/2012: Available worldwide through Bandcamp
3/6/2012: Available worldwide through iTunes and CDBaby
Sites such as Amazon, Napster, Deezer, and Spotify will follow later, but I do not have exact dates. All songs will also be available for sync licensing via Rumblefish and Friendlymusic in the near future.
Of course, some of you may not be able to wait, so you can pre-listen to the entire EP via Soundcloud and Last.fm.
For some more of tease, here is the artwork created for the EP: (more…)
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…)
View from My Eyes
