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.

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.

For those who don’t know, the DiRT series is a continuation of the legendary Colin McRea series. I became hooked after searching for months for a used copy of the first DiRT and falling in love with the graphics and gameplay. There wasn’t much in the way of a storyline, just a typical earn your way up the ladder of longer and more challenging events, but that didn’t stop me from loving every moment of it.

DiRT 2 not only raised the bar for immersion, but then took it down, chopped it into bits, and lit it on fire. Codemasters fine tuned the events, sent you flying all over the world, pit you against real and imaginary drivers, and wrapped it all up in a beautiful world where you lived in an RV that was your home base for every event/festival. I felt that ‘home base’ environment really helped me imagine that I was actually the one traveling to the exotic locales visited by the game because I could look at a world map, find events I wanted to race, and fly there (in a rather Indiana Jones line over the world way).

Sadly DiRT3 did away with the traveling racer environment, and returned to essentially the same navigation system from the first game. Thankfully, where the menus and navigation take an unfortunate step back, the game itself takes steps forward. Graphics are even more stunning, and many times I’ve found myself careening off the road side because I was distracted by the beautifully rendered locations. Codemasters has even thrown in environment details like fans scurrying across the road in front of you.

In many ways, DiRT3 is more of an arcade racer now than a simulation, but I’m ok with that. I like that you are rewarded quickly for your early success, allowing you to gain access to more difficult events sooner than later. The addition of Gymkhana events was originally a non-starter for me, and thankfully they didn’t make many of the events mandatory to complete the game, but they’ve turned out to be rather addicting. If Codemasters could find a way to pump the scent of burning rubber through my xbox live connection I’d become completely hooked.

Another aspect of the DiRT series that has appealed to me since day one is the brevity of the events. I can start an event or series and know that I’m not going to be stuck in front of my TV for the next hour. I can thoroughly quench my need to get dirty in 15 minutes if I choose because the longest single races are only 3-4 minutes long. My other favorite racing franchise, Forza (and the PS Gran Turismo series) quickly get to races where you will be sitting there for 10, 15, even 20 minutes. For one race. Not counting menu time. If I need a truer simulation fix, then those are the way to go, but for quick and dirty gameplay you can’t beat DiRT3 (except when I lose track of time drifting around the Battersea complex).

I’ve not really gotten into the whole online multiplayer racing thing, which is a key component of DiRT 2 and 3, because frankly I don’t like being cussed at by 13 year olds, but I’ve dabbled. It’s pretty impressive. Environment-wise it’s identical to singleplayer only you lose the predictability of the AI drivers.

Now we get to the part that really surprised me. Youtube integration. Yes, Codemasters has built a Youtube encoder/uploader into DiRT3. Say you pulled off a great drift, or rolled your car 15 times, or drove away from an epic crash. You can now upload that footage to your Youtube account in only a few minutes. You’re limited to approximately 25 seconds of footage at a time so don’t plan on uploading an entire race, but you can hit the highlights easy enough. Here’s a few that I’ve uploaded:

Overall, DiRT3 is an admirable game for the rally fan. It missed in a couple of areas compared to DiRT 2, but took it to the next level for most areas. And I haven’t even mentioned the spectacular soundtrack. You can find track listings all over the web, so I won’t go into it, but for those of you with iTunes, you can find my DiRT3 playlist by searching for DiRT3. iTunes currently has all but 6 of the tracks available.

Everyone from the casual racer to the hardcore sim driver won’t go wrong with this title.

Cheers!
Jim

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.

Cardiff, UK based Paul Foster, aka Dementio13, has eagerly picked up the torch lit some 20 years ago and 180 miles east in Sevenoaks. From his own website, “Dementio13 is a Cardiff-based producer/remixer. His music is a mix of Krautrock-influenced drones, experimental electro, film soundtracks, post-rock and psychedelia.” His four-track ‘Vulcan Foundry’ EP, released in March of 2011 is dripping with blippy sequences, sudden mood changes, and just the right amount of spastic tension and anticipation that made early Orbital so engaging.

The opening crystalline arpeggios of Milling Maschine sets the stage for a mellow, almost ambient sonic journey before a pummeling kick sets in to wake you up. The track occasionally let’s you settle back into an almost psycadelia-laced trip, only to once again pound reality back into your conscious.

The title track, Vulcan Foundry trades the crystalline for the raw, letting you know exactly what you’re in for from the opening notes. With it’s fast moving bass line and subtle sweeping pads, VF would fit in perfectly as a family member of Orbital’s ‘Middle of Nowhere’ album. And just when you had this track all figured out, Paul throws in an incredibly serene bridge of solo bells.

Axlegrinder is another raw, aggressive track, this time centered around a massive sub-bassline dropped under some fantastic DnB percussion programming. Paul even tosses in a couple of short dubstep-esque (everything but the wobble bass) passages to make sure that you’re still paying attention. For those who love finding the intricacies of sound that can be hidden behind a veil of simplicity, Axlegrinder is the track for you.

The EP closes with Steelies, a spastic, droning cacophony of brilliant sound. If Paul had held a seance before composing this piece, he ended up channeling Jan Hammer. Yes, Crocket and Tubbs would have this playing in their white Testarossa as they chased down drug dealers through South Beach.

This is a truly fantastic collection of songs, and one that has been in heavy rotation for the past two weeks on my iPhone.  While one can easily find where inspiration came from, it is by no means strictly derivative in nature.  Paul expertly uses familiarity as a starting point, but them lets the music define itself in the listeners ears.  Because of this, Vulcan Foundry is a truly enjoyable EP, and one worthy of a listen.

Cheers!

You can listen to and purchase this EP from Paul’s Bandcamp page. The beauty part, Paul allows you to name your own price for all of his music. Pay what you like.

If you like what you hear, he’s also worth following on Twitter, or through his blog.

Shapelock iPhone 4 tripod mount

Sometimes you come across something so cool that you have to post about it, whether it’s directly related to music or not! This is just one of those times.

Last Tuesday I made a quick overnight trip to see my good friend Steve Cooley perform a live set with his musical compatriots Haptic Synapses. Hanging out with him the next day he showed me an amazing fast-prototyping material called Shapelock. It starts out as little plastic beads, but once heated in water to at least 150 degrees you can mold the pieces into just about anything you want as long as you can do it before the plastic cools off to much. As he was showing me the Shapelock I knew immediately what I wanted to try, and it only took me two days of being home before I couldn’t wait any longer.

Back in December I neeed to shoot some video for Steve, and the only device at my disposal was my iPhone 4, with no way to mount it to a tripod. Ultimately I would like to get an Owle Bubo, but until I have a spare $160 laying around, I knew that I needed to be a bit more creative.

The first four photos below show what I came up with; a custom cut cardboard mount made from a USPS Priority Mail box I had. It did the job in a completely inelegant fashion, especially after using blue masking tape to help anchor it to my tripod foot.

The second group of photos show various construction points of the Shapelock version. The best shot here is of the heated Shapelock molded over the tripod foot. You can see that when it is heated properly the Shapelock is clear. As it cools it becomes more opaque and loses it’s ability to be molded. I used a small candle lighting torch to reheat small areas, and kept a bowl of hot water nearby for reheating larger pieces.

The third and fourth groups show the completed piece, first without the iPhone, and then with the iPhone with my mic adapter. One unanticipated bonus happened when I molded the base that sits on the foot. My tripod foot has a standard mount screw so I added material on top of the base to to give the screw more to sit in. Once the base had cooled I went to remove it, but I had to unscrew the foot! Yes, the Shapelock even molded around the screw threads, mostly. I’m sure that the molded threads will strip out rather easily, but until that happens the mount has a very secure fit to the foot.

I ended up using nine pieces that I molded together, and since this was my first time working with the material, it’s very rough looking, and obviously overbuilt in some areas. I probably spent around 3 hours working on this project. It’s still not a terribly elegant or attractive solution, but it is better than the cardboard version. The best part though is that if I decide to redo it, I can just melt the whole thing down and start over!

Here’s a brief description of TEED from his last.fm page:
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs swings between overt musicality and scarily on-point dancefloor sensibility, ripping up clubs around the globe with his live show of bizarre instruments, glitter cannons and of course… dancing dinosaurs.

For the quick listens I gave to the music and a quick search of videos on YouTube, my take is that TEED blends a “housier”version of Hot Chip with the avant garde of My Robot Friend, both bands worthy of your time.  For me, the music of TEED quickly moves into the background, but not to be forgotten.  It moves to the back and just pulses along, giving constant reminders of genuine creativity, unobtrusive but  still defining it’s space in your consciousness.

For those of you who prefer your audio with video, I recommend giving ‘Garden’ a view on YouTube for it’s neo-arthouse stylings.

Cheers!

Links:
TEED on Last.fm
TEED on Facebook
TEED on Myspace
TEED on YouTube
and of course
TEED on Twitter

During my high school years I spent countless hours programming music on my Commodore 64.  While I created plenty of original music, I also transcribed dozens of songs by commercial artists.  I did this out of curiosity, to see just what I could recreate using a choice of 4 monophonic soundwaves and three total voices.  There is essentially no percussion in any of the songs I created as I never truly mastered the use of the noise waveform that was available.

The desire to finally archive this early music of mine resulted in me digging my C-64 out of storage about a month ago to see it it even still worked.  Even if it did there was still the concern over the age of my original floppy discs.  To my surprise, and other than a few worn out keys which need to be coerced to function, it all worked.  The featured image of this post shows the new home of my C-64 in my personal studio, Robot Junkyard.

Having a functioning C-64 with access to all of my old music has led to the creation of what I am calling the SIDtastic! Collection.  This will be a series of four to five collections of my SID compositions, both original and covers.  Other than leveling out the volumes, I will be doing no mastering to these songs, choosing to leave them in their natural raw form.

The first volume is now available to listen to and download.  It contains SIDified versions of the songs from The Manhattan Transfer’s 1983 album Bodies and Souls, and can be found here: SIDtastic! Volume 1.

Cheers!

A few of you have asked me about the robot on the cover of the new album Robot Junkyard.  His name is Boxel, and he stands about 3″ tall, 4″ if you count his antenna, but he’s much taller in his own mind.  He doesn’t typically listen to me, especially now that he’s a star.  I do believe that he thinks he will be on the big screen in the future.  Can you say diva?

Boxel is a prototype paper box robot created by Cincinnati based artist JessWolf.  She specializes in handmade decorative paper boxes and custom luminaries that can be used for weddings, parties, favors, decorations, or like in the case of Boxel, hanging out and eating all of the M&M’s.  All of her products are handmade and either cute, whimsical, elegant, or in many cases all three.  One of the products I especially like (besides the robots!) are paper acorn boxes which are friggin’ awesome.

I highly recommend that you check out her other products, especially if you have an event or party in your future.  You can check out her website here:
www.paperacorn.net

Or find her on Etsy at:
www.etsy.com/shop/paperacorn

When you decide to contact her for some awesome papercraft, or just to say hi, remember to tell her that Boxel sent you.

Thank you Jess for being gracious and allowing me to use your wonderful creation for Robot Junkyard.

Cheers!
Jim