11 things (most of my FAWM output)

[D.H. Miltz]

Instrumentals:

Bones from the Pond
(Cans, mixing bowl, thermoses, mallets & beaters, bowed and chopsticked guitars, rubber bands, ridiculous homemade drum, Thunder Tube. Layers of improvisation, then excision of the worst parts [it was over ten minutes long before editing]. Title's taken from an Anne Sexton poem; no connection to the poem, I just liked the phrase.)

The rest are in the next post so I don't flood the music tracker.

[D.H. Miltz]

My Homeland, the Moon
(guitars, Sampletron, glockenspiel)

Scum, Crutch, Chrysanthemum
(Gakken SX-150 MkII, recorded, then cut up and played in Short Circuit; flute-type thing recorded, then played in The Mangle; Zoom H2 recordings of my floor and furnace, cut up then played/triggered in Short Circuit; two bits of a guitar-into-Hadron recording from earlier in the month, played/triggered in Short Circuit)

A Kind of Light
Made with recordings of: record noise, shortwave noises, cassette tape recordings from 1990 or 1991, coffee can spike fiddle, a neighbor, and I think that's it. Also used Phonec.

The Walls, Myself, the Door
(Improvisations followed by editing (in some cases quite obvious editing). Doesn't really go anywhere, but I kind of like it.

The instruments: toy guitar with bottle caps under the strings, played with chopsticks; bowed acoustic guitar (x2); saz, mostly played with a slide because the intonation is terrible; glockenspiel.
Plus, briefly, a soup can (with chopstick) and, even more briefly, an egg shaker.

Title is taken from the movie A Man Escaped. I just liked the phrase, no other connection to the movie.)

Robot Death Scene
(Harmonics guitar (the line noise, of which there's a lot, is from this), dan moi (jaw harp), Sound Dust Plastic Ghost Piano, Hollow Sun Cathotron.)


Songs with vocals:

Wise Owl Baby
(Not much like the things I'm prone to doing. Slide saz, bass, drums, bellerin'.) Lyrics here.

Hostage
(komuz, guitars, Minimoog V Original, Sampletron. Lyrics here.

Off Paper
(Off paper = done with parole or probation; no longer under correctional supervision. Lyrics here.)

Sweet Mutineer
(Don't like the performance much, but I think the song's okay. Might revisit it at some point. Lyrics here. )

Because of You
(Country. A skirmish entry—you're given a title and an hour to do a song. Kind of a throwaway, but I like it.)


If you're desperate to hear the other three, they're still up over here: http://fawm.org/fawmers/miltz/

[justin3am]

I just listened to them all in one go. Some really fantastic stuff. You've always had a unique sound.

I particularly liked 'Bones from the pond', 'Scum, Crutch, Chrysanthemum', 'Robot Death Scene', 'Wise Owl Baby' and 'Hostage'. In some of the instrumental tracks, it sounds like you recorded some of the sounds in different rooms, at least the back ground noise changes character in a way that I found very interesting.

I really enjoyed the songs with vocals, though I noticed a consistent muddy-ness in the low-mids in those songs, maybe around 400-1000Hz. In songs like 'Hostage' it kinda works well, but in Wise Owl Baby it sounds a bit strange. Perhaps that is what you intended... perhaps you aren't looking for notes.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the listen. Thanks for sharing!

[annode]

Great post D.H. !
Enjoyed listening to it all. Thanks.

[Jace-BeOS]

I'm enjoying "a kind of light" very much. Your audio is like your photography. You show an interest in form and pattern. It's minimal yet very interesting.

[Jace-BeOS]

PS: I think I'll add it to my iTunes library. It's really cool. Thanks for sharing. All of this stuff is interesting.

[Entropy Audio]

Hey, just listened to all of these. I enjoyed them all.

I really like Bones from the Pond and The Walls, myself, the Door. The bowed guitars in these tracks are great, inspiring even, I love that sound.

The intro to Hostage was pretty cool too.

[Frantz]

I listened to all the songs with vocals. They all have something to offer but I think "Off Paper" and "Sweet Mutineer" are outstanding -- both examples of strong songwriting. I would like to hear these two songs recorded by a band with full arrangements.

Nice work D.H.

[seismic1]

I've only listened to "Bones from the Pond" so far, but I enjoyed it. The bowed guitar sounded very good indeed. "Ridiculous homemade drum" is intriguing. The percussion sounds are excellent. I'm looking forward to listening to the rest of these.

Good work

[seismic1]

My Homeland, The Moon. This is odd. It's quite cheerful in terms of tempo and rhythm, certainly listening to the guitar and xylophone, but the 'tron gives it a very melancholy attitude. It's somewhere between Bill Frissell and Gentle Giant. I think it works very well and could be expanded. It would probably take a vocal too.

Great track

[D.H. Miltz]

@justin3am: Thanks. Though I won't be going back to do any fixing, notes are fine with me. Especially something consistently off, like the mud you mention in the stuff with vocals.

@annode: Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed these.

@Jace-BeOS: Thanks.

@Entropy Audio: Thank you. I like that sound a lot too.

@Frantz: Thank you. Sweet Mutineer is the one thing from FAWM I might go back and redo, and if I do I'll probably add fuller instrumentation.

@seismic1: Thanks. The ridiculous homemade drum is a thing I might have mentioned before, a piece of rubber from an exercise ball stretched over a coffee can; almost every method of tightening the rubber eventually tears it, so it generally too loose to sound useful, but if I pull at the edge and then hold it like that with one hand, fingers pinching, and hit with the other hand I can sometimes get something usable out of it.

[kryptonaut]

Just listened to them all straight through, and really enjoyed the album. Quirky, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, always inventive - great stuff!

[nineofkings]

Bones from the Pond is a fascinating, inviting opener.

My Homeland, the Moon is beautiful. The extended guitar chords are heavenly. I agree with seismic that mellow vocals would be wonderful.

Scum, Crutch, Chrysanthemum is positively eerie. The quiet churning sounds behind the ghostly sine-like screeches make it.

A Kind of Light has quite the sound-profile. I'm glad the bowed guitars are back. I like the detuned piano. With the hyper-realism of the samples, though, the Phonec pads sound a bit out of place. I think they could use an almost-invasive room reverb to make them sit right.

The Walls, Myself, the Door is a little more meandering than the others. The dulcimer-like sound (saz?) has a sweet timbre.

Robot Death Scene sounds more human than I would've inferred from the title. Nice atmosphere, though, and the plinky piano is very cool.

Wise Owl Baby sounds like something out of a pub that's also an opium den. I like the "You say who, I say the question is absurd" refrain

Hostage has a sweet synth bass. I like the wide acoustic guitars and the swirly phaser during the bridge.

Off Paper has great guitars and lyrics, but I think the vocal reverb is a bit much.

Sweet Mutineer is harmonically similar to Off Paper, but its charm is readily apparent. Great mood.

I like the opening line of Because of You. Doesn't sound throwaway to me.

[seismic1]

Scum, Crutch, Chrysanthemum sounds like OST material for one of those '60s TV SciFi series. The scene where the door of the alien spaceship opens and the aliens come out, or the earthlings go in. It would work either way.

Good work

[D.H. Miltz]

@kryptonaut: Thank you.

@nineofkings: Thanks for listening and for the notes.

@seismic1: Again, thank you.