it kind of looks like a flower, doesn't it. it also kinda looks like the cross our good friends the LFM/caballeros templarios use at an angle huh. and it says, b, l, e, w, m.
timbres are synthesized by IFFT with various parameterisations except for the kick and toms (and a laser timbre i didn't have time to write a sequencer for but it's in there) which are modified algorithms from bong.
one half ounce was applied over an eight week duration. wish i'd been able to put more into it, glad to be able to field that much tho. oh yeah, mango kush and some skunk. used to like sats to code but prefer indica when there's not much to go around. so, i blew M.
taliesin is recorded different ways. i'm not sure if blewm is a word or onomatopoeia.
24 dB filters on the bass and 303 part are neotec's open source zdf, others are robin schmidt's 12dB open source zdf.
the reverb consists of six allpass delays arranged in two double nested sections which feed into each other. allpass coefficients range from about .2 to ooh ~.8? in the innermost, lengths vary slightly between the two parallel forms. outputs and inputs (mono sum of ER) are also tapped at these points. the ER is a stereo multitap. considering that parameterisation is entirely randomised, i found this arrangement to be remarkably dispersive. of course fluttery patches do occur, i rate this topology for compact applications.
since i left timbre and mix to the last week for new blend, the mix was prioritised from the start. the two are different implementations, new blend is ~60k lines of code written over three months with dozens of algorithms for each part. blewm is ~6k lines (is that better or worse?) and conceived to embody one algorithm, which was a major conceptual step. keeping a single aesthetic ideal in mind helped to cohere the application.
imo strongest point.. i was very happy when the drums and bass were implemented. the lack of bassline variation wasn't too detractive given the scope. the weaker point i think is my lack of bringing the lead to the fore; timbres can be fairly mellow and increased architecture to produce the contemporary wide, bright leads i think would have kept it where i wanted it more. but the soft timbres give it a subtlety that is perhaps more appreciable to the aural enthusiasts likely to actually spend any time listening to blewm.
with the lack of more assertive pop sensibility leads, the 303 and pads and the delays on these three sounds kinda swamp everything into the crude yet serviceable model that blewm is.
it was about a week into june that i noticed there was a dc and i figured that would be a fair go for seeing how much i could get done, so i'm satisfied with the challenge and the result.
here's some backstory:
i have recordings from '94 of algorithmic songs.. the lyrics were generated using BASIC, other components were composed with dice and then recorded onto a 4 track with an 8 bit mirage. songs had kick/snare/hat/bass/fluff and timbre was determined by enumeration of my floppy disk collection
the mirage had 8 or 16 simultaneous timbres, i recorded my own phoneme set, which needed to be recorded in three goes to accomodate all the phonemes. boss se-50 pitch shifter was applied to record different notes (me tapping the pitch button up and down as the next vowel comes along). it took all day to assemble one simple song.
among my inspirations was w.s. burroughs cut-up work, which is described for it's transcendental properties, "when you cut into the present, the future leaks through". the lyrics .. made my neck hair stand up. eg. there was a message from god which sounded like rough daddy love.. "care for that i should only have your houses, pray for its last bass if another do" (which should have been "does" of course). kiss through them through my straight powers. the towels are sweet and another low juice won't.
the advent of synthedit led to more adventures you can read aobut right here, son. your fellows at kvr may remember brethcube and cubebreath and almost certainly other experiments like the very disturbing "when everyone should receive an instrument".
i also like "sail but somehow visit the ear" from this series..
http://xoxos.bandcamp.com/album/stochastic
egg with a step. grass beside everyone. it should draw from our egg.
yes we all had fun.
new blend was a wreck. in the last week of development it started crashing frequently and i sort of "ran out of room". the objective was to create a product that would play in many time signatures keys and so forth and be musically interesting to listen to, but it usually crashes in minutes. it was simple, and complex, it was shit.
the reason i did all this is .. using burroughs concept "mind screens" - i was introduced to memetics when i was 20 and being multicultural always sought ways to bring seperate cultures together. i thought the west had kind of tricked itself into being stupid through the practice of electronic advertising. i thought a lot about recording vs. non-recording as vital states, and had this great theory that, if we could find ways to break up the cultural patterns, people would become more adaptive, considerate and intelligent.
an algorithmic music platform that sang would put words together in acultural sequences that would challenge and stimulate instead of be obsequious and desensitising and cliche, like advertising is (which presents us with things we already know and are not threatened by).
well it's been a wild ride since then. when i was developing breathcube i met a woman who had some crazy stories and said her dad was an NSA officer "and that's why her name was carved in my bedroom door in my house years before i met her" kinda stuff. all kinds of weird shit happened and i found out everyone is controlled by space robots with electric penises that spin and spin and ho boy, well, they chased me and i spent 2010 in a tent in australia.
i found out australia had freemasons everywhere so i figured if i was going to get it anywhere i went, i might as well be in the sonoran desert, where it's quiet, beautiful, and people stay the f**k away from you because everything will kill you. my life is such a joke now. in january i went on a desperate mission to a time portal but it was a trap. and what do you know about that.
so the theory of algorithmic music generator was to diversify your memetics and help you break free of your evil invisible overlords, but you don't want to. i am positive that if i made an excellent generator that in every way satisfied even the very stringent musical needs of fourteen year olds, it would be completely ignored and find no footing anywhere. i can't really help you.
and you can't really help me!
i'm obviously way past gone. jai jinendra.so, what are you left with?
i imagined various cultural progressions from the idea, eg. what if aciddose pulled his finger out, i bet he could put something like blewm together in a month or so that would be entirely different. what if people started making generators isntead of songs.
i used to like to pretend thomas dolby's "may the cube be with you," with its notions of citizens rejecting labour due to some wondrous free source of joy, was about something i could help to provide.
there was that bit in neuromancer about generated music. i though people would be like eeeeey.
i could turn it into a free resource that blats out crud for people who make video games or videos, to further devalue music as a commodity in this culture. (macross: the coming of the bird-men, eg. the professional musicians, indicates the cultural mass of social deception and critical tribulation. music is not for jingling your shit and addicting people to buy crap. music should not be everywhere. you've turned sentiment into piss.)
i could turn it into vsts and other resources and sell it to fools and eat for a few more months or years. is this a from of existence you could withstand to embody? you're probably too afraid to do anything that isn't dangled in front of you..
world war 2.. both sides of the atlantic, women in factories. radios so loud you couldn't have a conversation, from all reports.
war ends, women go home, radios are affordable. a radio in every home. a child raised with constant noise. their child.
and now their grandchildren.
my mother was accustomed to the radio. in the 70's, the first synthesizer sounds i heard shot out of the speakers. here was the semantic purity appreciable to culture.
i was absorbed in my younger years and managed to see where i was going with it. "lived on the apache res.." being multicultural in the u.s. kept throwing me in with erudite crowds..
but, ...... since the early 00's i have listened increasingly to synthesizer demos instead of music. banality became intolerable.. my psychic powers blossomed and every bird and cloud had a voice..
only had headphones since '09, as my mixes demonstrate... gradually.. i have lost the accustomisation to having some machine banging away with entertainment. music.. to me.. was always about ideas and helping people. not selling and gratification. gratification happened when i was a teenager and thought cevin key was going to save me from stupid americans. when, like every music listening teenager (as per the klf manual) find "their guy up there" lol. barbie dolls.
"we will lead every revolution against us" - theodor herzl, modeling the opposition to instigate a feeling of empirical confidence. lots of people think they know something, but they don't.
starting from several paragraphs back, .... i don't really listen to a lot of music any more. i don't want to condone or support that culture for myself or others. i don't want to deride blewm users as they are my memetic supporters, after a fashion, but.. i'm beyond that.
i think as they get older a lot of music consumers sort of buy music that helps them with their trauma of being raised in a society where music consumerism is so integrated... an egoless space where some autonomy can be regained from the giant godlike ego defining voices.... i mean.. the united states in the eighties as a teenager... your favourite group defined who you were for large portions of the student body.. (some of us lived revenge of the nerds).
you can long story short this how you like, i love and support the antimusic paradigm.. negativland, trubee, sevcom.. do people still do that? listen to less music... (easier said than done considering where some people are located true). it's pretty much all crap nowadays, and i guess the last place on earth i should expect to find people willing to challenge the medium is in the heart of the industry.
i don't want to define my being by crap.
i should let go of wanting that for you too.
