My second (already!) release of the year is an album, and it's very different from the last one : Dualities

[chemeleon]

Hello,

Shortly after releasing You Make Me EP (1/1/2020), I realised that some of imo my best work was getting little attention, thanks to it not being available on streaming / commonly used platforms.

"Dualities" is a 10 track album spanning 2 hours (the tracks averaging around twelve minutes), a collection of my 'minimixes' - although, in hindsight, calling them minimixes is kind of misleading.
More apt title for them would be 'megamashups', as that's what they are : strings of multiple mashups of my own eclectic material, usually coupled with the interesting subgenre of drum and bass known as neurofunk (though not exclusively).

The album is available to stream from SoundCloud here :
https://soundcloud.com/chemeleon/sets/dualities

A little exposition : the sequence of mashups in the set is designed to hold meaning and relevance, I'm usually trying to tell a story (which happens to work well, as there's a common thread throughout a lot of my songs), and re-contextualise songs so that their various elements are enhanced - melodies, harmonies, atmospheres, etc. The sound is a little raw - partly because I did all of these in one take, live with a set of decks - that means no in depth tweaking of the songs to make them more compatible.. (and partly because my mastering technique is usually flawed in some regard. I don't have a set formula so it varies significantly between songs).

Each of the sets has it's own unique merit, but if I had to pick a favourite, it'd be Minimix : 666 (Developer Edition). Subject matter, atmosphere, cohesion, the whole track is incredibly powerful... and there's a keychange in one of the songs, so I had to shift it's paired song a semi-tone and back in conjunction.
...That being said, I have drawn attention to that track previously on this forum. It's honestly very difficult to pick one to highlight here that'd appeal to the most ears, but right now, Minimix : 02 (Everything Is Completely Under Control) seems the most appropriate. It's not bound to any particular style and is very emotive, probably one of the more universal musical expressions of the album. It's interesting, at least.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwQOQakoACc

Of the mashups on the album, one differs from the others : Matters Of Potential Energies (DJ Set in 3/4).
This takes the plentiful 3/4 songs from the album of it's namesake, and includes some other releases too. Aside from the unique property of mixing with a 3/4 time signature (I used Traktor 2, and it wasn't too difficult, just had to manually set loop points), all the mashups in this set are comprised of my own material - pairing my own songs together to create an altogether different musical experience. The first pairing - Optisynapsis (Halomass) and Untitled 2, I'm particularly proud of. They are the most unlikely pair in terms of mood and atmosphere, but are surprisingly cohesive and take on new meaning when played together.
https://soundcloud.com/chemeleon/34seta

The rest of them differ from each other quite significantly in terms of mood, but are at least 174bpm (nominal neurofunk tempo) and usually have drum tracks which are driving, powerful, hard hitting and sound incredible - a lot of neurofunk drums and bass lines are incredibly well produced, visceral, powerful expressions. I like that, so of course I'm kind of biased.

I get that this might not be everyone's cup of tea - aside from the imperfections in the mastering, they're not the usual format, and maybe require a bit of adjustment. The idea is that having the whole series in one collection might make the unusual format a little easier to digest.

Anyway, album available to stream from SoundCloud and to buy from BandCamp now - Spotify and most other online distribution platforms will have it soon.
https://chemeleon.bandcamp.com/album/dualities
Links to some other platforms : https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/chemeleon/dualities

Cheers everyone!

[chemeleon]

Album is finally up on Spotify. Here's a link, anybody who's interested :

https://open.spotify.com/album/0ctxceLI ... XwLVB?nd=1