JKT064 - a jazz beat

JeffMinute064: a jazz beat


was fooling around with the banjo this evening when i discovered that this sort of almost tremolo violin-like sound could be made by just sort of waggling your left hand on the fret you wanted to hear, the right hand only muting the other strings. Nifty, eh?

the rest is from reason, except for the too-loud record crackle recorded with the ZoomH4 & an old LP thrown on the turntable.

The goal? The feeling that you've just finished a nice brunch, have cleaned up the kitchen and are throwing an old favorite on the record player before sinking back into your favorite chair, with nothing whatsoever to do.

Reason: 03-12-2009b.rns
Non-Stock Refills:
Reason Pianos
Reason Drum Kits

Brr [including b-side]

amorphati006a:


amorphati006b:

Thomasean002 - WhyHere?

TSK002: WhyHere?


Wow, another minute flying in from paradise! This one stopped off to pick up some funky 1970's electronics along the way.. :)

JKT063 - the peruvian..?

JeffMinute063: the peruvian..?

The Amorphati audiobook chapter 1

amorphati005:

Guest Minute - Thomasean

GuestMinute from TSK: SwimmingSong


This lovely little guest minute literally hails from the shores of paradise. TSK goes for a daily swim in the waters off the coast of Oahu. This is what he hears.

JKT062 - Chillin with Ricardo

Jeff/RichardMinute062: Borrow your Heart


Richard (from Monti) came over yesterday, and in between eating dinner and watching The Wire we improvised this little thing. Sounds sorta.. tender, doesn't it? I like it. What a voice that dude has...

Amorphati's first post

amorphati004:

THE SMACKDOWN!

We all admire Jeff's musical prowess, his dedication to the blog and his lust for innovation. Yet i've viewed the rating system he has been testing on this blog with some skepticism. Ratings like these are arbitrary when you don't know the motivation for someone voting the way they did. The hope is that we, the collaborators, grow as musicians by sharing our music on this site; ultimately the goal is to inspire each other. My estimation is that an ugly anonymous 5-star based voting system is not going to prove beneficial to that cause.

People really should use the comment system instead if they wish to express their like or dislike, their thoughts on the music or any other constructive criticism they have to offer. A lot of insight can be gained from discussing music. Albeit reluctantly i think the first signs of discussion are starting to appear. In that respect i would like to commend DJ Haamphist for commenting so boldly and talking about his music so openly. I hope people feel encouraged to share their views.

To prevent the rating system from nipping these developing exchanges in the bud i'm going to cancel this little experiment. Can i do that you wonder? Well, i'm pulling minute seniority over all y'all bitches - so yeah, yes i can.

Ratings

Just am testing a ratings system for the posts. Not sure if this is going to last, as part of the ethos of this site is the concept of musical egalitarianism and the simple value of posting, whether or not you think your minute is good.

Might be interesting to see what other people think though. If you want to rate something, just click one of the 5 stars below the post. If you want to change your rating, I believe you can do so by just clicking again on a different star.

Well, who knows - maybe this will be gone in a day or two. Let's see how we all like it.

Please comment in this post if you think this is a good or bad idea. Thanks!

Another Guest Minute!

Guest minute - CK001


Wow, this place is starting to throb with awesomeness. Such amazing minutes flying in from the flickering static of the net. It's my pleasure to post another guest minute, this one coming out of the Iron City, Pittsburgh PA, from a good friend (and incidentally, a great cook!). Welcome, CK!

About his minute, he writes:
"I wrote this way back on election day 2004, when it was clear that the unthinkable was inevitable. Hence a feeling of hope being dashed to pieces."

I hear ya, CK.

Amorphati003 -

Amorphati003:


A third minute from Amorphati! Given the awesomeness of his tunes, and his involvement with this thing from the start, i think it's about time to bring him into the minutemusic fold. Welcome from all of us!

Azo: the flying sheep

AzoMinute012:


Even the flying sheep has to land...

The Return of Amorphati!

LawrenceMinute0080: Return of Amorphati

Father has been studying the darkened clouds forming over the outlands for some time now. His son is standing next to him as he silently examines the skys. Something was off, he noticed it at first glance. His initial unease has been growing into restrained fear. His nerves are telling him something is coming, coming from the east. Can it be? No, it couldn't, it has been seven years now. Yet his olfactory senses have never betrayed him and in the air, it is unmistakable, is a trace of that putrid smell of death and decay that has haunted him in his dreams for so long now. That stench, he knows, can come from only one being, a force of monstrous proportions. There is no time to waste. The necessary precautions have to be made. He solemnly turns to his youngun: "Son, get the garlic and the wooden stakes.

Amorphati is back."

And thus endeth my tribute to the return of the enigmatic Amorphati! Man, i'm really excited you've decided to contribute! Those two minutes Jeff posted are wicked fresh. I'm actually amazed and frightened by how fantastic they sound. I'm looking forward to hearing more!

Amorphati 002 - Lieblich

Amorphati002: lieblich


Another minute coming to us from Amorphati! The beats and atmosphere of this one sort of remind me vaguely of Boards of Canada... What do you think?

A new guest: Amorphati!

Amorphati001:


Whoah. This appeared in my inbox a little while ago and utterly blew me away. It hails from the windswept alleys of the former east berlin, made by one who has been involved with the minutemusic project from day one. It's an honor for me to post this shit.

Minimalism. The beating heart of the machine. Oh man, I reeeally love this minute.. Hope you do too :)

Oshiri Pen-pen!

LawrenceMinute0079: Oshiri Pen-pen!


Technical Assistant and Kitcheneer: Jeff Taylor
Sound Architect and Chief Belly Spanker: The Tross

Azominute11

Azominute011:


Iwan made it first, Jeff has now reached the 60th minute too. Great MinuteMen they are! So impressive. I hope one day being at the top of the Minute too. Here is the next attempt. Strange minute, I can't get my mind around it.

JKT061 - breathe easy

JeffMinute061: Breathe easy


After the last week of constant minutemaking, seems like it's time to lay back and rest. Hence this minute, recorded over the last hour or so, nice and easy, nice and slow.

nice to record some of the lesser-used instruments around the house too. brought the child's toy piano out of the closet, also this awesome pair of.. well, bells or something that I got in india a few years ago. Once you strike them together, they really just resonate on and on and on for ages, I really love the sound. And the stungun really recorded the whole uncorking & pouring of wine nicely, dontcha think? That thing is so wonderfully easy to use. Just stick it somewhere, hit record and voila - nice, transparent audio.

dj haamphist 021: sick day

dj haamphist 021:


I took a sick day yesterday. Slept in till 'round 10:30 and then shuffled downstairs, fully intending to veg on the couch all day. Which... actually I did mostly. Thankfully I wasn't too sick for a little bit of the old video games! Nothing worse than being too sick for video games. But I digress. Because fortunately I also sat back down in front of the 021. It originated on Monday night and I was pleased with it but it was only the first, err, verse or phrase or I dunno. So I extended it a bit to the full minute spec. Here she blows.

Reason: 021.rns
Non-Stock Refills:
Abbey Road Keyboards
Strings (I think)

The 60th Minute!!

JeffMinute060:


Wow... I can't believe i made it. Just four months and 8 days after Iwan. 60 minutes. The 1st second from minute1, the 2nd second from minute2, 3rd second from minute3 etc., all the way to 59. My god. It's funny how a year and a half of random musicmaking can be bundled together like this into a single little minutelong package. The really crazy thing is that I, as the dude that made these things, actually recognize EVERY SINGLE second-long segment as they're played. Really takes me back. Great idea, Iwan!!

Anyway.. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Made it!

JKT059 - an uneasy approach

JeffMinute059: an uneasy approach


Last one! Now just the final minute-of-minutes. I advance towards the finish line with trepidation..

JKT058 - PVD

JeffMinute058: PVD


Getting close, just 1 more!

Err, this is similar in style sortof to minute57 I suppose. Same key too, sounds like. Maybe that's cuz i started with the same drumkit, I think the tuning of the bass drum could be just the sort of thing i'm not really consciously aware of that could make me start in a certain key.

Yesterday's minute sort of got me to stick some LCD Soundsystem on the iPod as I was cycling home though, and that inevitably resulted in this. Damn, I love that guy.

03-02-2009.rns
Refills used:
Reason Drum Kits
Reason Factory Soundbank

dj haamphist: back on the donkey

dj haamphist 020:


Back in the saddle after a few weeks off. I was doing some work at the computer last night, at long last, and I decided when I was done to snap on the keyboard and segue directly into some jams, why not? Listening to it now I think I've taken Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground, slowed it down, torn out the real funk and crapped on it. I did actually sit down maybe a week or so ago to recreate a casino experience I had and it went terribly awry. Things don't ever go according to plan when I sit down to something specific but I feel drawn to this casino one.

I am humbled by the stuff coming out of this website lately.

reason: 020.rsn

JKT057 - stop!

JeffMinute057: Stop!


Had a really good band practice today. Started making this on the way home, felt original to me while i was making it but now listening to it i think i pretty directly ripped off both Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem.

Tried re-amping the bass. First time I learned about this technique was while we were mixing the Lightwires album. What you do is take a specific track, run it through an amplifier (guitar amp, bass amp, whatever) and then record the output via a microphone right there in front of the amp. Seems kinda pointless perhaps, but from what our mixer/masterer said, it's a really common technique in professional mixes, especially a lot of music that's partially computer-generated (i.e. Justice). Takes a very... clean and precise waveform generated by a digital synth and sort of brings it into the real world of analog overtones, can add all sorts of depth and life to things, especially bass tracks. Use an old school hardware analog synth, he said, and you can avoid a lot of re-amping.

So for this one I stuck the Zoom H4 next to one of my speakers, muted all tracks in reason except for the bass, played it through the speakers and recorded it. Then imported the new bass track from the stungun, sync'd it up in Ableton with the rest of the song, recorded a few quick vocal tracks and BAM! Done.

If you listen to the non-reamped bass in the actual reason file, you can really tell the difference:
03-01-2009.rns
Refills used:
260dB: The Drum&Bass Refill
Reason Drum Kits
Reason Factory Soundbank

The melt

Azominute010:


The 10th minute has been reached! I didn't know what I wanted to express but eventually it turned out that way.

JKT056 - under the wire

JeffMintue056: under the wire


Out of time. Somehow, am recording this on the sofa in the last 15 minutes before midnight. Not too bad, considering! Well.. have only listened so far in my earbuds, maybe sounds terrible on speakaz. Nonsense lyrics as well. All done on the Zoom H4, aka the stungun.. Nice that it can function as a digital 4-track. Will have to experiment more with this in the future.

Oh, also have been listening to Neko Case tonight. Dunno if i like her, but she at least gave me the idea for what to do in this last minute situation.

JKT055 - "... ... ..."

All music is an attempt at communication, isn't it? At least in the strict sense, it is the transmission of data from instrument to ear. And it seems to me that almost all of the time, this is accompanied by some purpose, some goal of imparting either a feeling or idea to the listener.

I thought it would be interesting to create a minute that somehow does not do this, does not represent me as creator trying to communicate with the listener.

At first I thought I would try to make a minute that would resemble an undending wall, an insurmountable obstacle between me and the listener. This is what resulted:

JeffMinute055: "... ... ..."


This is essentially a self-defeating enterprise, insofar as that if I truly wanted to communicate nothing via this minute I would be precluded from making these notes to accompany it. But please, try to listen to this minute all the way through on its own, and try to divorce yourself from the knowledge of my intentions. What does it sound like to you? Does it make you think of anything?

More on this later.

(photo a screencap from the Charles & Ray Eames film "Communications Primer", viewable at the internet archive)

JKT054 - years pass, memories fade.

JeffMinute054: years pass, memories fade


A letter, circa 1987.

JKT053 - sand&stone

JeffMinute053: Sand & Stone


Well, this is not what I was expecting to post tonight. Played some tennis earlier this evening, and before I left for the court I recorded a quick guitar minute that I intended to build upon once I came home.

But then, in the train, this happened. Started as a drum pattern and bassline. Then it morphed into something of a dreamlike return to something reminiscent of the funk and smoke of 1970s east africa, or at least that was how i imagined it. Once I got home i recorded the guitar, panned things extremely like they used to do on recordings in the 70s, and imported a nice little audioclip of the man himself, emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. enjoy!

ANNOUNCEMENT PEOPLE!!!

Exciting news! Jeff is about to make the big leap! MinuteMan, Man of Minutes! w00t! His next minute will start the ritual that will end in his 60th celebratory minute, the minute containing all his preceding minutes, the minute also which demarcates his advancement into maturity as a minute maker! Like BAM!!! Anyway to go through the transition and transformation he will have to make a minute a day, proper and true, until he reaches the frontier. So check it out! Hot stuff coming up! Aaawwww yeahhh!!!

Tall Cherry-Lipped Black Russians

LawrenceMinute0078: Tall Cherry-Lipped Black Russians

JKT052 - hmm

JKTMinute052: hmm


This sort of occurred to me out of the blue. Inspired by circumstances in the meatworld, i suppose - mixed messages here and there. Something about my little recording device got slightly wonky when the volume went up. But whateva.
-----
The Law has told me i should post these lyrics, as i'm a bit of a mumbler. Here they are. Fucking girls, eh?:

well i don't know
how to feel
when you talk to me this way
and you danced with me this way

but i know
that they're real
the feelings that i feel
whenever you're around

but everytime i see you
and fall into your eyes
i can't help believing things will be alright

every day i'm waiting
for some sweet small reply
wonder if i'll wake up in the night?

i don't know how i feel
will you always be this way -
will things always be this way?
---

JKT051 - The nerd at home

JKTMinute051: The nerd in his abode


Well, this is what it sounds like when I'm idly humming a simple little musical idea and fail to properly press the stop button. Ass smacking and louder singing commence unawares.

Defiler

The foul doings of a deadbeat defiler. He's lurking in the dark, patiently preying on the innocent, his long twitching fingers aching for some primo debasement.

LawrenceMinute0077: Defiler

JKT050 - random shit.

JKTMinute050: Random Shit


Well, this is an experiment to see how it would sound if one instrument within reason started playing another. Pretty much all of the tracks are drum loops that have been made into MIDI tracks, and then these MIDI tracks have been instructed to play other instruments. Or something like that. Kinda random i guess.

DJ HaamPhist002

DJHaamPhist002: filterpanslowdown


Working through the HaamPhist canon. In this one, we listen as the Haam experiments with both filters and panning. Also with tempo perhaps? How does he do that slowdown in the end within Reason? 'Tis a mystery to me.

I like these HaamMinutes, as listening to them is like watching a scientist at play. Methodical exploration combined with an artistic sentiment. Sweet stuff.

Azo: Gaskow

AzoMinute009:


I took the drums from an old midi file and tried to make something with. Fun to play but quite hard too. A week is enough!! Here is the result.

JKT049 - undertow

JeffMinute049: Undertow


Not much to say about this one. Made it on the train coming home from band practice. Tweaked it a bit upon arriving home. Voila.

Lazy sundays

I dedicated a lazy sunday to this minute, so in a reversal i will dedicate this minute to that lazy sunday. Here's to you, lazy sunday, here's to you.

LawrenceMinute0076: Lazy sundays

JKT048 - tired

JeffMinute048: the party.


there was a party this evening. but oh, the exhaustion. the humanity.

JKT047b - the organ breaks.

Ok, so remember how I was trying to make that last minute sound as if it was a piece played by real musicians on real instruments in a real space?

Well, the rest of this minute is sort of like... character development in the story arc of these pseudo-real musicians. They reveal themselves to be experimental jazz musicians at heart (a la pimenco) who have been simply experimenting with creating an old-school soulful sound. Maybe this doesn't make much sense right now, but listen to it.

JeffMinute047b: The Organ Breaks and the Jazz is played


What happens is this:
1. they play their song, the minute from yesterday
2. around 1:15, the organ breaks
3. the drummer starts a random sort of interesting beat
4. the pianist attempts to join in
5. the bassist joins in once he figures out what chords the pianist is playing
6. one of them must be giving some signal that we can't see, because after a tiny break they all join in on this furious sort of crazy song that nobody knows but them.
7. almost as quickly as it began, it ends.

Anyway, that is all there is to say about that. Here's the reason file if you wanna check it out.

02-10-2009.rns
You will need the following refills to open it:
Abbey Road Samples
ElectroMechanical
RDK Vintage Mono
Reason Drum Kits
Reason Factory Soundbank

DJ HaamPhist 001: A very good place to start

DJHaamPhist001: Let's start at the very beginning


Well, the HaamPhist has a backlog of these here minutes, so I'm gonna post them one by one, get the world up to speed with all that is Haam (hint: they're all on his own page as well, although #4 is MIA). Enjoy!

JKT047 - Real Instrument Emulation

JeffMinute047: Real Instruments?


Well, listening to Iwan's minute of a few days ago, I was really impressed by how well he sort of emulated not just a particular sound but a whole... well, society of music. The instant I pressed play I was transported to the old stone walls and sandy beaches of the eastern Med, all somehow captured on grainy VHS. it was really just staggering.



Anyway, that got me thinking about how cool that sort of thing was, and I thought I might try to make something that had some of the same atmosphere as an old motown recording in a way. I did this mostly on the train to and from work over the last few days, so it was pretty much all done using Reason and utter shitloads of mouseclicks. One of my goals here was to get it all sounding as much like real musicians playing real instruments in a real room (like the one pictured above) as I possibly could. I actually took it a bit further than this eventually, but I'll post the 2nd half tomorrow. Anyway, what do you think?

Good Times

djhaamphist019:


I finished watching the HBO series John Adams last night. It's vaguely compelling as a history lesson and their lives are inspiring, but mostly I pushed through. In the last episode you just watch people get old until they can't possibly get any older and then they expire. Oh, except their daughter who gets the breast cancer and undergoes "surgery" before finally falling prey some time shortly thereafter. And a son from alcoholism. A full hour dedicated to people keeling over. It was uplifting. So immediately after I watched that I powered up the keyboard and fumbled around for a few minutes!

Damn!

This place is heating up! Bunch of sweet minutes posted lately. Like.. Azo's most recent has such an awesome lo-fi atmosphere, and sounds like cool improvisational guitar until a 2nd guitar comes in, and suddenly... you realize it's a pre-planned composition! How cool is that? Then the Haamphist shows up with this killer minute out of nowhere! I still don't understand how he assembled that, it really has a surprising... depth to it.

Then Iwan pops out with this awesome tune that sounds like it came right out of a greek tourism video from 1988! Seriously, I love this one. The way the drums are mixed way in the rear, the cheesy yet catchy melody, the slightly brooding interlude in the middle? It just drips with a sort of modernized commercial ethnicity. It's a feat like making a modern song that sounds just like it was recorded in 1950's motown, but way more subtle than that - it's like total immersion in the world of 1980's mediterranean promotional videos. I threw together a quick video to illustrate what I mean. The middle section is.. well, kinda random. It's 3am.



Oh, also I really like how in the middle section of Iwan's song, the drummer who I imagine playing the song is cool enough to just hit the hi-hat every once in a while. So many realworld drummers would overdo that shit. Truly an awesome imaginary drummer.

Something familiar...

Not sure what this is or what it resembles but it sure sounds familiar.

LawrenceMinute0075:

dj haamphist 018

djhaamphist018:


This started out as another drum session and follows the same basic pattern as 017. Throw in ze drumz, break, add in some tunez, drumz, end scene. This is an unsettling pattern of formality.

Azo: Mica

AzoMinute008:


Here is another piece I did sometime ago, trying to give some kind of atmosphere. Effects helps!

Is this thing on?

djhaamphist017:


Testing, testing. My HTML is très mauvais. Even with DJ
Jeff's professional guidance it's been a long and arduous
journey. Although I did work out the accent grave all by
myself. Yeah kid!

So, many thanks to DJ Jeff and DJ Iwan for inviting me to
post some of my haamjaams. They've both been most kind
and encouraging. This is exciting! Jeff's already
posted 1 or 2 of my tunes and linked to my official
website so I guess I'll start off with the latest and
work my way forward in time. Actually, Jeff kind of
inspired this track when he shared some drum techniques
with me the other day. I sat down to take my drums to
the next lev (lv 0.149), and decided to throw some music
on there and this just sort of popped out. I think
you'll be hearing that from me a lot. I dunno how real
music creation goes but I sit down and something either
pops out or doesn't. I've sat down before to create
like, an islands jam and I've mashed the keys with my
palms for 45 minutes and walked away in disgust, head
held low. I was kinda drunk at the time too though.
So that's how I roll. Everything is an experiment at
this point. They say the devil's in the details and I'm
unprepared for the engagement. Enjoi!

Azo: Battle in a swamp

AzoMinute007:



A brand new set this year, one minute a week or... less!
February, you kidding?

JKT045: Life after the bomb.

JeffMinute045: Aftershocks


Well, this one is less melodic and more just sound-and-noise based. Made some interesting sounds in reason by just messing around with connecting instruments in odd ways and it all sort of came together into this non-melodic atmosphere. Sounds to me like aftershocks rolling through the landscape after a terrible war.

Fibonacci Revisited

Ever wondered what kind of rhythmic pattern would result when dividing a measure into fractions based on the Fibonacci sequence? Well i did... and here is an example of that. In this minute eight sounds are gradually layered on top of each other. Each layer has its own meter assigned to it based on the sequence up to the 9th iteration. That is a triggering scheme of 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and 34 ticks per measure. Strap on them moon boots, we're headed for outer space!

LawrenceMinute0074: Fibonacci Revisited

LocustCanasta! - Iwan's Locust, Jeff's Canasta

LocustCanasta!: Iwan's Locust, Jeff's Canasta


Well, here it is folks. The conjoining of my Canasta with Iwan's impeccably locust-y Locust. They work pretty well together, eh? Sounds that way to me, anyway.

LocustCanasta! - Jeff's Locust, Iwan's Canasta

The image i had in mind initially when thinking of "Locust Canasta!" was actually a locust canasta party. You know... locusts playing canasta at a party. Therefore i had planned on making a festive canasta to Jeff's Locust. As time passed a different connotation and mood got associated with the term; it has become something more sad and bleak.

Locusts themselves in a way are a symbol for death. Their massive swarms bring famine and demise. This is why gradually my vision of Locust Canasta! has changed to that of a sad, sad woman playing canasta endlessly, imprisoned almost, anxiously clinging to those repetitive and boring patterns, over and over again, hoping to somehow stave off dementia and death while the locusts slowly but mercilessly gnaw their way through the final layers...



LocustCanasta!: Jeff's Locust, Iwan's Canasta

Locust Canasta! - JeffCanasta

JeffMinute045: Canasta


Well, I would say that this is quite lame compared to the Canasta! of the Iwan, but so be it. What's done is done. Just was going for the feel of a lighthearted card game.

A minute for my mom

Today's my mother's birthday so i dedicate this one to her.

LawrenceMinute0073: MinuteMom

JKT044: Faster it is, then.

Started making this in reason. Was much slower, more laid back. Then I opened it in Cubase to record some sorta vocals, and the default tempo was suddenly much higher. Sounded cool though, so it stayed, and became this.

JeffMinute044: Accidental acceleration


Oh, and if you happen to have Reason 4.0 installed, you can try opening the project file here:
01-10-2009.rns.
Refills used:
Orkester
Reason Factory Soundbank

(just to document stuff for myself: I just took the reason output, recorded 3 vocal tracks with it in cubase, then exported it all to wav and ran it through the "Mix Master" preset in Izotope Ozone 3 to make it all sound huge)

Rain

Yes, i remember it well. That day it rained here too. I had aimlessly been roaming the neglected outskirts of the city when the first drops started to fall. I found shelter underneath a ramshackle shed near an abandoned factory. As the rain grew more persistent, hesitantly from behind the vats and barrels these small beings appeared. I suppose i would describe these odd little flying fellars best by calling them water nymphs. They danced around me as they pointed, seemingly amused and amazed by such a grotesquely shaped creature. Their strange chanting became more rambunctious and then suddenly... they left. Just like that. This is a glimpse into that moment.

LawrenceMinute0072: Rain

JKT043 - raining

Thank god for the Iwan, otherwise this place would be a ghost town. This isn't a minute so much as a quick glimpse into a moment. In this moment, rain is pouring down in sheets. That is all.

JeffMinute043: raining

Haamphist 002: The Return of the Phist!

Here's another sweet minute by the Haamph himself.

Haamphist 002

Creative minds...

First off i want to thank the two creative minds, Azo and DJ Haamphist, for their spicy contributions. It wasn't until today that i gave their minutes a closer listen and i have to say that i was thoroughly amazed. DJ Haamphist's page leaves me in a state of musical wonderment. His take on composition and sound sculpting is original and inspiring. I can only be jealous of his musical sensibilities.

Azo, your new minutes are incroyable! Really avant-garde stuff. Your music exists in its own weird little universe. The way it seems to warp and distort reality reminds me of Dali somehow. You are truly an artist; i love your strange ears!

I hope both of you keep contributing to this blog because i'm dying to hear where your musical endeavors will lead you. Anyway here's something that i did today...

LawrenceMinute0071: roboDisco

Locust Canasta! - LawrenceCanasta

LawrenceMinute0070: Canasta


This is my Canasta. I haven't melded it with the Locust yet because Jeff still has to do his Canasta. When he's done we can have a simultaneous presentation of the two finished Locust Canasta! minutes. How is that for a motivator!

At first i had assumed for no good reason that canasta was an amazing and dynamic game. However going by my research i must now draw a tentative but opposite conclusion; it seems to be no more than a crummy rummy clone.

Now rummy makes me think about my grandma who loves to play that game. In years gone by her memory has gone from bad to worse. When we play she'll sometimes get confused and for instance out of nowhere ask what the trump is. Yet at the same time the confinements of a familiar game form a safe haven from a frightening and hostile world outside. So in conclusion, this inadvertently went from dynamic and fun to bleak and depressing. Yea!

Introducing... DJ Haamphist!

We're lucky to have minutes streaming our way from across the ocean! DJ Haamphist, coming to you from the Estados Unidos, doing some interesting experimentation with Reason. Here's a minute from him, followed by a little introductory message. You can check him out at http://www.beamychron.com/djhaam/ if you like...

DJ Haamphist: 012


'Twas right around Christmas with ham in my mouth - DJ spinning nothing, not even house. Behold! Propellerhead's Reason came unto me, a digital Jesus, from the privates of my virgin computer. And I drove to Guitar Center and purchased a floor model M-Audio MIDI controller with a plastic knob missing for well below retail. And it was good.

I returned home, excited but also afeared that I would quickly loose interest and settle into my natural state on the couch, PS3 controller in hand, the Reason gathering dust along with my other hobby gear. So my buddy's wife challenged me to a musical duel! We would meet at high noon on Valentine's Day to feud it out with our jams. Pride would fuel me or whatever! Well, turns out I can play video games and make bad music at the same time.

So unawares of The Daily Minute project I embarked on my own semi-daily project and dj haamphist was born, swaddled in the endless possibilities of Reason, with no idea what I was doing. Now a few weeks later, I have several sketches to share. Each just a quick study of a piece of the software. If a 'song' ends abruptly it's because I didn't yet know how to end the audio export function. Or how to work the Transport thing. Not that knowing that makes much difference in my case. And if it sounds like I might not be able to play the piano, that's because I can't. Or any instrument. But maybe something will come out that we can all enjoy. And maybe my beats will fucking demolish my buddy's wife at our Valentine's Day Battle Royale! oooooOOOOOOOO!

Azo's 2009 minutes!

Well, I've been a bit lax in posting lately. Azo has been kind enough to send along a few creations, here they are at last!

Azo005: Ratrel



Azo006: Lima Hongle

The noisy minutes

This last week i've been designing a noise synthesizer. I was curious about the scope of sounds one could get just from processing noise. I've used self-oscillating filters, frequency modulation, down sampling, bit-crushing, saturation and some weird reverberation effects and i think the scope is quite wide indeed.

These minutes were made using the noise synthesizer. I'm just scratching the surface here and these aren't the most enticing arrangements but i believe there is some potential. Check it out.

LawrenceMinute0067: Noise trilogy I


LawrenceMinute0068: Noise trilogy II


LawrenceMinute0069: Noise trilogy III

Rite of the Anthropophagite

LawrenceMinute0066: Anthropophagous Ritual


For days only the thick of the jungle has greeted you. For days you've traveled down stream unsure where this meandering river will take you. Civilization exists only in memory and in the days gone by has become but a vague construct of your imagination. The loneliness of the jungle is overwhelming. One can only be intimidated by the darkness that lies beyond the trees. Everything here is dangerous. Relentless.

Is it your imagination or are a thousand hostile eyes staring back at you from that wall of black? Suddenly in the sweaty dusk you start to hear something. Soft at first but steadily growing louder. Is it a tribal ritual of some sort? The hypnotic rhythm draws you in, urging you to succumb to its pulse. Eating away at your will to resist. You notice that your muscles have gone soft and your mind feels like pudding. You see the spinning lights slowly coming towards you...

You are powerless.

Locust Canasta! - Jeff's Locust

At long last! It's a crappy locust compared to that of Iwan, but oh well. It vaguely seems locustlike somehow to me at least.

LocustCanasta: Jeff's Locust

A minute for the new year

Well, it's been a while for me, eh? Time to get back into the groove, i suppose. Here we go!

JeffMinute042: New Year, New Minute.

Concoctions from the Laboratory

LawrenceMinute0064: O.R.P.

The Ominous Riddum Prospect.



LawrenceMinute0065: Amorphous

Amorphous.

The Skunk!

LawrenceMinute0063: The Skunk!


Jeff sent me some of the recordation he got from his sweet new stungun microphone thing setup. In his words:

Anyway, this here audiorecorder thing that i got kicks such amazing serious ass that it's not even funny. [Censored (hehe!)], but everything else about it is amazing. Seriously. It has those two mics that sort of face off in an X formation, so you get true stereo sound. Last night I played my dad in ping-pong and stuck the mic on a chair right next to the net. Listening to that shit, you can totally tell where the ball is at any moment. It's awesome. not to mention the fact that it looks just like a fucking STUNGUN!!! Who could ask for more?

Seriously though brah, this thing could be just what you're looking for. It also hooks up to your computer via USB and works as an external sound card, didja know that? 2 phantom-powered mic inputs. Fucking crazy sick, this here thing. Seriously, the sound quality is just insane. Like... damn brah. It's a little lightweight, and I'm a bit afraid I'll destroy this thing in a month or two, but other than that it's pretty fucking awesome.

I've made this minute entirely from the aforementioned recording because it was simply the most funny and amazing thing i've heard this year. It's a saga of epic and oedipal proportions, a bitter struggle between youth and experience, a battle between father and son, a tragic story of love and despair.

So why is it called the skunk you ask? Jeff explains:

[We] commence a game of ping-pong during which I completely skunk my pops. like skunk him as in shut him out, beat him without him scoring a single point. good one for the record books.

Ya gotta admire the younguns moxy, eh?

Ack!

LawrenceMinute0062:


After going through all that trouble and accomplishing nothing i figured i would post a new minute the old-fashioned way. This is something i've been working on the last couple of days in an effort to familiarize myself with Reason.

The Lost Minutes

Naively i have been uploading my minutes to ToidBoiglah. Unfortunately that site is hosted by Sleazefest McShitface and now those files are no longer accessible. I decided i would restore the lost minutes in their true glory and here they are. Now they're at GoogleSites so, if we may believe Jeff, they'll be there till the end of time.


Argh! What am i doing wrong!? I've been farting around with this forever and i give up. Fuck the minutes.

Locust Canasta! - LawrenceLocust

LawrenceMinute0061: Locust


This is the first Locust track. Jeff will add the Canasta to this. You know... give it that extra je-ne-sais-quoi if yer know what i means.

Locust Canasta! - Concept

Hereby i present to you our latest little project brewing in the darkest corner of the minute music laboratory, code name: "Locust Canasta!"

Concept: it's a easy as a pie! I make the 'locust' part of the track after which Jeff adds the 'canasta' and vice versa. All tracks will be posted separately and conjoined with its counterpart. If all goes well this will result in not one but two brand new locust canasta! minutes. Check it out.

Finally - The 2008 MinuteMusic Project!

Our minutes have finally been combined!

Lawrence & I have each been making minutes for the past 2 months or so, and each time one of us finished we would send the other one the last 3 to 5 seconds of our minute. The other would then build upon those 3 to 5 seconds to make a new minute. Tonight, we finally put them all together! This is the 2nd time we've done this - the first time was the experiment that began our whole minute music website.

(Click here to see the original minute music project post)

A lot of it is roundaboutly about this dude. Long story.


Anyway, I think it sounds pretty goddamn awesome, what do you think?

The Combined Minutes Pt. 2!

The 60th minute!

LawrenceMinute0060:


The cycle is complete. Here is my 60th minute made up of all its predecessors. All my minutes in one minute, damn. Every fragment is 1 second long. I took the first second from the first minute, the second one from the second minute etc. However i did smuggle some milliseconds left or right where i felt it would serve the flow of the collage. The inevitable question of course that is burning on your very tongue is: 'yeah, but what's the 60th and final second made up of?' That last second, my friends, is made up of all preceding seconds in the same fashion as the whole is built up out of all the preceding minutes. If you wonder what the 60th part of the last second consists of though... well... we'll just have to leave that to your imagination now won't we?

The Frontier

Sweet! I did it! I went the distance! Here are minute 58 and minute 59 (which is a lil' addendum to its predecessor.)

LawrenceMinute0058: The Frontier


LawrenceMinute0059: Addendum


So this is it guys! One of us has finally reached the frontier. The 60th minute; a minute for every second in a minute! I'm going to make the leap, the big one. Once one passes through this barrier one goes from being mere man to being a MinuteMan. I bet y'all are excited as i am, boy oh boy! Of course before you may wander into the dimensions beyond, you must prove yourself worthy of the title and fit to venture out on the journey into the unknown.

As it is written in this sentence that i'm typing right now, one can only transgress to the next level after passing the sacred minute test. This test puts forth the challenge of posting within a week 7 proper and true minutes that exemplify that you have truly understood and mastered the art of minute music making. Ideally one would post one minute everyday. Unfortunately i've been caught up in the wallpaper scraping game. Having posted 7 minutes within a week and thereby reaching the 59th minute i believe i'm ready nonetheless.

What comes now is kind of a right of passage and also a celebration of the art of minute making. I'm now going to mentally prepare myself for this final stage, the one that will make my transformation complete, by drinking 4 liters of banana milk and taking an ice bath. The procedure takes the utmost concentration and dedication. One slip-up may prove fatal. If i don't report back in a day or two it means i've failed the test and am now most likely dead or living in Luxembourg under the name Fransz von Schlagerau. Hopefully i will see you once again after i've arisen as a MinuteMan, Man of Minutes.

Professional wallpaper scraper

LawrenceMinute0057: Professional Wallpaper Scraper

Eskimo!

LawrenceMinute0056: Eskimo!

A minute, minute-style

I've noticed that the 'minutes' on this blog are getting longer and longer. Somewhere along the road we lost our minute music making ways. Corrupted by an evil and deceitful world, we chose to ignore our founding principles. Losing ourselves in endless musical statements that wither away in redundancy. The principles that made us what we are today we have forsaken. Being a man of tradition however i figured it was my task to restore in honor the proper musical minute. Yesterday there were two and here's yet another one.

LawrenceMinute0055: Triptonics

The Mysterious Johnny Hiatus

LawrenceMinute0053: Android Nightmare


LawrenceMinute0054: I Admire The Angle Of Your Dangle

ANNOUNCEMENT

The biggest uproar in minuteland since the fibonacci minutes! The thing people can't stop talking about! It's...

THE MEETING OF THE MINUTES
* part II *

PAM-PAM-PAM PAM PAM!

So Kojef and i have agreed to patch together a set of minutes like the one that started this blog. Now our first project was okay, this time however? This time we'll put Beethoven to shame! We'll make the Beatles redundant! John Coltrane will be reduced to a mere footnote in music history! Brace yourselves people, for something extraordinary is about to happen! Mwuhahahahahahahaha!!!

Okay, i'm going to take my medicine now. I was running out of exclamation marks anyway.

song idea

Just a late night idea. started it on the train coming home. Oh so tired. Must sleep now.
JeffMinute041: facebite

Another one

had the microphone and laptop all set up, so churned out another little fragment. Cheesy for sure, but i think it's kind of catchy indie-folkie a la super furry animals or gruff rhys or something. Anyway, that's tooting my own horn a bit too much, true keywords = repetitive, dumb, cheesy.

JKT040: Cheesy folk-pop

been a while

So I thought I would post something. Song of mine that i usually play with lightwires, thought I'd just lay down a quick acoustic version and stick it here. Not as original as the other minutes here, but oh well.

Lonely Nights:

Azo004

Another minute from Azo! Good stuff, eh? Kinda reminds me of Joy Division somehow in the way it projects its atmosphere..
AzoMinute004: Komodo

Yet another minute!

This one another gift from our good friend azo.. What a voice, eh?
Azominute003