Battlemoose: Recent Episodes
Battlemoose
Battlemoose creates sonic landscapes that capture the listener and take them to unknown places. Battlemoose’s goal is to build and maintain a secondary (musical) world and keep the listener immersed and actively engaged within it. Music should be inherently enjoyable to listen to, yet provide enough tension to keep it interesting enough for active listening. Ideally, an aural story or narrative is woven that blends Electronic Music’s past with its present.
By using real-world environmental samples, Battlemoose seeks to anchor the listener to something that is familiar and immersive. Curiosity compels a deeper level of listening which helps develop, build and sustain the secondary world.
Battlemoose is strongly influenced by 70s and 80s electronic and progressive musicians such as Brian Eno, Vangelis, Edger Froese, Klaus Schultze, David Sylvian, Holger Czukay, Popol Vuh and Pink Floyd, as well as more recent artists such as The Orb, Aphex Twin, Future Sound of London, Mathias Grassow, Steven Wilson, Bass Communion, Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. There are unabashed references and homages to these artists and (many more) which is consistent with the post-rock approach to modern music.
Battlemoose grew up in a home where music was loved and the radio was always on, giving him early exposure to a variety of genres including jazz, classical, contemporary and pop. Playing music throughout his early and middle-school years, he became proficient in several woodwind instruments, the electric bass and manipulation of reel-to-reel tape recordings. This exploration in creating experimental tape effects had a large impact on Battlemoose’s current musical expression.
Featured on Kalamine Records' Complilation "Inside / Beside 2": https://kalaminerecords.bandcamp.com/album/inside-beside-2-2
This track started on a transatlantic flight from Germany to Canada. I’ve been chipping away at it for some time now. Lots of ideas explored. There were a number of moments of serious overwhelm where I was close to throwing the towel in. The project quickly got very dense and took some effort work with. Without losing anything I think I’ve managed to do a proper job of it. … I’m calling the track Mind Monkey as a dedication to all the distractions that kept me from completing it sooner :)
Initially this track was a quick example track for a friend and fellow producer. We both like early Tangerine Dream and Edgar Froese so I cheekily mimicked something that started to sound a bit like that. It started out quick and dirty, but it also had a lot of potential. So, over coming weeks I added to it and turned it into something a bit more detailed and worthwhile in terms of a track.
For the last 5 months or so, I’ve been changing my setup and also taking a bit of a break from producing, so it’s nice to get something out there again for anyone who’s been listening.
A little while ago it was fall here in Canada. There was a cool nip in the air, the leaves were falling and the birds were heading south for the winter. I have the good fortune of living in the edge of a city that is near a provincial park that serves also as a wetlands sanctuary for birds. Hearing geese flying low overhead is pretty neat, especially when there is a lot of them. You can hear a faint whistle of their wings working. Quietly moving through the air with the occasional honk - quite majestic!
I happened to be outside and listened to some Canada Geese flying low and passing overhead and I realized - once they'd flown past - that in the background you could hear what must be thousands of geese. The skies were dotted with flying geese coming from a few directions. I went and grabbed my recording gear to try capture some of what was going on from the front porch. Given that I live in a city there's still some urban stuff going on. At first, I wanted to get rid of reference to us humans, but I find it's more interesting to listen to with some of those bits left in. So - aside from sounds of yours truly clamoring about - I left most of them in.
One of my very best friends likes to draw and paint. Some time ago we idly discussed collaborating on something and agreeing that is was a great idea but never got into the details. Recently he offered to create a piece for one of my tracks. I mentioned that I was working on a "Goose project" and he seemed interested. I shared the raw unedited environmental recording, but nothing more than that. He created the album art for this track which I am delighted and honoured to share :)
Art by John Miedema johnmiedema.com @johnmiedema
This project is a bit of a left-over from a relatively recent trip to Britain. London is truly an amazing city and - fittingly - the subject of this track. I’ve been wanting to follow-up my track “Airport” with something that continues to explore a similar approach, but is thematically different. In this case, rather than using one continuous sample, “City” is made up of a hodgepodge of environmental samples that convey some of a controlled chaos I experienced. I also had a chance to experiment with some interesting new tools which really led to me getting to where I wanted to go with this track.
The seed that lead to the creation of this track was a field-recording I captured from the balcony of a dear friend's apartment in a downtown Vancouver high-rise (Canada). Birds, planes, kids playing in a pool - what's there not to like?
The kids playing along with the other ambient sounds hit a note for me. It's August in Canada - these are surely the best days of the year - no matter what part of the country you live in. There is also an implicit reflection on the days of innocence in childhood and being lost in play without a care or concern in the world.
The track very quickly started to take on and Eno-esque ambient sound which I fully embraced - so big nods to one of my very favourite musicians (Brian Eno) on this one.
I discovered William S. Burroughs’ (WSB) work when I was in high-school. Naked Lunch was all the rage among some of the folks I hung out with at time. When I read it, I was blown away by it’s originality and edginess. It opened the door for me to the Beat Generation and some its writers who I grew to love.
The basis of this track is a reading from WSB on a visualization exercise called “Take Nirvana” ( https://youtu.be/JTcw4RymVy0 ). I’ve always enjoyed Burroughs’ delivery style when narrating his work. I love the creaky texture of his voice. This is my little tribute to WSB, I hope you enjoy it.
I've taken a little break from my track-a-month self-imposed schedule and I'm back in the saddle with something a little different. It's spring and the moose is loose! Every now and then I feel compelled to change things up a bit, introduce some new challenges etc.. This is one of those tracks. For my Ambient fans, please excuse the interruption we will return to our regular programming shortly :)
The sound samples come from a TV series I was a huge fan of when I was growing up; "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (S01E25 specifically). Regular consumption of this show led to a current-to-this-day fascination with submarines and spaceships - because let's face it - submarines are just a different kind of spaceship. I captured the initial sample some time ago and was determined to do something just like this with it i.e. kick into overdrive when the command is given to go to full speed. Hope you enjoy this little departure, I had a lot of fun creating it :)
This track started with a small section of a very large environmental sample featuring the sounds of an arctic vessel’s engine idling along with the sounds of occasional cracking ice in the background.
The original 10-hour idling ship and cracking ice track (not my own) is available on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/gpW7iYfuGDU.
I am a little OCD this way, but after a bit of research I’m fairly certain the ship is a Norwegian Research and Expedition Vessel named the RV Lance (http://www.npolar.no/en/about-us/stations-vessels/lance)
I’ve also always had a strong fascination with the radio sounds, particularly short-wave radio. For some reason, I’ve been compelled to combine the two in this track. Before the age of the internet, I always found shortwave radio a remedy for feelings of isolation; a way to connect with the larger world if you will. In this sense, it’s meant to act as a counterpoint to the isolation (of a ship in the arctic). Some additional complimentary elements have been added, but I’ve found that there is an minimalist energy in what’s going on that seems to naturally reject anything superfluous.
The track photo is from the RV Lance’s website and is taken by Sebastian Gerland / Norwegian Polar Institute
Recent travel has taken me to the United Kingdom over the holidays – England and Scotland specifically. My wife and I took the train north and passed through Newcastle. I was capturing some samples from inside one of the gangways as we rolled into Newcastle. As we pulled away from the station, I noticed my wife having some poignant memories of that particular station. Having experienced some loss myself recently, I felt compelled to capture some of that emotion in the music. This is dedicated to my wife and memories of loved ones passed.
Recently I was listening to some Popol Vuh and the piece I was listening to got me thinking about doing something with choir, pipe-organ, and cymbals. The underpinnings of this track started from essentially that. It seemed to need something so I added in some environmental samples (by Lawrence English) and some other layers of complimentary sound elements. As things started to tighten up, I felt that there was a dream-like traveling element I wanted to explore. The Choral/organ (etc.) bits give it a bit of a spiritual element and the earthy world-sounds keep it anchored in more or less physical places. I hope you enjoy it.
The basis of this track is a 16-minute field-recording of Toronto International Airport (YYZ) that I created while travelling recently. As I was walking around between flights I realized there were a number of interesting snippets of sounds from all kinds of establishments and activities which prompted me to try recreate a bit of that musically to support the ambient soundscape of the airport terminal. For better or worse, I’ve been determined to use the whole stretch of the sample I took, so if the track is a little long that’s why. For some reason or another I had an unusually hard time with this one so it’s taken a bit longer than usual. At any rate, I hope you enjoy the track and your time is suitably rewarded.
Just accidentally toasted an older version of this track - this a remastered version. If you liked it before, I hope you'll like it again!
When this track started to solidify it felt very thick sonically ...thick in a nice way - lots going on. I'm still working on the notion of trying to find the sweet-spot where dissonance and harmony rub up against each other - kind of an extension of my exploration with Kensho. The picture is remaniscent of Klaus Schulze and Pete Namlooks Dark Side of the Moog albums which is sort of where some of my initial ideas started. The CS-80 and Matrix 12 combine a Schulze/Namlook thing with a hint of Vangelis. Hope you enjoy the track.
I wasn’t planning a lot with this one. It developed from some environmental samples, a new Max for Live device, and GeoSonics for Reaktor. It just got built up, little bit of this and a little bit of that, adding some drones, rhodes piano with space echo, and so forth. It wasn’t really going anywhere until I added a little SH-101 magic and there it was. I’ve been working toward trying to get this sort of ambient house Orb sound for a while so it’s a bit of a victory.
This track turned out way differently than I had planned. I started trying to straddle the fine line between dissonance and harmony and work the sweet-spot and this is the outcome. I'm certainly happy with it, but it's also not really what I expected. I've been listening to a lot of dark ambient lately so I'm not entirely surprised this is where it lead... hope you like it!
This track started out as a simple exploration of environmental samples; it evolved into something a bit more interesting. Strong David Sylvian influences in here for sure. The (manipulated) Environmental samples are from Lawrence English.
This piece started off very much in the style of Edgar Froese and started gradually moving more and more toward a Popol Vuh kind of sound. Now it reminds me more of Popol Vuh with a bit of Arvo Pärt thrown in for good measure. I was looking for sound material of children playing and laughing and stumbled upon a lovely choral piece which found its way into the piece.
Cordillera Soundscape - Calasiao Children's Chorus https://youtu.be/yLvo-N9oHVc
This track was a challenge on a number of levels. I wanted to do something along the lines of David Holmes and Chris Joss, but was also wanting to keep things a little more along the lines of the Orb. It turned out more the former but I'm happy with it.
So here you have it; a bit of Funk, with a dash of eccentricity.
Very quickly this track started giving me an interesting visualization of standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling window very high up, at night, and observing the city below. I recall visiting the CN Tower in Toronto at night. There’s an lovely stillness and quiet that comes from being that high up - also an interesting tension between beauty and danger.
Inspired by a J. Krishnamurti talk on Love and Attachment. I've always appreciated his level of insight on a number of topics. His voice and delivery is very musical which lends itself well to this sort of thing.
Some big nods to Vangelis and Klaus Schulze here. The foundation tracks were pretty heavily influenced by Vangelis (Blade Runner era) there is also some Klaus Schulze echos (Timewind). I think Timewind got me thinking about time travel...
The picture is A classic "time travel" picture on the internet aka hipster time-traveler. I believe there is a JFK tie-in. Enjoy!
I recently watched "I Dream of Wires" and have been a little preoccupied with big fat analogue sounds. The main sequence is from a modeled (Arturia) version of Moog's Modular. The rest came from modeled Yamaha CS-80 and Oberheim Matrix 12 and a couple of looped samples.
The voices in order of appearance are Richard Fenyman, unknown TV announcer, Larry King and Steven Hawking.
Like usual, this piece basically evolved. The Fenyman lecture seemed to create the seed around which the rest crystallized. He has a great sense of delivery and timing, not mention quite humorous.
Something about this got me thinking about ocean tide coming in at sunset - powerful, yet playful and beautiful beyond words.
Long Format - ambient sound samples taken from busy airport (YYZ) boarding area (I've been wanting to do this for a while). Main track was put down days earlier right after attending a funeral. There's some intentional dissonance and polyrhythms to capture the subtext of tension that accompanies air-travel - i.e. a person can never 'really' relax until they are on the plane. This is also a metaphor for life and continual striving.
The occasional Mellotron interlude is about nostalgia. The foundational track is organ with a bunch of doo-dadery added (delay, distortion, rotor, etc). There are some solemn moments that the organ represents - Death, mortality, mid-life, aging, etc. The Rhodes piano 3/4 of the way through captures the reverie aspects for me - fleeting (happy) recollections from a family visit over the holidays.
A healthy dose of Orb and Klaus Schulze influences here. The beaver relocation sample came from here in case anyone is interested: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/22/450958213/watch-long-lost-parachuting-beaver-footage-from-1950 (7:20)
Dark and Moody - Imagine walking toward an airplane crash site. Everything eerily quiet with a light rain falling...
When I was in school I came across Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning". It spoke to me then and it's spoken to me ever since. This is a simple (musical) tribute to Viktor Frankl as I'm going back to musical roots.