The International House of Dancakes: Recent Episodes
Dan Warren
Singer/guitarist for Love Button way back in the day. On my own I'm best known for Son of Strelka, but my music has also appeared on Welcome to Night Vale, Hypnospace Outlaw, the Frog Fractions 2 ARG, and a number of documentary films.
Born in Arkansas and raised in Oklahoma, but from there went Florida-California-Texas-Australia-Japan-Germany-Japan (again). He/him.
Just an old track I dug out while searching for instrumentals for something. This was an exercise messing with the idea from the equal interval system that repeating sets of intervals tend to be "accepted" by the ear even if they're in wildly different keys, and then it started to sound so circussy and so creepy that I just ran with it.
About fifteen years ago when we were hanging out in Austin, it came out that Disparition and I had both independently had the idea of writing musicals or concept albums about war from the perspective of those who were not fighting but were caught up in the middle of it. I don't know if anything ever came of his version, but mine has sort of languished in the back of my mind and in my "someday" projects folder since then. For mine I wanted to capture the feeling of helplessly watching the tide of it come for you, the heroic and awful things regular people do to survive in those circumstances, and the consequences that war leaves behind - scars on the landscape, scars on bodies, and the creeping realization that we are irreversibly changed by having lived through those events and what we did, or didn't do, to survive them. I think it might be pretty good, if I ever finish it.Anyway, this song was meant to be fairly early on in that story, when people are just trying to cling to those last few days or weeks of happiness before events overtake them. Just trying to burn into their brains the most vivid possible memory of what life is like when it is simple and good, knowing that it might not be either for a long time. I recorded this rough draft to see if I could shoehorn it into another project, but ultimately felt like it didn't fit. So for now it's an orphan from that war story, just sort of stuck out here on its own. Lyrics:Let us dream a whileHere at the door to an uncertain futureLet us dream a whileNot knowing what tomorrow might bringThere may come a day when we find ourselves looking backGrabbing this moment, and clutching it tightLet us dream a while, here on the edge of the nightWhile the stars one by one come alightLet us dream a whileHere on the shore of this angry oceanLet us dream a whileEnjoying each other for all that we areThere may come a day when we find ourselves looking backAnd count this the last time that we truly laughedLet us dream a whileLet us dream a whileLet us dream a whileOh, let us dream
This is a set of tracks that were initially intended as part of the soundtrack for a project that is now on indefinite hiatus. I liked the tracks enough that I decided to put them together and release them as their own thing.
This is a set of tracks that were initially intended as part of the soundtrack for a project that is now on indefinite hiatus. I liked the tracks enough that I decided to put them together and release them as their own thing.
This is a set of tracks that were initially intended as part of the soundtrack for a project that is now on indefinite hiatus. I liked the tracks enough that I decided to put them together and release them as their own thing.
This is a set of tracks that were initially intended as part of the soundtrack for a project that is now on indefinite hiatus. I liked the tracks enough that I decided to put them together and release them as their own thing.
This is a set of tracks that were initially intended as part of the soundtrack for a project that is now on indefinite hiatus. I liked the tracks enough that I decided to put them together and release them as their own thing.
This is a set of tracks that were initially intended as part of the soundtrack for a project that is now on indefinite hiatus. I liked the tracks enough that I decided to put them together and release them as their own thing.
Just a demo of something super melodramatic and depressing I've been working on.Lyrics:Some trivial mistakeis keeping you awakemired in your feelingsstaring at the ceilingin the deep end of the nighttil finally you'd killto have some kind of pill to break the circle that you walk infidgeting and talkin'to yourself, all the timeyou keep saying that it's overover and over againyou keep saying that it's overover and over againTurn off your TVWade into the seaand beg the plankton to consume youyou wait all afternoon tojust melt into the wavesbut all you ever getis frustrated and wetso you wade back to the shorelay on the sand and start to snoreuntil the cops chase you awaywhy's it keep feeling like it's overover and over againwhy's it keep feeling like it's overover and over againit happens over and over and you're geting olderand time's running out for you to get soberit's something inside you that just isn't rightand you can't drown it out although god knows you've triedand why can't you just feel okay?maybe all you really needis someone to watch you bleedto worship and adore youand always reassure youthat your pain isn't just in your mindbut if you can sleep tonightmaybe that will make it rightand you can start evolving intothe kind of person you pretend toalready be onlineyou keep hoping that it's overover and over againkeep insisting that it's overover and over again
Just playing around with a jazzy progression and kept adding stuff until I accidentally reverse engineered it into Ben Folds Five.
Just a thing I was playing with that turned into a thing which turned into another thing. I'm not sure it's done yet but I like it.
This is one we recorded for Love Button's album Eat More Fruit, but ended up leaving it off the album for some reason I can't remember. Lyrics:They're coming now just like rednecks to GracelandThey seem to think that I know what I'm talking aboutThey think I heal them with a wave of my handWell I do what I can, and it all works outCuz they think I'm Jesus, and that's all rightThey give me money and they call me the ChristAnd they act like I know everythingAnd the pay's all right, but the lying is the thingThey're coming now like a moth to a candleThey hang my head on every word I sayI'm seeing death in every Christian faceIf they ever find out just how much I've betrayed themCuz they think I'm Jesus, and that's all rightThey give me money and they call me the ChristAnd they act like I know everythingAnd the pay's all right, but the lying is the thingThey're coming now screaming "miracle, miracle"I'll have to tell them all that I'm not preparedOne of these days they'll be coming with torchesI've seen the future, and I'm not thereCuz they think I'm Jesus, and that's all rightThey give me money and they call me the ChristAnd they act like I know everythingAnd the pay's all right, but the lying is the thing
What's a song about insect taxonomy without a bumping, slightly haunting techno remix? This one courtesy of Delstar!
Ainsley Seago suggested that we needed some Schoolhouse Rock style songs about what insect taxonomists do, with the hopes that maybe they will be more likely to be funded in the future. I bashed this track together and she did some drawings, and now there's a video you can check out!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYSIhzb14QI
I wrote this one in 2020 when I was quarantining in a hotel in Moore, Oklahoma but never recorded the vocals for it. I asked Scotty if he would do the honors and he came through as always!Lyrics:ChristmastimeWhere'd the year goStuck insideLiving echoesAn endless parade of identical moments that shuffle away leaving no real impression at allThings will be better next yearI know they willThings will be better next yearChristmastimeGod I miss youSoon it won'tBe an issueMaybe by June we canMeet at a restaurantSurrounded by peopleand think nothing of it at allThings will be better next yearThey have to beThings will be better next year
I thought I might get you an iPadOr a year's membership at the gymBut I put back my walletSoon as I recalled thatYou’re an asshole that voted for himSo I’m afraid you’re not getting a sweaterOr massage chair to help calm your nervesNo Nintendo SwitchYou dumb son of a bitchI’ll be giving you what you deserveYou’re getting’ the finger for ChristmasFor all that you are and have doneI’d give you some coal that’s as black as your soulBut you’d prob’ly just burn it for funI don’t know what you wanted for ChristmasI assume that it was something elseBut you’re a huge piece of shit So you get what you getHere’s the finger, now go fuck yourselfFuck youAmerica does have its problems Shit sucks for the whole working class But how dumb must you beTo ever think heWould do shit to help your stupid assI hope you're too rich to experienceThe impact of what you pricks didCuz if you can't afford toThey'll probably deport youTo a country where you’ve never lived So you get the finger for Christmas‘cuz you’ve given my country the sameI’ll invite you my friendTo sit on it and spinSo fast that you burst into flamesYou’re getting the finger for Christmas And if you should think that’s unfair Hey I understand And I do have two handsSo I’ll make it a matching pair Fuck youIf you go to the mall to see Santa I honestly hope he’ll just say Suck my North PoleYou stupid assholeAnd chase your ugly ass children away The damage you’ve done to AmericaWill prob’ly be with us for lifeIf you vote for that shitOf course you will get Told to go fuck yourself with a knife You’re getting the finger for ChristmasYou piece of shit snake in the grassIf you want some egg nogYou can suck my fat hogShove your holiday cheer up your assYou’re getting the finger for Christmas And it can’t be exchanged or returned You voted for racistsAnd son on that basisThe finger is all that you’ve earned Fuck you
This is a song that I actually wrote decades ago. Only a couple of people have ever heard it, and there's a reason for that; I feel like it's too easy for this one to be misunderstood, and I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings with it. But with the election today I'm really feeling this pretty hard right now about the entirety of the USA, and if ever there was a time when I was ready to say "fuck it, if anyone gets mad that's their problem" it's right now.But do let me say this: make sure you listen to the whole thing. It's a simple song about a complicated emotion, and you haven't heard all of it until you've heard all of it. I grew up in Oklahoma feeling like I never really fit in there. When I left for other parts of the world that feeling was confirmed for me; it's not just that I'm generally a depressing misanthrope (although I am that too), it really was just a poor match between a person and a place. I just didn't fit there politically, religiously, or in basically any other way that doesn't involve barbecue or tacos. Having lived overseas for the past twelve years, I'm finding that's increasingly true of America in general. And that's hard, like seriously really hard, because for both Oklahoma and the USA there are so many people that I care so much about there. I love going home and seeing all of them, and treasure every second when I do. I just can't be happy in those places long term, and less so now than ever. I've lost an awful lot of friends back home for someone my age, and I do wonder if I would have lived as long as I have if I'd stayed there and grown old with that feeling. If any of my Oklahoman, or more generally American, friends have made it this far and have mixed feelings about the song or this description, I understand. Just know that it ain't you, it's me. For all that I"m glad I left, I'm also glad that I grew up there and you're why. You're the reason I go back, and I miss you all terribly when I'm not there. We'll see you soon.Anyway, here are the lyrics:We stuck it to the manbut it just kept falling off againstuck it to the manbut it wound up right back in our hands, soclose your eyes and open up your mouthyou'll leave your jaw hanging slackto see how fast I'm driving out ofOklahomasometime this afternoon I'll cross the borderbet anything you like that you won't see mecast a wistful glance over my shoulderI always hang my head on the hook right by the door when I get home I just don't feel likethinking any more, so I close my eyes, ignore the input of my earsand I try so hard not to noticethat I've never fit in hereOklahomasometime this afternoon come turn me overbet anything you like that you won't wake meat least not that I'll remember when I'm soberbut I ain't dying in my sleepStuck it to the manbut it just kept falling off againI stuck it to the manbut it all fell off, so here I standclose my mouth, there's nothing left to sayyou know I love you and I'll miss youbut I simply cannot stayOklahomasometime this afternoon I'll cross the borderwhile the sun is in your eyes and you can't see mecast a wistful glance over my shoulderbut I ain't dying in my sleep in Oklahomasometime this afternoon come turn me overbet anything you like that you won't wake me'least not that I'll remember when I'm soberbut I ain't dying in my sleepin Oklahoma
I'm working on a bunch of new music that I'm not ready to post yet, so for now here's a lovely soundscape from this morning, recorded at my little rental house on Lake Hume. It was a very rainy morning, and an Aussie magpie was hanging out in the tree right outside my window, quietly talking to itself about all the worms it was planning to eat once the rain went away. It's out there in the yard now, making the dream come true.
Just messing around with some random short vocal snippets from a Youtube tutorial on Japanese grammar by Cure Dolly. Bass is Venus Theory's excellent foghorn sample library for Spitfire Labs.
Just a quick and dirty living room demo I recorded on my iPad of something I'm working on. Give me your credit cardsI wanna buy you a giftDown at the grocery storeI'll need a liftIt's too far for walkingAnd I've had a fewBut I wanna buy somethingReally special for youNo, I won't buy more than you'd allowI think I know you well enough by nowI heard your new recordIt's really not badYou get so much mileageOut of always being sadYou use the finest materialsTo frame your broken heartSo that all of the touristsWill think you're this work of artBut you know I don't buy your stories anyhowI think I know you well enough by nowThe last time I saw youYou were walking home aloneI offered to drive you but you saidThe city knows its ownI said "that's a good line, sunshine, take a fucking bow,and I think I know you well enough by now"
This is a bunch of instrumental music I made for a documentary called River Runner many years ago, just sort of stuffed together in one track.
This is a track I did for the Frog Fractions 2 ARG, it was meant to be an artifact from the remains of the civilization of Bug Mars. It's a song of mourning in the last days of a dying civilization. Lyrics:There was no war, there was no victoryNo grand defeat to make some sense of theThings that we lost, things that we gave for freeBecause we never understoodThat when it's gone, it's gone for goodThe sparkles kill and then they fade awayThe heart grows still amid the world's decayEven the atmosphere has bled awayAnd still we never understoodThat when it's gone, it's gone for good
Sometimes I like to just sit down and build a generative music machine that makes pretty noises. This was one of those days, and this is the result.
This is the instrumental track for a song I have still never recorded. I wrote the song near the end of 2020. It's about reassuring yourself that the currently horrible world events are temporary. It was a sort of cross between optimism and intentional irony, and of course 2021 turned out to suck even worse. Maybe one day I'll record it, but for now it just sort of sounds like Christmas shopping music that's been left out to decay in the sun for a few decades. Here's the lyrics:
Christmastime Where'd the year go? Spent inside Living echoes An endless parade of identical moments that shuffle away, leaving no real impression at all, but Things will be better next year I know they will Things will be better next year
Christmastime And I miss you Soon it won't be an issue Maybe by June we can meet in a restaurant surrounded by people and think nothing of it at all? Things will be better next year They have to be Things will be better next year
This is just a rough draft of a ridiculous thing I built from a Librivox audiobook of an old book called "The Book of the Damned", by Charles Hoy Fort. The chapters these samples were taken from were read by Matthew Shepherd.
Welp I set out to just make a nice little western thing and it ended up sounding way too much like Gorillaz. I swear it wasn't on purpose. Back to the drawing board.
I'm tired of not understanding Japanese, so I made a machine to do it for me. It's just a sampler fed with random syllables from my Pimsleur Japanese lessons, with the two voices occasionally asking each other if they understand and forlornly responding that they don't.
This is a very old track, basically a found poem taken from a vocabulary building record from the 80s. It (in my mind) tells the story of a relationship that starts off strong but gets weird and creepy, and ends with them parting with no real lessons learned.
I was messing around in bitwig with a rhythmic pattern I learned from karnatic music and I think I accidentally made prog.
Lyrics: bwoooop booop peeeoww weeeener neeeener
Last week I was playing around with sampling some sounds from an old data cassette as well as an XDR toneburst. I ended up using those sampler instruments to flesh out a bit of music I'd already been working on, and the end result sounds like a discarded and poorly weathered cassette of some old video game music.
This track is me sort of exploring the idea that quantum foam and the big bang imply that the universe absolutely cannot tolerate the existence of true nothingness. There can be nothing, but not for long. Sort of encouraging, in a perverse way.
Anyway it takes a long time to get started; the track began as sort of an experiment in building music out of environmental noise.
Lyrics:
Can you call it vacuum, the spaces between spaces where there were never things? Can you call it darkness, the absence of a light that never has been seen? Either by sheer providence or through some strange technology, nothing never lasts forever; something comes to be.
At its core, true nothingness is riddled with instability, simply as a consequence of some innate geometry. So in the end the emptiness is an impossibility. Nothing never lasts forever; something comes to be.
This is just me playing with some sounds in Bitwig. The progression is fun because when it sounds like it's looping back to the beginning it's actually a step lower than it started out (hence the name). The other neat thing about this one is that the super funky electric piano bit that starts at 1:30 is just running the same chords through two different arpeggiators - it happened entirely on accident but I decided I liked it.
This is a completely ridiculous little thing that I wrote many, many, MANY years ago that just suddenly came back to my mind the other day. For some reason the thing that brought it back to me was that I remembered playing it for Jon Mooneyham and him being incredulous that I had name-dropped Clarence Clemons. Anyway, it's a very stupid song and now a bad recording of it is on Soundcloud forever.
Lyrics: I don't understand a fuckin' word you're saying you just sound like a saxophone Somewhere in my mind I have got Clarence Clemons and he's not going to leave me alone Oh what a world, it's a sad sad world It's a world I always hoped I'd never live to see Woke up this morning just find that everyone had bought a vocoder except for me
This is just a little thing where I was playing with odd time signatures and trying to follow along on my Wavedrum.
This is just a snippet of music I came up with years ago, completely forgot, and then stumbled across this morning while looking for something else. I don't know that I'll ever do anything more with it, but I do think it's kinda pretty.
You are walking through the woods when you stumble across a robot church group baptizing one of their own children in a stream. Two robot children are singing a song to mark the event.
Includes a field recording by Nick Friedman.
Okay it's been way too damn long since I've uploaded anything so here's this. It's just an instrumental demo for a new take on an old song of mine.
Yet another ambient-ish track, but this one morphs into more of an actual song as it goes on.
Another drone track, this one just built with an acoustic guitar and a buttload of effects.
This is just me learning how to use the automation in Arturia Pigments, and throwing out some massive brraaaaaams in the process. This whole track is one chord, and the rest of it is just delays, reverbs, and distortions with a bunch of interacting automation.
Okay this is a demo of a short (or half finished, depending) track that sort of straddles the line between depressing metaphor and "oh maybe there are actual zombies in this song", which is a pretty funny concept to me. Very rough recording, just using my ipad mic in the kitchen the other morning.
Lyrics: Some people die with their eyes open And just keep walking around They learn to smile with their heart broken And to cry without making sound Have to look twice to see that they're drowning in it
Oh I Sometimes Wish that that was me Oh to be doe-eyed Bovine Waiting patiently No more suffering Only shuffling 'round Aimlessly Leave the living to the living and be free
This is an old demo for a song from about 2010 that I just never got around to polishing up.
Lyrics
I only wanna be on your good side But I give too much away Trying to make things right in all the wrong ways
I only wanna be on the inside wherever you are Stand and press my face against the bars
I am an awkward silence Waiting to be broken on your tongue I'm a contented sigh that's still to come
I only wanna be right by your side Wherever you may go Anywhere you are is home
I don't understand What else could you need? Anything you want from me, I want to be
This is just a super-rough demo recorded on my phone, for a song currently (but not necessarily permanently) called "You'll Know". Mostly I recorded this so I wouldn't forget the lyrics I've come up with, but I also think the song is going in a really good direction so I wanted to share it.
Lyrics (as of today): When the time has come for you, you'll know While we wonder what to do, you'll know When the air grows thin, and Vacuum burns your skin, and Somehow you begin to glow You'll know
There's a thing behind your eyes, I know, that Nothing ever satisfies, and so In the end, defying Your own fear of flying And the terrifying odds, You'll go I know
Clearly you're meant for another age One more deserving of you Bent on transcending the everyday Bound to become something new That's you
Well if it doesn't quite work out for you At least we'll know beyond a doubt that you Chose your own disaster Despite their howls of laughter And they'll name the crater after you When you go You know
I can't describe What I see in this light With my eyes wide open Almost divine So real and so right So loud, unspoken Falls on me Soft Like a frosty morning And blurs the outline It's too close to be seen Like the act of blinking Hard to define It's just a thing that you are Without even thinking You'll always be What I need Be it sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love But you make it easy
If you can't get by On your own any more Any more than I can Look to your side Because you know that I'm there And you know that you can Call on me I'll be what you need Be it sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love But you make it easy
Maybe we never made it home Maybe we swerved across the center line You know that bridge we crossed that seemed to just go on forever? Maybe that’s what death was like But then if you and I are ghosts We get to spend the afterlife Two drunken poltergeists that haunt this old decaying empire Dancing every night
And we’ll be saved like flies in amber Perfect and pristine Dancing through each coming winter Dead but evergreen Dead but evergreen
The way we think will never change We’ll never lose the appetite The years to come won’t find us turning into other people Wouldn’t that be nice?
And we’ll be saved like flies in amber Perfect and pristine Dancing through each coming winter Dead but evergreen Dead but evergreen
And when the earth is swallowed by its aging sun We’ll still float in space unseen Forever dancing Never changing Evergreen
I know your face From some other place But this can’t be real, just can’t be real Too clean, too bright To be quite right This can’t be real, this can’t be real I know, oh I know
But then I see you now, a perfect point of light So small and yet so bright Reaching out to comfort me Wake up superman Do what love demands Seize eternity
I sense you there In empty air But this can’t be real, just can’t be real Too perfectly What ought to be This can’t be real, just can’t be real I know, oh I know
But still I see you now, standing in the light And everything’s all right Holding out your hand to me Stand up superman Love holds out its hand Seize eternity
I’m on your side Take my hand Seize eternity I’m on your side Don’t let go Seize eternity
Brittle fragment of a memory Still and silent over centuries Wake, my love, and greet me Wake, my love, and never never go again Do not forsake me Love, do not forsake me Awaken to me Take a breath now Hesitation is the enemy Every instant is a victory Wake, my love, and greet me Wake, my love, I swear it I swear it can be Everything you wanted Everything forever Forever's not so long Forever's not so long
Will you lose it all because you're afraid to choose? Will you lose it all because you're afraid to choose? When the time has come to pick a side, will you simply refuse and say there's nothing you can do, when you know that it's not true?
You defined yourself with things that you consume With your wine, your wealth, your car and your perfume So when someone bought the same things and that person became you there was nothing you could do, from that moment you just had this feeling as though something quite significant was lost but you can't quite define what it was
And now you rise and fall like an empire every day as you build your walls just to watch them all decay Maybe nothing much is gained by it, but somehow that's okay all that anyone can say is that it had to be that way when any meaning you might find would be subjective anyway And hey, you did your best to keep the darkness away
Oh you temporary thing departing since the moment you arrived you know you can't survive this on your own you solitary thing now reaching out in hopes that you will find that another of your kind is reaching too Some signal in the static peeking through; there's something out there looking out for you and hey, you know it might be true
You ordinary thing, less different than you want to believe yet terrified to leave your gun at home, you sedentary thing now dying only inches from your birth the master of the earth for all you knew You looked around and found nothing to do but never thought to blame your point of view and say, "you know this can't be true"
"There must be more than this a message that we missed I just know somehow this can't be all, this can't be all"
Oh no, you broken nameless thing cast up in ragged pieces on the shore hoping that there's more than just the one last quick and painless thing; that life was just a shadow on a wall and now you'll turn around and all will be revealed The color and the shape will make it real and somehow you will know how you should feel While that isn't quite the deal, there's something more than this a message that you missed You had to know this can't be all, just can't be all oh no
Who are you now, when all your fear is stripped away? Who are you now? What do you remember from the day? What did you surrender to get away? Hey, are you all right? Are you going to be all right? You seem to have forgotten how to breathe, or lost the urge for quite a while.
It’s quiet out here Look for the sun, I can’t find it out here And all that dumb shit that they told us about our manifest destiny Is gone and forgotten now And sure, our goals are pure What good does that do out here? I’m not sure And looking back now at that comic book future we used to believe in So foolish in hindsight, I see
We’re only survival machines Connected like mother and child Each needing the other to thrive It’s all or it’s none that survive
Gone in the night, all sense of purpose A thin veil of lies that just lay on the surface And I long to unload this cargo of corpses And own my own life
And so we hold tight to a lone mote of dust in the infinite night straining ourselves just to cling to the surface our singular purpose to stay side by side and what does it mean that they could have used fear or almost anything but love is lever they've chosen to move us to shape and improve us to keep our lives evergreen?
Does that make us survival machines connected like mother and child each needing the other to thrive it's all or it's none that survive
I feel like I'm finally nearing the end of production on my album Evergreen; everything is recorded, and now it's just a question of final mixing and mastering. Here's a more or less final version of the song that started it all, Sail or Anchor. Fun fact: much of the percussion is recordings of Ann Druyan's brain waves from the Voyager golden record, combined with tiny (< 1 second) snippets of ASMR videos ripped from Youtube.
Lyrics:
I can't describe what I see in this light with my eyes wide open Almost divine so real and so right so loud unspoken And it falls on me soft like a frosty morning Blurs the outline it's too close to be seen like the act of blinking Hard to define It's just a thing that you are Without even thinking
And you'll always be what I need, be it sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love, but you make it easy
If you can't get by on your own anymore then you know that you can Look to your side and you'll know that I'm there and you know that you can
Call on me to be what you need, either sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love but you make it easy
This is a very rough demo of a song I've been working on. I recorded it on my iPhone, playing the piano that I learned on as a child. It's in bad repair these days and sounds like it, but it has a special place in my heart.
The song is about the aftermath of an alien abduction where a couple have had something installed in them that will record their thoughts and memories, and that in some strange way connects them to each other. They weren't supposed to be aware of it, but at least one of them is.
Lyrics: When the stars came closer We were all at first afraid But when the night was over We only wished that they had stayed Tell me, have I grown transparent? Can everybody see right through my skin? And are my bones apparent? Does everybody know where I have been?
They've taken something from me And left a vacuum in its place A mouth that's always hungry An absence nothing can replace It's something that we owe each other A fire that burns eternal, bright It's a part of us that lives forever Far from these pale orange city lights
Oh tell me you have not forgotten Tell me everything will work out right Promise me you'll be there waiting Far from these pale orange city lights
This is not really meant to be a track per se, just demonstrating a proof of concept. This is essentially taking the idea behind Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting In A Room" and faking it by chaining the same reverb over and over again instead of repeated recordings in a real space. Then I'm basically turning those reverbs on and off rhythmically while running a drum loop through them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAxHlLK3Oyk&ab_channel=TrilobiteJuice
Okay this is a sad one. I wrote this song about four years ago when I was approaching the end of a postdoc fellowship and didn't yet have another job lined up, and was contemplating what to do if I wasn't able to continue my academic career. At the same time I was talking to my family back home about how my brother's health was failing, and the abysmal quality of care he was receiving because he had the misfortune of being poor in America's healthcare system. I wrote this song in maybe thirty minutes and recorded it in the voice memos on my iPad so that I'd remember it. It's not precisely about his situation or mine, but it's not NOT about that either.
For some reason the other day this song came back into my head, and I thought about rerecording it. When I went back to the iPad recording from four years ago, though, I found that I really liked it despite how noisy and rough it was - there was something about getting it down when all of those feelings were fresh that I really liked. So in the end I just added a bit of piano and a bit of organ to reinforce what was already there; other than that it's what I recorded on the day I wrote it.
Lyrics:
I command you to stand hold your heart in your hands and say the words you're falling to pieces, aren't you calling for Jesus aren't you what makes you think he's going to want you now?
I command you to lie up all night asking why he made you one of the world's worst dancers and subject to all those cancers don't settle for easy answers now
How long can you keep this going? How long can you hold one single breath?
Got my list of demands I hope the world understands why it's so long when I've spent my whole life hunting frequently finding something but never could stop from wanting more
How long can I keep this going? How long can I hold one single breath?
I command you to kneel Tell the world that you feel neglected, it's not that you want it easy, you don't want their sympathies, but you just need to know someone sees you try
How long can you keep this going? How long can you hold that final breath?
Hypnospace Outlaw OST vol. 3 is out, including a bunch of songs from me! They're also included in the new content update, which should be dropping on Steam and elsewhere today!
This track is an alt-rock reworking of my song for the initial release, Satellite.
https://jtholen.bandcamp.com/album/hypnospace-outlaw-ost-vol-3
Lyrics: Back when we were both young and pretty Oh, you had so much to say But things weren't perfect in the city So now you've moved away And my my, look how your star has faded You spend the night at home Practicing your drums for a gig that never comes Casting dirty glances at the phone
You've still got mountains in your mind You never even tried to climb You never seemed to have the time You know you used to shine so bright Was that all reflected light? Were you just a satellite?
Lord knows, these things get so confusing When you have flown so far Back home the almond trees are blooming But it's autumn where you are And my my, now all the leaves are changing Just like the color of your hair Time flies, soon everything looks strange and A chill is in the air
You've still got mountains in your mind You never even tried to climb You never seemed to have the time You know you used to shine so bright Was that all reflected light? Were you just a satellite?
You know you used to shine so bright Was that all reflected light? Was nothing coming from inside? Were you just a satellite?
I decided to see whether I could use the R package "googleLanguageR" to use Google's API for speech-to-text and automate my sampling process for my spoken word fuckery. Answer: very yes. This is just me playing around for a few minutes with clips from Attenborough's "Life Stories".
Here's a draft of a song for Evergreen. Musically it started as an exercise in writing nonfunctional harmony. I've probably pulled this one apart and put it back together more than any other song I've made in recent memory, and I'm still not entirely sure I'm satisfied with it.
Lyrics:
Brittle fragment of a memory Still and silent over centuries Wake, my love, and greet me Wake, my love, and never never go again Do not forsake me Love, do not forsake me Awaken to me Take a breath now Hesitation is the enemy Every instant is a victory Wake, my love, and greet me Wake, my love, I swear it I swear it can be Everything you wanted Everything forever Forever's not so long Forever's not so long
This is currently slated to be the last track on Evergreen. It's a reprise of the first song, Survival Machines. Regardless of whether anyone else ever likes it, Evergreen is a project I've grown so personally attached to that it's just getting harder and harder for me to be completely satisfied with the arrangement and mix of any given track. Nonetheless, this is one of the ones that I think is closest to exactly what I wanted it to be.
Lyrics:
And so we hold tight to a lone mote of dust in the infinite night straining ourselves just to cling to the surface our singular purpose to stay side by side and what does it mean that they could have used fear or almost anything but love is lever they've chosen to move us to shape and improve us to keep our lives evergreen?
Does that make us survival machines connected like mother and child each needing the other to thrive it's all or it's none that survive
Here's a new take on my song Wretched Beast, with some lovely harmonies provided by Tanja Manners. It still needs a bit of mixing work, but I'm going to be traveling for a while and decided to go ahead and post the rough track because it's darn pretty.
This is just a quick sketch of a song that's still only half-written. I basically sat down to record this just to make sure I wouldn't forget the vocal arrangement I'd thought of, but I ended up liking the way it came out enough to share it.
Lyrics: The next time we see each other we will know this dance by heart and we'll do it in that instant, no matter where we are If it's a thousand years before we do, I promise I'll still recognize you
Because I hear you in the evening when the crickets sing good night and I see you in the morning in the flicker of the light In every single thing I see and do, in some small way I recognize you
You're burned into me deep For everything I keep forgetting I will always recognize you
I don't believe in heaven, but I'd be happy to be wrong I'd like to think that somehow you and I will carry on Whatever life may turn us both into, I know I'll always recognize you
Just a weird little song I came up with as an experiment. I actually had the idea for the weird vocal sound first and wrote the song around it, and I think it worked out surprisingly well for having been written from the top down like that. The percussion is mostly one of Sound Dust's chaos engine thingies, and that lovely synth in the chorus is Samplephonics' Dirty Modular.
Lyrics: At the bottom of the ocean There are colors nobody sees You have your own, in unguarded moments You share with me You let me see
There's a certain smallest distance That is allowed by electricity Staying within those physical limits Come close to me Just as close as you can be
Come closer Take and surround me Gently Please come close to me
At the moment of creation When everything was just energy There was a process set in motion To bring you to me Just as close as you can be
Come closer Take and surround me Gently Please come close to me
It's been a while since I've uploaded something, and unfortunately I'm traveling again so I can't record much at the moment. Until I get something else put together, here's a noisy living room recording of a song I've never released before. I threw this together in Australia as a demo just so I wouldn't forget the song, and I've been meaning to get back to it for years now.
This is a track I did for Jay Tholen's new video game, Hypnospace Outlaw. Within the game, the song is by an imaginary 90's alt-folk band called Barnaby's Chair.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/844590/Hypnospace_Outlaw/
Lyrics:
Back when we were both young and pretty Oh, you had so much to say But things weren't perfect in the city So now you've moved away And my my, look how your star has faded You spend the night at home Practicing your drums for a gig that never comes Casting dirty glances at the phone
You've still got mountains in your mind You never even tried to climb You never seemed to have the time You know you used to shine so bright Was that all reflected light? Were you just a satellite?
Lord knows, these things get so confusing When you have flown so far Back home the almond trees are blooming But it's autumn where you are And my my, now all the leaves are changing Just like the color of your hair Time flies, soon everything looks strange and A chill is in the air
You've still got mountains in your mind You never even tried to climb You never seemed to have the time You know you used to shine so bright Was that all reflected light? Were you just a satellite?
You know you used to shine so bright Was that all reflected light? Was nothing coming from inside? Were you just a satellite?
This is a slightly rearranged and remastered version of something I've uploaded before. I think it's close enough to a final version as makes no difference at this point.
Lyrics:
Oh you temporary thing departing since the moment you arrived you know you can't survive this on your own you solitary thing now reaching out in hopes that you will find that another of your kind is reaching too Some signal in the static peeking through; there's something out there looking out for you and hey, you know it might be true
You ordinary thing, less different than you want to believe yet terrified to leave your gun at home, you sedentary thing now dying only inches from your birth the master of the earth for all you knew You looked around and found nothing to do but never thought to blame your point of view and say, "you know this can't be true"
"There must be more than this a message that we missed I just know somehow this can't be all, this can't be all"
Oh no, you broken nameless thing cast up in ragged pieces on the shore hoping that there's more than just the one last quick and painless thing; that life was just a shadow on a wall and now you'll turn around and all will be revealed The color and the shape will make it real and somehow you will know how you should feel While that isn't quite the deal,
there's something more than this a message that you missed You had to know this can't be all, just can't be all oh no
Lemme get pompous for a second: I've always loved the idea of the unreliable narrator in music, because I think people are a lot less prepared for it in that situation than they typically are when reading prose, watching a movie, or something like that. I think there's something about setting words to music that tends to circumvent people's skepticism and perceive the lyrics as fundamentally honest, rather than as a work of fiction. Having a first person perspective where the viewpoint is either unreliable or kind of a shithead is really interesting, because people tend to take that personally in a weird way.
On that note, here's a song that starts off sounding like a take on the "I'm broken and you can fix me" school of love songs, but as it goes on you sorta realize that the person in question isn't just emotionally screwed up but in fact mentally unstable. I had this idea of doing an entire album based around this idea, where it starts off as just a sort of romantic story but it turns out that the narrative voice is a doomsday prepper type who has a basement full of canned goods and guns. This song would be one of the first places where the romantic narrative starts to crack and the craziness shines through. The "naive" person the narrator is in love with is in fact just sane.
Lyrics: I don't understand you like you think I do I'm trying to, but it's so hard There's something beautiful I see in you that I don't fully understand
Oh darling, take it easy on my heart I'm trying to be everything you need You've gotta take it easy at the start Eventually I'll come up to speed
Do you remember when I came to you I told my shame to you, and it was so odd How all you ever did was look at me and say "I don't really understand"
Oh darling, take it easy on my heart How can you be so perfectly naive? I'm sick of being everything you aren't and desperate for something to believe
I can see you now in my mind surrounded by golden light like a neon sign advertising faith in all mankind And I can see it now in your eyes the sense that there's a grand design that I could never find in my own heart even though I tried and tried
Just outside this circle of electric lights there are appetites that've waited so long We're counting down the hours 'til they realize that everything has come undone
Oh darling, take it easy on my heart I'm trying to be everything you need We've got to take it easy at the start, if we try to move too quickly it will bleed
I don't often post things that are this new and unpolished, but I haven't had much time to record lately and it's been a while since I posted something. It's a pretty simple song anyway, so it doesn't require much.
Just an old track that I put together as a test run for a project that I never really finished. Samples were taken from the audiobook of Almost Astronauts, by Tanya Lee Stone.
Just a cute little song about being self-conscious about your strangeness.
Lyrics: I built my house with my own two hands and a substance I secrete out of special glands yeah, it's true so can you I built my car out of subway trash chewing gum wrappers, cigarette ash and glue it's just a thing I do
And if it's weird, well then it's weird and that's all right with me because it's real and it's honest and it's true So if it's weird, then it's weird and that's just how it's gonna be I only hope it isn't too weird for you
I live my life like a Markov chain a bunch of things that I do that I can't explain to you strange but true I built my love out of empty space a little hollow vacant place that you fit into
And if that's weird, well then it's weird and that's just how it's gonna be because it's real and it's honest and it's true So if it's weird, then it's weird and that's all right with me I only hope it isn't too weird for you I really do I hope that it's not too weird for you
This is basically a first draft, but I think it sounds good enough to put out there. Lyrics:
You hit me like the sound of thunder You rattle me and leave me steaming And all that I can do is wonder What happened to me? Am I dreaming? But no, the world I knew is torn asunder In its place a new thing growing I don't even try to understand it, I'm content just knowing
You cut through me like the wind in winter A mockery of my defenses And leaving my resolve in splinters You humble me and leave me senseless Oh, you glorious calamity You hurricane You sweet destroyer All you do is glance at me and something in my head says boy, you're
Doomed, you've fallen farther than you first assumed Give up and just prepare to be consumed
It hits me like a sweet starvation A hollow little place inside me I'm overcome with desperation The only thing to satisfy the need would be another kiss from you One more embrace The sound of your voice I've given up resisting you I see your face and I have no choice
I'm doomed, I've fallen farther than I first assumed I'm doomed, the simple slightly lonely life I knew Is doomed, I see it sliding slowly out of view I'm doomed, and I don't know what happens after you
Here's a rough draft of another track for Evergreen.
Lyrics: Will you lose it all because you're afraid to choose? Will you lose it all because you're afraid to choose? When the time has come to pick a side, will you simply refuse and say there's nothing you can do, when you know that it's not true?
You defined yourself with things that you consume With your wine, your wealth, your car and your perfume So when someone bought the same things and that person became you there was nothing you could do, from that moment you just had this feeling as though something quite significant was lost but you can't quite define what it was
And now you rise and fall like an empire every day as you build your walls just to watch them all decay Maybe nothing much is gained by it, but somehow that's okay all that anyone can say is that it had to be that way when any meaning you might find would be subjective anyway And hey, you did your best to keep the darkness away
From my 2013 album A Series of Tasteful Nudes. Originally written for a contest where we were tasked with writing a song about...you'll never guess...Jagadish Chandra Bose. I won!
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/a-series-of-tasteful-nudes/665149660
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tasteful-Nudes-Explicit-Dan-Warren/dp/B00DJMOGK6/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2lbvzJ51Cgh1i8s5sPIh0J
Subscribe to the International House of Dancakes podcast on iTunes, or using this url: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheInternationalHouseOfDancakes
In memory or Art Bell, here's a track from one of my very early experimental samplewankery albums where Art and one of his colleagues were discussing repeated sightings of the mystical Ted Koppel.
From my 2008 album The Scientist.
iTunes: itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-scientist/287160298
Amazon: www.amazon.com/Scientist-Dan-Warren/dp/B001EUQER8/
Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/3k3FUhfnMq56waxKjuErIY
Subscribe to the International House of Dancakes podcast on iTunes, or using this url: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheInternationalHouseOfDancakes
From my 2013 album A Series of Tasteful Nudes.
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/a-series-of-tasteful-nudes/665149660
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tasteful-Nudes-Explicit-Dan-Warren/dp/B00DJMOGK6/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2lbvzJ51Cgh1i8s5sPIh0J
Subscribe to the International House of Dancakes podcast on iTunes, or using this url: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheInternationalHouseOfDancakes
From my 2008 album The Scientist.
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-scientist/287160298
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Scientist-Dan-Warren/dp/B001EUQER8/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3k3FUhfnMq56waxKjuErIY
Subscribe to the International House of Dancakes podcast on iTunes, or using this url: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheInternationalHouseOfDancakes
Another one for the vocoder opera project. This one is basically a view of humanity from a computer perspective, alternating between indulgence and contempt.
Lyrics:
Oh you temporary thing departing since the moment you arrived you know you can't survive this on your own you solitary thing now reaching out in hopes that you will find that another of your kind is reaching too Some signal in the static peeking through; there's something out there looking out for you and hey, you know it might be true
You ordinary thing, less different than you want to believe yet terrified to leave your gun at home, you sedentary thing now dying only inches from your birth the master of the earth for all you knew You looked around and found nothing to do but never thought to blame your point of view and say, "you know this can't be true"
"There must be more than this a message that we missed I just know somehow this can't be all, this can't be all"
Oh no, you broken nameless thing cast up in ragged pieces on the shore hoping that there's more than just the one last quick and painless thing; that life was just a shadow on a wall and now you'll turn around and all will be revealed The color and the shape will make it real and somehow you will know how you should feel While that isn't quite the deal,
there's something more than this a message that you missed You had to know this can't be all, just can't be all oh no
Another track for whatever the hell this vocoder opera thing I'm working on turns out to be. The story here is that a bunch of robots are rebuilding a person from the wrecked remains of their brain after an accident.
Lyrics: Who are you now, when all your fear is stripped away? Who are you now? What do you remember from the day? What did you surrender to get away? Hey, are you all right? Are you going to be all right? You seem to have forgotten how to breathe, or lost the urge for quite a while.
I trained myself so I can move like swimming underground. Closed my eyes, they're no use. Navigating by the sound of footsteps overhead.
I tell myself that the sunshine's not that great. Sometimes I think I'm lying, but don't confront myself. I'm afraid; what if I have wasted all these lonely years?
Now I miss my friends, miss my family and fresh air. Sometimes I have been known to spend whole days staring at the world up there.
Flowers are periscopes, peering up through waves of grass.
This is me leaning into my melodramatic side instead of away, which is my more normal tendency.
Lyrics:
I can see you little comet and I wonder did you know When life pulled you from your orbit and you first began to glow? Bright and aching like the dawn, and did you know what was to come? No? Do you even know what you're running from?
Do you remember when the sun first touched your face stripping flesh away, how strange it seemed that it didn't hurt at all? It felt like waking after sleeping in for days To find your wings had dried and now you might escape
Aren't you lovely torn to pieces spilled across a moonlit sky by the weight of expectations from a world that wants to see you shine? In a thousand pieces bright and clear a scar across a star-lit dome Go, little comet go Anywhere but home
I've been putting this together for a synth compilation. Vocoders and synths are a bit out of my comfort zone, but that's just made it more fun. This was originally written as a sort of folky/jazzy love song on classical guitar, but honestly I kinda like it better this way.
Lyrics:
I can't describe What I see in this light With my eyes wide open Almost divine So real and so right So loud, unspoken Falls on me Soft Like a frosty morning And blurs the outline It's too close to be seen Like the act of blinking Hard to define It's just a thing that you are Without even thinking You'll always be What I need Be it sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love But you make it easy
If you can't get by On your own any more Any more than I can Look to your side Because you know that I'm there And you know that you can Call on me I'll be what you need Be it sail or anchor I'd gladly fight so hard for this love But you make it easy
Just messing around with an instrumental synth version of a song I'm working on. The actual song is currently a fingerpicky classical guitar thing with lyrics half-done, but I'm liking this instrumental version because it is chill as heck.
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
This album tells the story of the 2020 presidential election. The voice you hear is Dan Carlin, but he didn't say any of this stuff; the story was built from thousands of short audio clips from his podcasts (Common Sense and Hardcore History). Dan Carlin is not responsible for any of the content.
Download the album for free at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Warren/
There's also a video showing how the story was composed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQhTeH9SYQ
Here's a torrent of both the album and the video:
https://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3661092/?rel=1505523921
Probably still needs a bit of tweaking, but this is a decent first draft of the music for this chapter.
Here's a first take at chapter 6. It's a bit of a beast because there are so many tonal changes in the text, but I think this is getting close to where I want it.
Another chunk of music that I came up with for part of the Hardcore Prophecy project that I think I'm going to abandon. I sorta like it for what it is, but it's not useful for the spot it's slated for.
So this is basically an offcut - something I had initially started on for Chapter 6 of the Hardcore Prophecy project but then I decided it didn't really work for what I was using it for. Still got some nice bits in it musically, so here it is in its unfinished state, for what it's worth.
Updated version of chapter 3. The old Chapter 4 has now been folded into the end of Chapter 3, so I deleted the old Chapter 4 just to avoid confusion.
Okay so here's a first draft of chapter 8 with music.
And before you go looking for chapters 5-7, I haven't uploaded drafts of those yet. I'm doing the music a bit out of order as I get ideas that I like.
I also recently posted a video about how I'm doing the words for this stuff (and for Son of Strelka), in case you're interested in the process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTSFDMfEjqQ&t=3s
Okay so for reasons I won't go into I had a spot in a project where I wanted something that was "reminiscent of Yakety Sax but sad, weird, and awful". I had the genius idea to just download a midi rendering of Yakety Sax, twiddle the scale around until it was (approximately) in a diminished key, and then run it through some software instruments. This is the result. I'm not going to be using it for the intended purpose; it sucks, but not in the right way.
Okay, so I've kinda decided (for now) that the 2020 project is now called Hardcore Prophecy: The Trump of Doom. Here's a draft of chapter 2, that it just sorta setting the scene for Trump to appear. Music is still pretty much just a sketch.
Sketch of the middle chunk of chapter 4(?) of my new audio collage project thingy. The story at this point is currently planned to be that Trump orders mandatory polygamy. Congress complies, but it quickly devolves into a frenzy of cannibalism along party lines.
Put some polish on the words and beefed up the music a bit. Still maybe not final, but closer.
First draft of the Prologue for my new audio pastiche project, tentatively entitled "2020". Words are from Dan Carlin's Hardcore History and Common Sense, recut by yours truly. Music is a rough draft but at the moment I'm into it.
Just absolutely foolish music. This is maybe ten years old, and I literally can't remember why I made it.
Channelling The Cars a bit on this one. Loosely based on a dream I had a few years ago. Unfortunately the vocals are a bit distorted, which is entirely down to me not quite knowing how to use my new mic and Apollo Twin yet. I'll go back and redo them some day when I get my shits together.
Male lyrebird just going bonkers outside my window while I was trying to work today. The track is noisy as heck, but this is actually POST noise reduction; the noise you are hearing is actually cicadas trying to get laid every bit as hard as the lyrebird is. Their song isn't quite as pretty, though.
First chapter of my sample-mangling opus "Son of Strelka, Son of God". Just realized they weren't on here, and thought I should upload them all.
Instrumental track for a song. It has lyrics, but I haven't recorded them yet because the fucking parrots won't shut up. If Love Button ever does a new album, this'd be a good'un.
Trying out something steel guitar-ish on the Seaboard, along with some good ol' fangerpickin'. Also trying out my new UAD Apollo Twin in the process. Definitely riding the preamps too hot on this one, but it still sounds way nicer than the ol' Focusrite IMO.
A rough acoustic take of a new song I've been playing with about just being kinda blasé about the end of civilization.
Just messing around with a sill Monkees-esque cover of the Flaming Lips song "Everything's Exploding". Filtered for that authentic old cassette shitty sound.
Just a little melody that came out of nowhere, so I fleshed it out over a few hours this weekend.
Just messing around with TMBG's Lie Still Little Bottle. Kinda went off the rails at the end there.
This is an acoustic take of a song I've been playing with lately. It's about having those perfect nights that you wish could go on forever, and what you'd have to give up for that to happen.
Much like many of the things I've been posting lately, this one has lyrics that I can't record because the fucking cockatoos won't shut up. An unforeseen downside of living in the jungle.
Just a remixed field recording from an afternoon in Esparto, CA. Also got some good mic feedback, doors slamming, etc.
I previously posted a quick piano sketch of this melody as "43". It just struck me that it might sound good as a kinda chill hornish Eastern-sounding jazzy thing so here that is.
Here's a sketch of a new one I'm working on. It actually has some words in progress, but it sounds pretty neat as is. Basically I'm experimenting with things teetering up to and away from the edge of chaos, using static and noise to make instruments and instruments to make noise.
This is something I just dug up that I don't even remember making. It's just me mucking about with Realivox Blue and some backing strings by Embertone along with the built-in Kontakt libraries. Just a sketch, but I do like the sound of it.
Just messing around with a scale I ran across in this equal interval system book. Very simple, but I do like the sound of it.
Here's some music for a song I'm working on this weekend. It's only half-written, but I think it sounds pretty neat.
Again just uploading old stuff for the podcast. This is a song from my album Crush The Infamous Thing. The words are all ripped from an album by motivational speaker/guru Glenn Turner, who seems to be a legitimately insane person.
So here's the deal: I've moved my podcast to Soundcloud so that I don't have to host it myself any more. During that process it got de-listed and re-listed on the iTunes store, which means all of the old content is no longer available to new subscribers. That being the case, I'm going to slowly but surely start uploading a bunch of my older stuff here. So here's one from The Scientist, an album I put out in 2008.
This is a song off of my album The Scientist. It's about a guy who's the only person left awake on a spaceship full of frozen sleepers, starting to get disillusioned with his job. The idea came to me when I was thinking about my SCUBA equipment, and how it was my job to keep it alive just as it was its job to keep me alive.
Just a little 5/4 orchestra thing for another somethingawful song contest/collab thingy
Just screwing around with the microtonal editing on an electric piano sample in Bitwig.
They're detectives but they're also in love. They laugh a lot, and have friends that own speedboats.