Friday, November 28, 2008

Outskirt - Update







I've been sick a whole week, it started while I was recording song n. 7 Thar Desert, so my (supposed) timing now is a little longer. I left that song (a funky number) on W.I.P. , 'cause I'm still not satisfied with the groove - I thought I had to pick up that song again later, so I went on with next songs.


08. Junction Box

It's an electronic joint between first Outskirt half and Belief + closing two song. Works like a teather curtain.


Belief suite

I'm not a believer (in neither deity nor men), so everything related always gave me a scent of loneliness. I perceive the subject doesn't fill, as probably doesn't exist. Capital sins are symptomatic: no honest man can deny they're bad acts, whatever point of view, being religious or not. So if You don't believe when You face them You think it's a trial where judge is absent. Obviously a true believer cannot accept this pont of view, as he thinks that simply the Judge exists.
I'm not interested in demonstrate anything, it should be a bumptious and silly claim. But I'm interested in my particular point of view, and develope in music.

09. Belief: Lust

First movement is an obscure carpet of percussions with a couple of solo inserts by saxophone and a dry guitar acting both a crescendo and then a physiological after-coming decay. I don't deny it's grossly didactic (on purpose).

10. Belief: Gluttony

Second movement is cleaner, with a off-beat jazz drum, double bass groaning in your belly like hunger and an oboe trio from far like a smell of delicatessen.

11. Belief: Greed

Third Movement is greed in timing (less than a minute) but it's the most RIO song in Outskirt, in debt with Henry Cow or Art Bears' dischordant melodies.



I'm working at the same time on this four songs, I'm near to complete 'em all; maybe tomorrow.


Saturday, November 15, 2008

Outskirt - Zimniy Dvorets (the Winter Palace)







Song n. 6 uploaded to Outskirt's play/download pages at www.missero.it and Last.FM.

6. Zimniy Dvorets (the Winter Palace)

I changed my mind yesterday while working on Amazon Rainforest. I had as startup a classical romantic theme, something between Mussorgskji and Saint-Saëns, but more on the russian side. I've seen in my mind old documentaries and ancient pictures about the Bloody Sunday while I imagined the rest of the song, an endless zig-zaggin' progression chords ostinato, very grave, dramatic.



And same time I imagined this enormous building getting empty by czar Nicolas II sudden leaving for Alexander Palace. Right place for the pianist I left on Enterprise in Sigma Hydrae strike back.



Also, I found interesting having a song about a New York airport and then another about S. Petersburg's Winter Palace.



So, I shifted Amazon Rainforest to cue's end, and thinking about rebuilding a logic from this song onward. Maybe I have to fill with a couple more small songs this outline change.


Friday, November 14, 2008

Outskirt - LaGuardia, 3:00 A.M.







Song n. 5 uploaded to Outskirt's play/download pages at www.missero.it and Last.FM.

5. LaGuardia, 3:00 A.M.

Airport totally smoke free "thanks" Rudolph Giuliani: a nightmare. I draw on this to catch the surreal atmosphere broken by sneaky zombies supposed to be fresh managers ever on the go, and tired immigrates side by side with young cheap travelers, all looking for nightime low-cost flights.


Song result is something like Cardiacs playing be-bop in front of Starbucks coffee-shop night time.



Next song is Amazon Rainforest, a quite complex (to me: I'm not Liberace) piano part in Outskirt. I think I'll need a couple of days to build the structure.


Thursday, November 13, 2008

Outskirt - First 4 songs







Ended up with song n. 4 Giant Star Antares, and uploaded with the other three to Outskirt's play/download pages at www.missero.it and Last.FM.

1. Sigma Hydrae


It's Outskirt's intro, comprising a vivace drone (in comparison to those of GI!BE) growing up progressively (...) with chorus to his theatric closing, disturbed by an elusive pianist involved in a spastic series of tryouts, searching for the right theme. I imagine him on an Enterprise-like starship's bridge, trying to get in vain inspiration by Sigma Hydrae nebula slow approaching.

2. Møre og Romsdal


It's a Norwegian County splitted in countless fjords and isles. I could only describe the feelings through a glacial jazz-death metal approach, so I tried to melt the cold Meshuggah and Mike Barr kind of outputs. I wanted to give a couple of unexpected twist to add lunacy, I hope I achieved that aim.

3. Reidsville, NC


I've been living in Greensboro (and going back to Italy sometimes) from 2002 to 2005 when I was a designer in a Reidsville company.


Reidsville was an average industrial area before China's low-cost production side effects, and it was never high populated anyway.


Near Greensboro there's Winston Salem (up here my favourite pub), Tim Sparks' (and other more moonshine-conventional guitarists) hometown. Some of them I've heard in concert on different nights while eating at a small pine-wooden restaurant in Reidsville.


The guitarist usually took a chair from a free table, went in an apt corner and started to play, surrounded by voices, noises and when warm weather (so windows were opened) with car passing sound. This song was the most emotional to put together.

4. Giant Star Antares


I'm quite satisfied with the results. I avoided to pump sounds on purpose to get an early kraftwerk/krautronics taste. Electronics sounds like minimal classical instead of being a multilayered baroque pastiche of pads and ambient sounds covering nothingnesses, which is more than boring.
Back to outer space (after the intro Sigma Hydrae), it's 5 minutes of audio travelogue about revolving around Antares, from door to door.



Now I'm working on song n. 5, LaGuardia 3:00 A.M., I hope I'll finish the recording within friday 14 evening.