New videoclip from LaGuardia, 3:00 AM

A small story of not-so-ordinary rebellion from Outskirt.

Update to HD for three clips on Youtube

I rendered again Belief: Wrath, Belief: Greed and Thar Desert in HD 720p and uploaded on Hox Vox Box channel. I also added some variations.


Belief: Greed got no blue tint now, and it's tighter to original "Peyote" animation.



In Belief: Wrath I added sparkles when hammers land on the anvil and a couple of motion blur fx. Few and small retouches.



Last was retitled Thar Desert 2.0 because I added circa 150 new animations. Essentially is the old Thar Desert populated by many other moving elements.

Зимний дворец recommended videoclip of the day at Jamendo

I received an email from Jamendo telling me Зимний дворец videoclip is recommended clip on their blog today. This is the review:

Hox Vox is a progressive rock project by Italian artist Gianluca Missero. His track “Zimniy Vorets (the Winter Palace)” is an experimental piano piece evoking the Russian revolution.

The video that goes with it is an interesting assemblage of old footage from the early 20th century and animated film made with collages, set in the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. Not your typical pop music video; then again, Hox Vox’s stuff isn’t your typical pop music either.

Enjoy the weird atmosphere emanating from the whole thing below. This is taken from the album “Outskirt“.

Source blog page is HERE

Hell if the guy was scared the music was too avantgarde! :-)) The small, but proportionally decent feedback says that dance people escaped as it was logical to expect, and the few adventurous listeners had a taste.

New Videoclip from Outskirt: Зимний дворец (Zimniy Dvorets)

after Intro, from Etoile, I finished another video and released within september!
This time I went back to Outskirt, and chosen Зимний дворец (Zimniy Dvorets, the Winter Palace).
An historical theme: 1905 St. Petersburg bloody sunday. Subject is the Winter Palace, empty after Tsar Nicholas II leaved for Alexander Palace because of that massacre: an outskirts zone. Despite being in St. Petersburg center and rich as a royal manor can be, it was empty like a desert for a while. Interesting, when there are mutations.

Video tells about this story, showcase the palace, outside and inside, then steer to history with original footages - very bad coded, I had to struggle for half an afternoon to achieve a good acceptable quality - and pics, all taken from Wikipedia, pianist comprised.

Clip have a strange old russia taste, not communist nor tsar-like. A generical first last century russian scenario. And it seems more like a documentary than a videoclip, exactly what I aimed to right from the start.

Of course I added the famous stairs sequence in The Battleship Potemkin by Eisenstein, as it was what inspired me that endless scales hook in this song (the other, more romantic classical - opening and closing the track - was after listening the nth time The Carnival of Animals by my beloved Camille Saint-Saëns).

Another 2 Awards on Garageband for LaGuardia, 3:00 A.M.

Yes, this time it happened something I couldn't imagine: my composition style impressed reviewers as they massively voted LaGuardia, 3:00 A.M. as

Best Programming overall, week of 16Feb2009

and, consequently,

Best Programming in Progressive Rock, week of 16Feb2009

I'm very proud about this fact, there are many keys to analyze it. Many listeners hate the plastic sound: they called "sounding like midi", referring to the fact I used willfully very basic sounds - bordering GM - in that and other songs on Outskirt, but they perceive as bad (or better: not very cool) result; or - worst - that's an error in choosing samples. They didn't get they're not samples, I used just three in whole Outskirt :-D Anyway, somebody punished me remarking the fact it's "programmed". I'm not so dumb I didn't get it. Somebody else, instead, found it's a positive feature in my music.

So seems like people, for instance, believe real bass is a midi score when it's played tightly and with plastic amplification, and can't hear the difference from another song with a VST bass emulator... or they even believe VST bass is a real bass (or the opposite), so they're totally faked. It opens a wide array of opportunities.

But going back in theme, giving an award to programming means that people perceive it as a coherent work; whether they like it or not, music sounds reasonable and having a logic underneath.

This is important as I had a precise feedback on my work's reliability. I don't really aim to be a rockstar, as I know I'm moving in an avantgarde context, despite there are listenable - not mainstream - melodies in many songs of mine, so I got it that my genre is about 0,1% of world's listeners taste. I mean, the best in this area is a Big Badass if he can sell 5000 copies of his record :-D.
No, I point to a very small group of people around the world who share my ideas. And hopefully find into that number some people are making music in total freedom like me, so we can exchange our tracks and experiences.

Let's see what's next.

LaGuardia, 3:00 A.M. "Track of the Day" at Garageband

Despite it's in Progressive Rock contest, and probably should stay better in Experimental Rock (but I already had first reviews so I gotta go on) LaGuardia, 3:00 A.M. was elected Progressive Rock Track of the Day on february 8th.

Here's the badge with link:

And now let's hope I got better reviews than last two :-(( One said it seems videogame music, (very interesting carrier opportunity, but wasn't what this guy meant); the other "hold music"... Jeez!

Actually Rockstar's life is very hard nowadays: blood, sweat & tears!!!

HVB - 3rd videoclip: Thar Desert

Yesterday afternoon I modified last tiny details and saved master file for Thar Desert, 3rd videoclip from an Outskirt track.

This time I worked on a more ordinary videoclip concept, but I couldn’t just trace out. I recorded by a viewcam me playing Thar Desert and extracted a discreet number of frames (a nightmare cutting them out, really), then assembled again in animated sequence form.

Alberta Marchiori gave me pictures she shooted in Egypt last December, so I made a great use of them to create the environment and some absurdities (as usual).

The result is obviously grotesque as I still believe in The Residents / Frank Zappa / Pere Ubu and share at 101% their nothing-is-sacred approach.

HVB - Belief: Greed videoclip online

Belief: Greed videoclip is OK, I uploaded it in Youtube Hox Vox Box channel.

I worked on a video of mine which won a couple of animation contest prizes in first 90s, called "Peyote". The strange process was 1) clean the video like it was done nowadays 2) add animation part missing and create... an aged film aspect, like it was an old documentary film. :-D Seems strage but the real video damages were very bad, the computer-generated are somewhat pleasant, they look like vintage but without destroy too much the footage.

Plot is about a peyote experience by a late 60s hippie on mexican mesa. I think is a good companion for Belief: Greed, as song and images are both dealing with psychedelic (but song is more aptly tagged as avantprog/rock in opposition).

HVB - Working on two new videoclips

In these days I'm doing a fierce battle with Garageband technicians to solve a problem about a double subscription. It was my fault, I made a mess between iLike and Garageband: didn't get I was wrong making artist page in iLike, and then another on Garageband...
I should do that ONLY on Garageband. Then iLike build automatically a copy of info and music. I'm upset but mostly with myself.

Back to my battle, they have only to change my definitive band account from Hox Vox 2 (temporary name to permit deletion of othe band account) to Hox Vox.
I can't submit songs to contests and radios as I don't want feed confusion. It's from December 12 I'm writing dozen of email, but delete a couple of letters from a name via database query seems a very hard chase to accomplish.

While I'm waiting for the miracle, I'm working on a couple of videoclips. The one for Belief: Greed is almost finished, maybe I'll close and upload tonight.

The other clip is for Thar Desert: I'm stuck with a missing camera cable, but I'm going to solve it this afternoon thanks to Cianoiz. Tomorrow morning I can work on that.

HVB - Belief: Wrath videoclip online

I just finished first videoclip from Outskirt, and uploaded to my new Hox Vox Box channel on Youtube.

I've chosen Belief: Wrath because that anti-song (which I tag as "grindcore classical") was very apt to a sarcastic point of view about live concerts. I was always surprised how people are totally mad during them, but calm and serious just before and after. :-D

I mean, it's more noticeable than people disguised in carnival... seems like they were waiting for eons to give vent to their need of raising against normal boring lifestyle. It sound me as a clear pent-up driven expression.

While I respect it, I got the right to kid it. I used a mixed technique (die-cuts in the usual way but also 2D puppet which gives movements a gummy elasticity) so the result is very near to Terry Gilliam's (of Monthy Python) animations, it has the same "Max Ernst meets Tex Avery" taste.

Probably frenzy animation rhythm override music in itself, I mean it tends to steal the lead role; as the music is mechanical and obsessive, so it goes on the back. Not the steel snare, of course, it stick in your cranium as a nail. You can't forget it.

I think it's exactly what I wanted: a video not confortable, but funny all the same.

Outskirt - Last song, album closed

On Dicember 8 16:30 (so this is the exact "release date" :-D) I rendered last song and uploaded on MySpace, Last.FM and Missero.it:

15. Belief: Pride

It's an endless single cuban (in my way) loop, with compulsive bass, an insistent xylophone and a reasonable amount of small percussions layers (but drum set is definitely rock.) It prepares with diablo rhythms and lightheartedness to approach melancholic Pet's Repository intro.

---

I got a largely foreseen sense of emptyness, and temptation to add another song or two. Or three... Probably they should sort out kind of cover of the rest of the record, after one month passed on this project the reason is obvious. Better leave it alone, it's over... Never flog a horse after the finish!

Now have a rest with music, and prepare graphical announce(s) to friends (and enemies).

Outskirt - Belief: Slot & Wrath

On Dicember 7 I completed both Belief: Sloth & Belief : Wrath, and uploaded on MySpace, Last.FM and Missero.it:

12. Belief: Sloth

A bit sloth and a bit lazy, 7/4 . Maybe it's the most mainstream part of Outskirt, a contaminated synthpop.

13. Belief: Wrath (Hommage à Shinu Mazafakingu Ujimushi)

It's a cover of TBA by Shinu Mazafakingu Ujimushi, an english grindcore band who recorded only that song on a Lo-Fi or Die compilation. I listened to it zillion of times, for a couple of reasons:

1) I got it only in mp3, and it's disgusting low quality, maybe they did it with a VeryVeryLame mp3 codec for bad cell phones. Sounds are melted like you were listening the band from into a washing machine, except a tom, in fact ...
2) song's "melody" (...) is overpowered by a single note, the one of a very acute tom, metallic like the snare drum by Metallica in St. Anger (years before Metallica).

I just couldn't stop to listen that watery roaring made by bass drum, bass, guitar and snare drum, and above this hammer hits piercing my brain. Sometime I think that I probably I'd never love so much it if it was not so really bad coded. Points 1) and 2) are in symbiosis.

I replayed (almost) slavishly same drum sequence, with different timbers and sounds, and recreated the "roaring" with three violas. The result is kind of "Kronos Quartet plays Shinu Mazafakingu Ujimushi". And I putted on a different layer the rest of drums, reaching three plans instead of the original two.

---

Now I only miss 15. Belief: Pride. So I'm just a little late (one day) on my supposed timeline.

Outskirt - Pet's Repository

On Dicember 6 I completed album's closing song, plus uploaded it on MySpace, Last.FM and Missero.it:

16. Pet's Repository

After a pondering time, I decided that cemetery or graveyard are terms too gothic. Repository is ambiguous, can be the ultimate repository, or kennel. It's difficult to argue who's more tied to solitude, so O.T. is off.
Song is a result of contructing and dismantling. First I grew up with dozen of instruments and atmosferic pads 'til the grosser. Then I had a u-turn and started to delete part after part, so i obtained a skeleton progressive, I mean more similar to Cardiacs than Camel. I like the result of a punk approach to prog, such as Pere Ubu (in an avant fashion) or Cardiacs (more melody aware) did.

---

At this point songs I have to finish are: 12. Belief: Sloth - 13. Belief: Wrath - 15. Belief: Pride.

Outskirt - Belief: Envy

On Dicember 3 I completed Envy part of Belief suite, plus uploaded it on MySpace, Last.FM and Missero.it:

14. Belief: Envy

Envy is in my opinion a childish/unripe kind of defect. So this is the seed.
Talking about the song in itself, it's an electronic section starting as cold sum of sequences, dense but minimal, with shifting changes on the like of Raymond Scott's Soothing Sounds for Children, and its develope is dotted in a crescendo by some Carl Stalling 's intruders.
Don't know if conceptually speaking I went on a cacophony, or better, an unnecessary remark on what was already remarked. The result sounds much frenzier and brilliant after Stalling invasion, that's the most important thing.

---

This evening I worked on (old named) Pet Cemetery (16th and last song): I completed the sad main sax theme and a seed of variations, so I'm at 25%. I feel it's getting better than I expected, so I'm in euphoria about it. Meanwhile, I think this title reminds too much Ramones' homonym song.
I don't dislike them: with Dickies they're my favourite idiot punk band. They reached out the sublime, in their kitsch, primitive but effective approach. I listened a lot to both for years. But I change the title whatever, just to avoid somebody think about a cover; so now it's Pet's Graveyard. I keep it for a couple of days, to test if start to seem unsuitable after a while.

Then I tried to go on with Belief: Sloth, but some pegs doesn't fit in their right hole. Days in, days out.

---

At this point songs I have to finish are:

- 12. Belief: Sloth
Something to re-work, or throw and make it another way.
- 13. Belief: Wrath
Hommage à Shinu Mazafakingu Ujimushi, great one-day band, so it's a grindcore part; yet to start. But got it all perfectly clear in my mind, I only want to play it for last.
- 15. Belief: Pride
Got the cuban theme, and some hypothesis on the (coherently) cuban develope. Here the problem is keeping the piano fresh as a rose.
- 16. Pet's Graveyard
Started at the best, probably tomorrow this will be the song I'll work on for first.

If I'm in the right mood, maybe I finish the four songs within monday. So I can let a couple of day pass and then make the last full check, before declaring work done, and think about a videoclip.

Outskirt - from Thar Desert to Belief: Greed

On November 30 I completed songs I described while working on them in last post, so I uploaded all on MySpace, Last.FM and Missero.it:

08. Junction Box
09. Belief: Lust
10. Belief: Gluttony
11. Belief: Greed

---

On December 1st I solved a couple of problems in song n.7, so I finished it as well.

07. Thar Desert

Bass, which serves both rhythm & melody, a compulsive-riff guitar and a very dry drum set. Funky to the rougher, I had in my mind Bill Laswell style when he played in Massacre or first Material record (Memory Serves), plus the old No Wave funk area (Konk, Contortions, Liquid Liquid and the like).

---

This evening I made some modification in another couple of songs: orchestral background in Reidsville, NC and a couple of passages in Zimniy Dvorets. Updated both songs and uploaded to the usual repositories.

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.

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.

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.

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.