Mass of Moments

This track was composed last year as a collaboration with Shadi Angelina for her Messy Spaces CD (to be released by the Goethe Institute later this month). I’m honoured that the collaboration inspired my very good friend, talented animator and my very first Twitter pal Digital Doyle, to produce the animation below: Mass Of Moments from DigitalDoyle on Vimeo. Doyle’s visual interpretation... [Read more]

Four – Track #4

Kicked off this morning with Battery, as I tweeted a couple of hours ago. Wrote a drum part, added a little Automaton (Audio Damage) and a bass line using my “go-to” bass sequencer, Rob Papen’s SubBoomBass. This is what I have so far. Time to walk the dog and see what ideas come to mind. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download... [Read more]

Johnny

I’ve been working on this one for a while and I’m getting happier with the mix. Need to tweak the arrangement though – not sure about the first appearance of the guitar or its sound. I think that will be removed once I have the vocals. It seems incongruous early in the piece. You can follow the history of work in progress as Johnny developed and the story of the track’s title... [Read more]

Four – Track #3

Been working on some ideas for the third track for Four. This is a little different from Organised Sound and Recap, but I am really intrigued by the way it’s shaping up. I can hear a thumping, repetitive bass line working well with this and I’m eager to add a solid groove (most likely Battery). Update 3: 21/02/2010 Here’s the first arrangement. Some of the transitions definitely... [Read more]

Recap

FOUR, by Kieron James This is the second track I’ve put together for my debut album FOUR, which will be released on 1st July by Clear Notice. (This will leave six months to create the three sibling albums for Somió, Half-BIT and Blue Omen.) Recap is a remix of Capitulation – the first piece of music I composed, at the time using the Jonathan Scary moniker. It has been mastered by Pure... [Read more]

Mark’s conference call WordPress plugin / widget

You might have noticed a shiny new personal conference call widget in my blog sidebar. If not, have a look now. It’s the 03TALK one and I think @markdalby has done a really great job. It’s free and available via WordPress plugins. It’s also highly customisable – allowing you to change all the colours to match your WordPress theme and configure your personal offline status... [Read more]

Organised Sound

Edgard Varèse So here it is. The fruits of around three weeks work and the first track for the album FOUR. The track has been beautifully mastered by @pure_tone whose attention to detail and ability to make stuff sparkle is second to none. My plan at this stage is to complete FOUR before moving on to the other three albums, two of which are collaborative. I’ll be posting four bars of some of... [Read more]

Four – Track #1

New year, new goals. I posted a few days ago about my plan to release four albums this year and this week I started on the first track (not necessarily in terms of running order) for Four, which will be released under my own name. As mentioned in the last post, the other three will be produced under the Somió, Half-BIT and Blue Omen projects / collaborations. So, here are twenty bars laying... [Read more]

2010: 48 TRX / 52 WKS

There. I’ve said it. I’ve even written it down. And when I’ve finished this blog post, I’ll tweet about it to 400 people. There’s clearly only one reason for such behaviour. By telling the world, the pressure I place upon myself to deliver is increased and hopefully even more focus is brought to this ludicrous plan. OK, by James Fahy’s standards, 48 tracks isn’t... [Read more]

Reaktor – First Play

So apparently it’s Black Friday in the US. Not really sure whether there’s any significance beyond a general sale, but the good news is I managed to pick up a copy of Native Instruments’ Reaktor 5 for €99. Quite a bargain. I didn’t really know what it was, though I’ve heard @ambienteer and @fjfonseca refer to it a good deal on Twitter. So I thought I’d satisfy... [Read more]

Block 2 – Week 1

Shorter distance to cover this week (42 miles), but a couple of quality sessions (finally) after the drudgery of running at easy pace for five weeks. I also have to work around business travel, which despite only taking a relatively small chunk out of the week, invariably interferes with my “flow”. It’s important not to add too many intensive sessions straight away, so I’m... [Read more]

Little Boots “Earthquake” The Half-BIT RMX

I’m not going to add too much content to my own blog, since it’s being covered in detail over at Half-BIT.com, but I will take a moment just to add a brief description of what Fernando and I are working on. It started with a tweet from @AudioPornTwitz about a Little Boots remix contest. The Earthquake stems were posted online so I DM’d Fernando to see if he was interested in having... [Read more]

Block 1 – Week 5

Last week was a complete wash out. Never been so disappointed with my complete lack of commitment to a training schedule! Granted, there were a couple of days where it was less convenient than others, but there was a time when if it meant getting up at 5:30 to make sure the week’s mileage was completed, that was what happened. I have committed to knocking some serious minutes off the appalling... [Read more]

Netaudio EXPANDING 09 – Collaborate in Half-BIT’s Debut

Anybody remember Cosecha? And the fun we had pulling together PS011, recently released by the outstanding PublicSpaces netlabel? Well, Mr Fonseca and I require your help again. Our newly formed collaboration, Half-BIT will be providing an art sound installation at Netaudio’s EXPANDING 09 Festival on 14 November in Barcelona. Half-BIT is all about collaboration. It’s our raison d’être.... [Read more]

Digitube Collaboration

I think the single most impressive thing about Twitter has been the opportunities for musical collaboration which it has brought about. This, my third significant ‘joint venture’ is with the amazing talent, Scott Lachance, aka Digitube. I really am absolutely thrilled to have an opportunity to work with such wonderful musicians and producers from all over the world. I’ve only just... [Read more]

Block 1 – Week 4

Last week was a huge disappointment. No lack of effort or intention, just ill health and business travel conspiring against my running schedule. This kind of thing happens and you just have to put it behind you and move on. This week’s target is 60 miles and, as ever 25% of the weekly mileage needs to be in the form of Sunday’s long run. So today, I psyched myself up for a fifteen miler... [Read more]

Block 1 – Week 3

Up until Thursday evening, I felt on top of the world. During my long run, I swallowed a fly (common hazard for runners and not very vegan) and since then I’ve been pretty sick. I guess, given the lifestyle habits of a fly, a connection between said ingestion and shaking legs, fever and general uuurggghiness is entirely plausible. Anyway, the top and bottom of this is that Saturday’s run... [Read more]

Alka “Separate” The Half-BIT RMX

OK, off we go again! I finally completed my own remix of Alka’s Separate, when a few days ago I was sent a link by Fernando Fonseca to have a listen to what he was up to with his remix and to offer an opinion as to whether it needed vocals. I am really impressed by what he’s put together. Long and short of it is that we got talking about whether I’d be interested in mixing his remix.... [Read more]

Block 1 – Week 2

Delighted with the first week’s running. Didn’t quite manage to keep the heart rate at the desired level, but only 5bpm over which isn’t so bad really. Felt very comfortable at 9:40 (and so it should). I think the target for this week is to try to maintain – or perhaps even slightly improve on the average pace – whilst bringing the heart rate down to the 154 target (easy... [Read more]

Cosecha – PublicSpaces Release PS011

Absolutely delighted that PublicSpaces has today released seven tracks (and the original source file) which resulted from my Twitter Random Sound project earlier in the year. The project, inspired by eavesdropping a Twitter conversation about databending, is described in detail on this website and also over at PublicSpaces. My own track, Naranjo de Bulnes is included under the artist name Somió.... [Read more]