Another remix challenge. This one is a contribution to Dan Weatherall’s SKatterBrain project. The main album, out today as a £1 (!) download from BandCamp is entitled The Basic Condition Of Life.

To accompany the main release, Dan has pulled in remixes from several artists including Synoiz, PetePec, dyLab, DeathBoy, Jrechs and my own contribution – a mix of his “Last Brief Seconds” track. The remix album is a free download.

Ignore the fact that the SoundCloud player says “Buy”, click the link – it’s FREE. Or use the BandCamp links below to download the whole album.

I always enjoy remixing tracks and I’m proud to have worked on tracks – remixes and collaborations – by Alka, Digitube, Little Boots, Bootslam, Fernando Fonseca and Shadi Angelina. There are others in the pipeline – I’m particularly excited about the potential of collaborations and remixes with Rory Dow and Dan Furr. Watch this space for more news!

Particular thanks on this one to Göran, Justin and several others for their excellent feedback of the work in progress. Comments really helped me to develop the arrangement of the track and tidy up the mix.

Respect, as ever, to Pure Tone for mastering.

The Complete Albums

Listen to and download the complete albums:

It is with tremendous pride that I urge you to download a copy of Public Spaces Lab’s PS020 “The Future Lab“. It’s astounding that Fernando Fonseca and his team have put together a compilation with twenty (count them!) tracks of such amazing quality and from artists as diverse as Mr Bitterness, dustmotes and (my favourite on the release) Alpen Butter, whose EP will be released by PSL too.

I first became acquainted with Fernando through Twitter – following his fascinating conversations with artists such as Ambienteer and technical discussions way beyond my comprehension with people like Boomtopper. He’s a talented individual, make no mistake. But it’s clear that the ability to pick a winner permeates the Barcelona label, since by his own admission, Fernando has been personally less involved in PS020 than some of PSL’s earlier releases. This is testimony to the brilliant people such as Jordi at the Lab, joined recently by new curators John Koch Northrup and Leonardo Rosado.

Once again, Fernando Mateus has excelled with the album artwork, capturing the spirit of the release and most importantly, the Future Lab. Download the album. Listen to it – and when you’ve listened to it for a fifth time and you’re bewildered at how much you’re still discovering, take a moment to thank everybody at the Lab. Do it publicly, do it loudly.

This is what music is all about. It’s free. It’s outstanding. And it is a fitting and beautiful tribute to the PSL’s co-head, Alejandro Mendez who passed away earlier this year.

I mentioned Fernando’s talent above. Apart from running the label, writing his own music, collaborating with other artists (we REALLY need to get back to Half-BIT F!) he’s directed and produced videos for eleven of the tracks on the album! Here’s the one he did for my own track, Organised Sound:

Following my injury on 4th July, I’ve been resting up to ensure a full recovery. I did manage a couple of slow and easy runs with Elisa in Verona (posted below). It was wonderful to be running around the river there again – it’s years since I’ve run that route.

Anyway, I’m back from holiday now and need to get back into the running if I’m going to turn in a reasonable performance at the GNR in September. I’ve also added raw food only to the vegan regime for a couple of weeks as I could definitely do with shedding a few pounds. I’m excluding breakfast from this since the cereal and soya milk really sets me up for the morning and keeps hunger at bay.

Can’t tell you how much I wish we were still in Verona – uploading this photo makes me miss it already. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Since the netaudio.es festival PublicSpaces Lab has been in discussions with Spanish netlabel MIGA about several projects. One of the first ideas was to have MIGA’s artists remix some Lab’s artists and vice-versa. MIGA’s artists are putting the finishing touches on the PSL remixes and ambienteer, Dustmotes, Swaying Smoke and I have just been sent the 4 MIGA artists’ tracks to remix.

The track I’m working with is by Javier García (Animatek). It’s thrown up all sorts of possibilities – and I’m really enjoying the challenge. It’s a very welcome distraction from Clear Notice and the release of the label’s debut, Enter Calico.

A little like Alcmene, this track came together pretty quickly and, as I mentioned on Twitter, it’s the first one I’ve composed for a long time which has been built on a completely linear timeline (i.e. no use of the Cubase arranger track). This doesn’t happen very often and when it does, it feels like the track has almost written itself.

The idea kicked off with a couple of bars sequenced up using iPad App from Korg, iElectribe which I’m hugely impressed with. You’ll hear the iElectribe very clearly at around 1:57. I then exported the pattern into Cubase and started to build the rest of the piece around those four bars. Adding sub bass first and then building some of the other synth parts, drums (glitched using Automaton from Audio Damage) and finally adding Marcus Hutton’s fabulous delivery of the Edgard Varèse quote.

I’m handing over to Pure Tone for some quick analysis (to see if he can spot any howlers), stepping away for a couple of days to watch the Spain v Germany World Cup Semi Final tonight and concentrate an Bootslam’s kick drum and I’ll work on the mix at the weekend.

idea by Kieron James

Thought it was about time I posted a little on music here. Seems to have been a running focus of late. That’s largely because I’ve got my hands full with Clear Notice and Enter Calico. Anyway, I have a couple of works in progress which I can share.

Looking forward to getting stuck in again shortly and I’ve just exported a few bars from the iPad App iElectribe from Korg (first up below) which I’m going to build into the next piece.

Update: 5 July 2010

Track-7-88bars by Kieron James

iElectribe Update

Little bit more work on this track this afternoon (4 July). Added some Massive (bass) and drums (Kontakt / Audio Damage). There’s a way to go yet though – still playing with ideas.

iElectribe 20 bars by Kieron James

Track #7 24 bars by Kieron James

And this one, which is (more or less) complete:

Track #6 Arrangement #1 by Kieron James

I missed a couple of runs last week as Block 2 drew to a close and fell short of my overall planned mileage by 8% (achieving 279 of the 304 miles slated). I’m not desperately concerned about that. I feel like I have a solid base as I go into the next six weeks of higher impact training. This will be the first time I’ve done any interval sessions in quite a couple of years, so I’m sure those will hurt.

Yesterday’s fifteen miler was tough going for the last two or three as the temperature and humidity were both quite high. There were a couple of points when I thought that I might not complete, but I managed to get to the end – even if the pace did slow quite markedly!

This week is a step back week, so cutting the mileage back to 37 miles. That said, I was fifteen miles short of last week’s target, so I might try to drop some of those into this week.

I was supposed to run easy yesterday (and just seven miles), but got caught up in the moment and a mile into the run I decided to step up to tempo pace (166-172bpm), which I sustained for five miles. I could have kept going at this pace until the end – it felt very comfortable – but decided to slow back down to marathon pace for the last mile. I don’t want to rush into things!

Looks like we’re going to have a great week weather-wise, so looking forward to the running in the last 7 days of Block 2. Next week I’ll be introducing an interval session into each week’s training. (That’s when it starts to feel tough!)

Missed last week’s target by a mile (in this case, literally, so that’s no great shakes). I’m starting to get well and truly into the running during this training block, but I have to say I was surprised at how much I still weigh – even after around ten weeks of solid running. (Heaven knows how much weight I’d piled on since Christmas! Too much Cubase. Not enough Saucony.)

Making amends and I think with another 5-6 kilos shed, I should be at optimum weight for the distances I’m doing. I don’t want to tempt fate, but I seem to be running pretty injury-free right now (wishing I hadn’t typed that already) so I’ve added a field into my training spreadsheet to monitor the mileage for my trainers. They’re up to 80 miles already and still gleaming white, so at this rate running is going to get a little spendy again!

Step back week completed – back to the grind. First off this week is a fifteen mile run and since my watch is being replaced by Garmin, but hasn’t yet made it to Cheshire, I’m running “blind”. This may be no bad thing. I can listen to my heart and breathing, rather than scrutinising the 405 every mile or so.

All in all, the training’s going well so far. 350 of the 1,100 miles completed for the GNR 2010 schedule. I thought I might have shed a few more pounds than I have, but there’s plenty of time and I’m being pretty methodical, so it’ll definitely happen. What’s more important is that 10 weeks in, I’m really enjoying it and I’m definitely feeling the benefit. It’s a great time to be upping the miles. Summer’s here.

Having missed Sunday’s long run last week, I spent the week playing catch up again, but I managed to complete the 55 miles I had scheduled.

What’s worrying me is the lack of progress over the last eight weeks. My average pace and heart rate don’t seem to be improving at all. I guess it’s early days and I’ve only been running easy, but I did expect the heart rate to be tumbling by now, even if the pace was constant. I do hope things improve soon, but I can’t help feeling a bit despondent given all the effort I’m putting in.

This week is a step back week, so it’s just 37 miles running. Give those muscles a rest.

Last week’s mileage successfully completed, the start of Week 2 was briefly paused yesterday. With a touch of metatarsalgia, caused by worn out trainers (roll on pay day) and too many miles, I thought it prudent not to head out for a further fifteen miles yesterday. Instead, I’ll add 7 miles to today’s running and a 4 mile run to each of Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s schedules.

Despite the very slow pace, I do feel as though I’m finally shedding a few pounds. I’m curious to see how tomorrow’s tempo run shapes up, but I’m hoping it’s a little cooler than the 27 degrees we’ve been enjoying over the weekend.

I’ve been away from Cubase for a week or so, but picked this one up again today and put together a rough mix of something which may make it to FOUR – but I’m still unsure (so any feedback gratefully received). I quite like some bits of it – certain bass parts, the drums and brass – but I think I may have ended up with two tracks here which I’m trying to mix into one, linked by the percussion.

First full arrangement – 6th June 2010

I’ve added a couple of new sounds and put together an arrangement. Need to leave this for a couple of days, let the ears recover and work on the mix later in the week. Doesn’t seem like too much is out of place, but tired ears mean I may not be hearing everything. (Over to Pure Tone for analysis.)

Track #6 Arrangement #1 by Kieron James

With some revisions – 30 May 2010

Track #6-98-bars by kieronjames

First upload

Track #6 by kieronjames

Block 1 is behind me, but I’ve missed more runs than I should have (184 miles out of 229 scheduled, or around 80%). I need to fix that in Block 2, but I’m not feeling too despondent since Block 1 was devised simply to get me running again – just a whole load of easy miles.

That said, I am going to try to replace those 45 miles through Blocks 2, 3 and 4. I’ll distribute them through the step back weeks and with six of those left, adding one 7 mile run to each one will bring me more or less back on track.

Here’s what’s in store for the majority of weeks in Block 2.

Have to confess to slipping a little over the last couple of weeks and need to arrest that before it deteriorates. It’s largely been around scheduling, but that’s no real excuse – I should always be able to find time for a run. This week is officially a step-back week before I start Block 2 next week. At that point, I’ll be adding tempo runs into the mix and increasing the distance of the long Sunday run to fifteen miles.