16-Hour Fuse, Book 1: Driving The Monkey
New Jersey, USA
Check Out the Album
Original Concept:
When it looked like my first album idea for this year wouldn't come together, i wondered how i could meet the Rule Of 40. 40-minute low-stakes jam? Lots of looping? Mathematical algorithmic madness? Then it hit me: all of the above.
This album is (i think) a study in degradation toward chaos and re-emergence therefrom. ... and a sloppily executed dope groove.
Artist Post-Game:
This record turned out to be a _highly_ experimental project in that is was far more about process than result. Aside from making a few preliminary notes and calculations (and coming up with a ridiculous lyric that nonetheless seemed somehow appropriate), i had less than 16 hours to produce this recording top to bottom. Because so much of the production was algorithmic manipulation of audio at the sample level, i didn't really have a good idea of what the final product would sound like until i wrote and ran a bunch of code on a few recorded samples and waited for the output. After my first try, i tweaked a few parameters and re-ran, and the final audio file literally finished writing at 23:58:52 on 31 March, less than 70 seconds before the deadline.
The good news is that i finished something. It was completely from-scratch stuff whipped up in the final days of March, so the Rules of 40, 30, 20, and 10 were covered. The process was fun and engaging (more details in the liner notes at the album link above), and the output was, if nothing else, interesting. I still look forward to working on our (much cooler and more accessible) original concept over time, but this experience was worthwhile in reminding me of the tools and fun i can find when pressed to create something.
The ... let's call it "other" news is that the resulting piece is not fit for normal human consumption. If you're really into glitch/noise ambience, or if you're interested in putting on headphones and testing yourself to see how well you can find traces of recognizable audio in data that's being very gradually scrambled/unscrambled in a loop, then maybe it's for you. Danceable rockin' heartwarming soulful emotional pop? Not so much.