ILM Listening Chamber 12

No do.

what are you talking about, raposa? that was GRATE.

Can't wait for whoever posted this to explain why. Were drugs involved in the choice?

Someone counting 1-4-3-2. That must be good and clever music. This track is even stereolabbier than chamber 4 with Lali Puna. And it is much better. After "That's It" the counting stops, slightly dilated keyboards and some sort of violin sound comes in. The end is open. Main weakness of the track is its length: Only 2:14.

I liked it very much. Time taken to do on ProTools = 0.00000004 secs no doubt. I have no idea what it's for which makes me like it more. Stereolab would die to make something as fluffy and amusing.

Sounds like another 'bedroom special' (so laugh will be on me, no doubt, when it turns out to be Kraftwerk or something). I quite like this. Weakest part is the counting (this has been done to death), but the synths remind me of OMD's classic Dazzle Ships album. Also, had it been 1'00" instead of 2'14" the track would not have sounded out of place on the Residents' Commercial album that I was discussing yesterday. So there.

Yeah I was reminded of Dazzle Ships too! What a great album that is.

By the way, daver, how big is the pile of still-unused submissions? I have a few ideas for things I'd like to see in the Listening Chamber, but won't bust a gut to find mp3s of them if there's already plenty to keep us going for a while.

it vaguely reminded me of a poor man's position normal. and i still think it's grate.

Anyone who took my "don't listen" advice seriously is a luvable FUL. (Ah, my kingdom for an umlaut key.)

I really liked this. Loved the chord progressions and the string samples... It reminded me of something I can't quite put my finger on.

Popshots, why aren't you on AIM? I need to ask you something.

It is quiet and sinks into your ears pleasantly. I didn't realise those were violins - I wasn't sure what they were. They jarred to begin with, then blended in nicely. I like.

Yeah, you're all right, it could be off my beloved "Dazzle ships" (first LP I ever bought, don't anyone dare slag it off). I love it! Sounds like something I could have knocked up in half an hour, mind.

Who is it? Could someone let me know, I MUST know...

By the way, daver, how big is the pile of still-unused submissions?
I would like to know too David. I guess you know why.

Will start an ILM Listening Chamber Salon to discuss such issues. Hold, please. *click* "Cuz yo unce ... tice ... fee time a mayday..."

I like the brevity of this piece, as well. And I agree that the number-countdown is the track's weakness ... I think that if you're trying to be funky, or cutesy with the samples, you should go all out (even if you fail miserably, like the Avalanches). If you're trying to be more subtle about it, at least pay attention to Tarwater, they do the offhand, distracted funk much better ..

but that said, I enjoy the buzzing vibe at the beginning of the piece. A bit of mystery, but it doesn't leave you curious for long .. sounds almost edited at the end, by contrast, as if clipped off .. an intro to a larger track, maybe?

Ten minutes in ProTools? Thirty minutes in ProTools? Quite apart from the quality of the track -- obviously the creator wasn't slaving over it or anything -- I have to ask: are you guys exaggerating?

I ask because ... well, if you gave me pre-processed wav files of every loop in this song, and I knew exactly how they were supposed to be arranged, it would take 10 minutes just to lay them out and tweak the settings on everything. Just recording yourself saying "1, 2, 3, 4," chopping that up into four separate sounds, and laying those back into a full loop -- that's 5 minutes right there, I'd think. Doing the same for the organ sound -- another 5 or 10, plus 10 more tweaking effects to get that phasing feel (assuming that's not just lifted from somewhere else, which would be as lazy as it gets). Isolating the string and piano samples in the latter half -- more time. Not to mention that in my experience, 90% of the work in putting something like this together doesn't even show up in the finished version, because it's devoted to loops that don't work right and get tossed, or dynamic arrangements that just don't sound right and have to rethunk, etc.

What I'm saying is that if I sat down at my computer with the idea to put this track together -- and if I processed all of the sounds from the ground up, which may or may not be the case with this track -- it could possibly have taken me up to two hours to put this together. (A little less than the time it'd take me to decently record a four- piece indierock track that I'd already written and learned.) So is this because (a) I'm slow, (b) I'm not using the right software, (c) I'm synthesizing all my own sounds instead of sampling, or (d) the 10- 30 minutes estimate is a figure of speech?

I believe it would actually take far longer than that. For the effects and the mixing. A couple of days, I reckon, if you knew the plan from the get.

I like it. One of those funky "betweeners"

Okay, a couple of days seems too far in the other direction. I think I could prepare it in about 3 hours one evening, then put in 2 hours the next, cleaning it up and mixing it down. Either way: glad to know I'm not slaving over things that should be taking me a quarter of an hour. It's bothersome when people think of this sort of thing as slight or easy, as if there are magical buttons in the software that just make these sounds happen -- completely contrary to popular opinion, it's amazing how difficult it can be to make this sort of thing sound good.

That said: I really like this -- not much to say beyond that.

My comment on ProTools = pisstake. I have no idea how long anything like this takes but you always get a couple of people on the Listening Chamber whenever anything 'lectronic turns up saying "Pah they have hardly got past the presets".

Deceptively simple as everyone has pointed out. The sounds towards the end are cool and it looks like a lot of time went into making them sound the way they do. Even otherwise, great chords.

I just realized I answered the wrong listening chamber. heh

my roommate says this is Delia Derbyshire (covers face but looks out thru fingers)?

Just recording yourself saying "1, 2, 3, 4,"
Maybe I am pedantic here but the guy is saying "1, 4, 3, 2". Not does it really matter a lot. But sometimes the details can be very important.

Yeah, Alex, but you'll notice it's not a continuous loop -- the numbers have been chopped into individual bits. Thus he could have recorded himself saying them in any order -- I'm just guessing he went with 1 2 3 4 because it'd be most convenient.

So whaddaya think of that, eh?

I'm praying he originally went '4, 3, 2, 1'

the numbers have been chopped into individual bits
Probably you are right Nitsuh, you are the musician not me. I didn't realise this. But why did he/they put the numbers in the order 1-4-3- 2? That is the question. It does not matter in which way the numbers where recorded originally. The final result is not a count up or count down. It may sound strange but I would definitely have liked the track less if it would have been 1-2-3-4 or even 4-3-2-1. The final non-order adds to the oddity of the song. You know what I mean?

there's something fishy abotu this

Mike, what is fishy about this? Could you be a little more explicit? If for example (I admit this is a little bit far-fetched) someone would say "Hitler Heil" (Hitler is unhurt) in a song instead of "Heil Hitler" (Viva Hitler) it would obviously be a piss-take or at least a subtle irony. Even more evident would be a different order of a number string containing zeroes. 0,000,001 is not the same as 1,000,000. The sequencing of words or numbers can be very important.

"One interesting twist in the chords does not an interesting song make, particularly when paired with overly cute and self-conscious samples," my Grandpa Xavier used to say to me as we sat by the fire playing mumbledy-peg.

And lo, he was right. This is all "ideas" and no substance. Nothing is knit together in an interesting way. Maybe it might be better in the context of an album, but taken on its own, it leaves me completely unmoved.

WHO WAS IT?

Gimme a moment, sir. I must compose my thoughts.

You had your moment David. Two days. I ask again. Who submitted this and who was it?

All right, all right. Sheesh - can't a man slack off anymore?

The track is by Dymaxion. The name of the song escapes me. I'll do some "research", and come back with more info later on (could be today, could be next week - bwah ha ha). I can tell you that it's on their only CD, compiling various vinyl tracks - here's a discography.

Their music reminds me a bit of Clinic, though they're less about rocking and more about strange noises and disheveled tape loops. For such a technologically aware band, though, they have a bit of that seedy garage-rock grit around them that makes their music sound that much better. And now you know the rest of the story.

'Dymaxion x 3 + 4 = 38:33' LP is finally out in UK on April 12th on Duophonic Super 45s. Hooray! According to martin@duophonic it's a remastered version of the disk that came out in Japan about 18 months ago but the same version as the recently released US version. In addn to the CD there are 650 copies available on vinyl.

Wait a minute, Jeff, are you on peng as well?

(Also that comp is very very good.)