NEW CatLab 2003 listening notes

On the off-off-chance you've come to this site to listen to techno MP3s, congratulations -- you've found the right page. Even many of my closest friends don't realize that in addition to being an information architect, web developer, occasional journalist and all-around crackhead, I also compose music on my PC. Click on the song names below to download an MP3: you'll need an MP3 player to hear the song once you've downloaded it. If you don't already have one and you're using a PC, why not try WinAmp?

Voice of Unity:

Another quick-and-dirty track, similar in both style and working method to "Quadrotriticale" below. It started as an attempt to create a very dubbed-out 2-step track similar to those on Tempa Records, but despite the Augustus Pablo samples and oodles of delay, I end up sabotaging the relaxed vibe with a middle portion straight out of some hardcore rave circa 1992, complete with Hoover basslines and samples of evil robots. Ends up sounding more like a slight update of early Prodigy than anything particularly new — still, given its three-day turnaround, I'm pretty happy with it. (Gary Walker gets credit for some of the beepy background parts, which I filched from a tune he sent me years ago...)

Settle It:

This one's been in the pipeline for at least 18 months: it started with an old-school hip-hop beat in ReBirth combined with a Meters bassline, some guitar and marimba samples from Tom Waits' "Clap Hands", and a bunch of weird bass noises archived by some Russian dude on the Net (thanks, dude). And so it sat for a year and a half, until I added a low, distorted drone (in actuality a Thelonious Monk sample flanged to hell), digitally granulated drums, and additional samples from Tim Buckley, Jurassic 5 and Charles Mingus. (Phew!) An intentionally noisy mess, but hopefully the grit and grime won't detract from its head-bobbing-ness.

Quadrotriticale:

A goofy, hopefully entertaining experiment in the "2-step" style. The titular vocal sample (whose speaker needs no introduction) was a suggestion from Gary Walker last summer — my brother grabbed it off his TiVo, though other samples throughout were culled from Star Trek in Sound and Vision. I did the drums and some synths in ReBirth, lifted some sub-bass from Dave Tipper's test tones, and put the whole thing together in ACID. That big, noisy "warping" loop (can't think of a better description) is in fact a very short synth-bass sound stretched out to last for an entire measure. Oh, and there are samples from British Electric Foundation's "A Baby Called Billy" and Curve's "Unreadable Communication" somewhere in the mix too.

Brand New Groove:

My first attempt at the Nu Breaks style — kind of like early '80s electro (Afrika Bambaataa, New Order) outfitted with techno trappings. This one's got two main samples: the first is a Chambers Brothers vocal that contains the title phrase (which I then pitch-bend to create an alternate "response" phrase); the second is a sunny organ riff from Billy Cobham's "The Pleasant Pheasant." But the tweaked-out bassline is, as usual, mine all mine.

Mwandishi:

An off-the-cuff attempt at combining a fusion feel with a sparse techno rhythm — don't think I quite got the jazz vibe in there, but at least it's funky. Herbie Hancock horns, more Al Green and Maytalls samples for the various guitar parts, and some strange backwards-bass effects that took the vast majority of the composing time. Good, in a seasick sort of way.

Gin Joint:

In which I make Louis Armstrong and Earl "Fatha" Hines compliment my music from beyond the grave. (I will probably go to hell for that.) Tons of samples here: a strum and sigh from Al Green's "Love and Happiness," a drum track built around a loop from the Congos, a washboard rhythm and shout courtesy of Bukka White, and the intro from Toots and the Maytalls' "Funky Kingston" played backwards. At least the bassline is mine — and it's greezy.

On The Wind:

In which I write a drum and bass track and forget to add the bass. (The roiling, murky low-end riff that starts the track is actually a severely distorted acoustic bass, but you'd never guess.) But what it lacks in bass dynamics it makes up for in sheer windiness — at 8:20, it's my longest piece. The vocals are lifted from Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten, and there's a Scritti Politti sample in there as well (good luck spotting it).

Friday Rush:

Another Gary Walker remix, though he's never seen fit to post the original at MP3.com. The original track, entitled "Quiet Friday," was a slow groove with a neat delayed organ and some crazy speech synth samples in Chinese and Spanish. I kept the speech synth and the organ, but added a jungle rhythm track and bassline. Fun, if you like the idea of Squarepusher performing "The East Is Red."

101 North:

This is a remix of a track by my good friend Gary Walker named "95south", which was written for a roadtrip to Richmond. Gary's in Virginia and I'm in San Francisco, hence the name change. The original's a great celtic stomp with a Happy Mondays groove; as this was my first collaboration and my first time using Sonic Foundry's ACID software, I just kind of messed with it until it sounded different enough to justify its existence. Plus, I liked the idea of making Paul McCartney funky. (Sorry, Geh!)

Sentry:

First tune I finished. Actually, that's not true, since I've been writing songs off and on since I was 18. But this was the first one I wrote and produced entirely on my PC. The drums are chopped-up Meters breaks, the guitar's from the coda to "Cinnamon Girl," the bassline is a David Sylvian sample sped up and pitched down, and the whole thing was put together in AudioMulch (see below). Props to the RZA for inspiration.

How It Works

How can I do this stuff on an average PC, you ask? Here's what's in my box of software tools:

• Sound Forge and ACID: Both from Sonic Foundry
• AudioMulch: wonderful shareware "software studio" by Ross Bencina
• ReBirth RB-338: Classic bassline/drum machine emulator, from Propellerhead Software -- responsible for countless cheesy trance tracks from Sweden, but a fine tool nonetheless
• Cakewalk Pro Audio 8: another software studio, less intuitive than AudioMulch but more precise

Oh, and you'll need a good CD ripper that converts to .WAV format -- might I suggest WinDAC?

Sean G. Thomas, Sean Thomas, Sean Garrett Thomas