Welcome Aboard!

Santa got me a New PC for Christmas - so having wired it up the first thing to check was to set up various audio interfaces playing through it to make sure everything was working properly. And from that initial Jam from my Mc-303, came various bits of looping, editing, and overdubs. The instrumental piece was made with a riff from my Kaossilator. But enough technical kit speak already - I love this track!

All Change Please

Yes folks - there are various changes afoot here at Quaquaversity as the Conny Plankton Soundcloud has reached its storage limit. Nothing wrong with the idea  of paying a bit extra for more storage, but it had left me thinking what the best long term solution was to getting people access to my muzak through the Quaquaversity blog and beyond. Soundcloud do a great job, but I have had to be ruthless in thinking is it worth paying a monthly fee when hardly anyone is listening to the music. This doesn't mean I am all morose and somnolent like, but just have to start getting a bit real about these things.

So I have started moving across stuff into a new site and online presence over at Bandcamp. A copy of the Bandcamp link is in the links section on the right hand side of the page. However this link can also be found can can also be found here, by clicking on the magic phrase:

Whelks are sleeping under your bed.

Or by clicking on the image below:

Bandcamp should allow for ready access, although the interface has been completely different and will make for a different layout to get to the Conny Plankton uber sound. This layout will kick in from this post onwards. It also means having to reupload some of the Soundcloud files from earlier posts back into Bandcamp as we get things sorted. All of this may get more than a tad confusing as we wind the clock back on some of these earlier posts to get everything roughly back into some sort of chronological order.

We will all get there in the end. I want to keep the Soundcloud site going however, which will continue to evolve and develop over the next few weeks.

So Beep Beep! Everyone aboard? On we go!

Kaoss from the outer reaches

Moving on to something new...exploring my Kaossialtor - a hand held device that allows some amazing sounds to be touched and stroked into existence. From a Jam session played on top of a midi riff through Bass Station and reverb added through an Alesis Midiverb. Oh, and rather good for the head too...

The P.A.Morbid Song Cycle

This Post is a generally sweeping and possibly wee bit pretentious title for a series of musical projects that began some six or seven years ago with the idea of doing a series of remixes and sort of cover versions of some of my favourite muzak pieces, lyrics and poems. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever done cover versions of these before.

Vocals were recorded on minidisc (remember them) by none other than the great North England poet, P.A. Morbid.  Morb is well known around the local poetry circuit, and has a number of published works.

He is also the voice and guiding force behind his own musical project, Killy Dog Box and Pre Dating the 13th. Perfect dark ambient fodder for a cold winter evening and well worth checking out, and links can be found here:

https://soundcloud.com/killy-dog-box

https://soundcloud.com/pre-dating-the-13th

The four tracks were finally completed  among a series of a number of other projects, although I did not want to put anything up on the blog or Soundcloud until I felt everything was finished, and Morbid had graciously given me the go ahead to use his golden larynx. So now, a mere seven years or so later, here we are:

Magog Hammer Machine

First one from a series of remix cover version projects. Vocals are by none other than P.A.Morbid. The original version is buried somewhere in the title and the supporting image may well be a clue. Suffice to say one of my favourite ever tracks, and a big influence for many things over the years.  It is now far removed now from the original track, with a series of time stretched tones. overlaid samples, loops and general madness.

Archbishop Thunderstorm

The second piece in the series was a classic from one of my favourite 70s Krautrock bands. Amazing lyrics and incredible vocals and beat in the original. No way that it could ever be matched in terms of its lysergic intensity - so this is a completely different and individual take. Vocals are again from the Rev. P.A. Morbid.

Come Again

A cover version born not in a song, but in a poem. But not just any poem of course, but one of the greatest poems ever. Penned by everyone's fave Irish Poet Golden Dawn member, this tells of an apocalyptic vision heralded by spiritual decay and cultural loss. Probably more pertinent even today than when it was written. Loved it ever since I saw a comic version of it in International Times made as a collage cut up by Biff Comics. Vocals again are by the incomparable P.A. Morbid.

All the Ears Round

The final piece from this series of insane cover version projects, this time returning to my favourite 70s Krautrock bands with the a track just showing their just plain amazing and incredible lyrics. I tried to use Morbid's vocals to bring the hypnotic, overwhelming, trancelike, unsettling quality of the lyrics right into the foreground.