Scatter the Exoskeleton.

-  The Wildly Ambitious Quest to Build a Thought-Controlled Exoskeleton for the Paralyzed.

“This may sound incredible, but in recent years, research on using signals from the brain to operate machines has taken great strides. Scientists have developed brain-machine interfaces that allow paralyzed humans to move a computer cursor or even use a robotic arm to pick up a piece of chocolate or touch a loved one for the first time in years. Nicolelis has set his sights even higher: He wants to get paralyzed people up and walking around. If he succeeds it could be a tremendous advance. Right now he’s still developing this technology in monkeys. There’s a long way to go.

But Nicolelis was brimming with confidence in January when I visited his lab at Duke University to see how his work is progressing. “We’re getting close to making wheelchairs obsolete,” he said.“

-  I’m going to be working on music all day today.  In fact, I’ll probably hop to it after writing this.  I’m staring at three pages from my creativity book — one ripped out — trying to discover the natural succession of songs as they should unfold in relation to what the album is about.  What it means to me.  This is easily my most personal album I’ve ever done, as it vaguely (it doesn’t beat you over the head or anything) tells the story of the hardest years of my life.  So far.  But in a meta-way, this time… this experience, is kind of what birthed the idea and the sounds that would become my current musical persona to begin with.  It likely wouldn’t exist in this way without this experience.  So it’s all a little bizarre.  About halfway through I’m remixing the very first track I did officially under the pseudo-name, in an effort to recreate the frustration of what was happening boiling over and me finally going down to the basement and making this droning, Electronic beat.  So… I’m excited.

Also… help me out.  I’m becoming obsessed with THIS reaching 10 thousand downloads.

-  I’ve got this in my headphones this morning:

That’s Doldrums new album, “Lesser Evil”, released yesterday on Arbutus Records.  Canadian (Toronto) -based Electronic music that isn’t trying to make you dance (though you probably could), but that doesn’t get weird for the sake of it.  There’s a hint of that new wave of Canadian electronics in here, the sounds we heard from Purity Ring and Grimes in 2012; those textures are supplemented with the more analog sounds of a group like, say, Black Moth Super Rainbow.  The vocals are surprisingly un-effected out (generally speaking), and there are nods of good old-fashioned storytelling inside some of these songs; but it is not afraid to use a voice as a pure and simple instrument in and of itself as well.  On top of that you’ve got these rhythmic, hypnotic back-beats that have clearly been recorded live, with a kit, in a large room with padded walls.  Definitely worth checking out.

Here’s the album in a variety of formats at Amazon.

-  I really hope Warren Ellis will be getting some amount of dough from Iron Man 3, if the movie is directly lifting his nanotechnology, biological modification, Extremis from his run on the character.

Speaking of Uncle Warren, he’s apparently been inspired by newspaper comic strips, and has been releasing single panel comics on his website of late… as part of a world he calls “Scatterlands”.  Here’s the latest:

-Sonny

Elemental Characters/Production Updates.

-  Wow… so you know how sometimes you hear the argument, “Wind power?  Wind??  Why on Earth would use hundreds year old technology to power anything in the 21st century?”.  Well I just read on Phys.org that new information from Australia states — obviously in certain regions — wind is cheaper and generates as much or more energy as traditional forms.  The study found that down under wind cost $80 per MWh (that’s “Megawatt Hour” or one million watts/hour), whereas it costs $116 for the same amount from a new gas plant, and $143 for the same amount of energy from a new coal plant.  Coal is much higher, however, because of the government’s carbon tax… but the article notes that even without any sort of carbon tax, Coal comes down to the Gas plant numbers (still not close to Wind’s $80/MWh).  Apparently this can be mostly attributed to the cost of renewables (mostly wind and solar) dropping hard in the past few years and the cost of traditional forms of energy continuing to increase.  The article also notes that, “large solar photovoltaic installations will be cheaper than coal or gas by 2020, and solar thermal and biomass systems will be at least competitive by 2030.”

-  I generally don’t like to talk about my life on here — me smart, doing this 2nd — but a little update on the current batch of tunes:

I have 22 songs, about 70% of which are “done” but not done-done.  Before you think “wait… that’s like an hour and 20 minutes worth of music”, most of the songs are between 2 and 2.5 minutes.  The first song, and two others (so far), are between 1 and 2 minutes.  And the last song will probably clock in at about 5 or 6.  Why am I doing this?  It was sort of sparked by listening to Kareem Riggins’ excellent piece of work last Fall, “Alone Together“.  The album is 34 tracks, only 8 of which break the 2 minute mark.  When I heard this album straight through for the first time it had been a few months since I’d wrapped an album I called “Hills Run Red“; a western concept album that had 3 tracks: the first two were 16.5 and the last was 20 mins.  So when I was getting to about track 23 on “Alone Together” I thought… “dang, maybe I should do something like this?”  At the very least it would provide a new challenge for me, and if people think a song sucks at least it’ll be over soon.  Ha.  And it isn’t like I’m self-imposing rules, saying “all songs need to be 2:15 long”, hence the minute long tracks and the much longer track.  I just was quite inspired by “Alone Together” (and, before I knew it, El-P’s “megggamixxx3″), how the song comes together, shows you what it’s got, and moves on.  Also, for as proud as I am of some of the arrangements and instrumentation on “Hills“, I was going to go back to a more sample based album anyhow, and you have to be really good (much, much better than me) at sampling to make 5 minute tracks and have them stay fresh and never get dull.  So yeah.  Also, I would say a good 80% of the samples (for the song foundation; I’m not counting using Dinah Washington or someone like that for vocals, which I’m doing a lot on this) are classical samples.  Mostly, from these two records:

But there’s still synths, too.  And I have a concept, but I’m not sure yet the level of how obvious it’ll be.  I dunno, I’M EXCITED.  I guess so, Rambles McGee.

-  Okay this is fucking awesome.  A student from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design designed cartoon characters based on the Elements for her senior thesis.  Here’s her official page including all of them.  I really like Copper:

-SonnyW. or D.Black or /\/\_/\/\

/\/\_/\/\_vs_J/\Y.

-  New remix EP!  I’m basically doing here what I tried to to with Biggie, but now I have more tools at my disposal and I don’t suck as much.  I wanted to do another Hip-Hop legend.  Nas was on the list, and is still.  Ironically though, one of the songs on this album is a 2001 track (off The Blueprint) called “The Takeover” in which Jay-Z talks alot shit about both Mob Deep and Nas.  I can’t mess with the original, which is one of Kayne West’s best beats, it manages to sample The Doors and KRS One and David Bowie.  Dang.  Anyways, yeah enjoy.  Most of the tracks are pretty dark besides “H.O.V.A.” which kind of has a dance party vibe, and “Encore” which is sort of a reflective, hopeful sounding song.  Here’s the cover:

There’s still much to be desired with my scratching, but I’m getting better.  Also there should be a guitar solo.  Maybe at the end of HOVA.  Okay I’ll stop.  Here’s the stream:

Okay what the fuck?  Bandcamp has changed since I last used it.  There used to be a drop down menu to embed albums on a variety of sites, including WordPress.  Now they’re only providing embed shortcodes for Tumblr, Twitter, and Google+ (with Facebook being default embed).  Hmm.  Okay, well here’s the damn link cause yeah F this:

http://mildmaynyrd.bandcamp.com/album/vs-j-y

The title of the album is /\/\_/\/\_vs_J/\Y.  Yes, written like that.  Here’s the tracklist:

1. December 4th
2. The Takeover
3. H.O.V.A.
4. Bed-Stuy
5. Can’t Knock The Hustle (feat. Mary J. Blige)
6. Hey Papi (feat. Memphis Bleek)
7. Encore

Thanks!

-Sonny

 

 

 

Hills Run Red.

My new record is finally up and available!  It is my third full-length under the Mild Maynyrdguise, and I’m very proud of it.  Again, it’s called “Hills Run Red” (which is the name of one of the first spaghetti westerns, but I liked the “red” theme too).  I had been chronicling my process of concepting and creating it on this blog, but you probably didn’t see that… and I’m really awful at trying to describe it, so I’ll let the other guys in Black Lantern Music sell the concept for me:

“I know what you’re thinking, there’s not enough Wild West themed narrative sample based electronica concept albums that are as I just described but manage at the same time to not be cheesy in any way. Well the ever adventurous Mild Maynyrd, who hails from the other side of the pond so is very possibly a cattle rustling gunslinger himself (though I couldn’t confirm either way as I value my life), has cooked up ‘Hills Run Red’ for Black Lantern Music to remedy this! Its a peach, its a trip, and it tells a ripping yarn too.”

I thought that was pretty funny.  Anyways, yeah it’s a bit of a risk.  Of course.  Just trusting that people have enough patience to get through one track (they’re each longer than 16 minutes) is itself a risk.  But hey, I’m super proud of this thing and I think it’s very unique.  Though I know I can still do better.  This is the cover:

Here’s the embed:

It can be streamed for free, or bought for the price of a Gatorade here:  Mild Maynyrd Bandcamp

Thank you.

-Sonny

NextGen Occupation.

-  Fascinating article — via NPR — about one of the risks of the new Air Traffic Control system the FAA is trying to implement around the country.  The next generation of ATC is based in GPS and internet, as oppose to radar and old-school communications systems.  In the past airplanes used transponders that interacted with ground based radar stations sprinkled around the country.  With NextGen, aircraft will eventually be forced to have a GPS transponder system called ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast).  It supposedly works great: fast (with taking out the simple act of compulsory reporting points and having the A/C’s basic information always verified controllers have that much more time to deal with more pressing matters), reliable (GPS gets down to tens of feet with it’s accuracy), and efficient (taking out all the formality and making it automated).

But as this article points out, every system has its weaknesses.  In dry runs, several hackers have already been able to corrupt the system, including inserting aircraft (an ADS-B signal) that isn’t really there.  Of course, this is why we have dry runs, to hash these things out.

-  I have posted another single from my upcoming album on Soundcloud.  It comes out Monday, and I’m super excited to share it with people!

-  To promote the upcoming film Lawless (one of my most anticipated movies of the year), Vice is asking people to submit Prohibition propaganda art.  The movie should be at least good, if not great, with John Hillcoat at the helm.  The music I’m sure will be great, with Nick Cave spearheading it.

-  The Five-Star Occupation.

Downtown, Ramallah is bustling. The city’s commercial and geographical center is shaped like a starfish, with five arteries meeting at Al Manara square, a plaza surrounded by four concrete lions, each said to represent one of the families who originally settled the city. Every day, the city’s population more than doubles in size; villagers from the surrounding area arrive to buy and sell goods. Fruit and vegetable vendors—mostly young men from northern Palestine—hawk Israeli carrots, dates, tangerines, and eggplants. Coffee sellers with red fezzes on their heads pour Arabic coffee from elaborate silver vessels. Teenage girls peruse shop windows. Money-changers shift eagerly outside of a juice bar, and buses and shared taxi cabs roll in and out of the central station.

-Sonny

Drogo vs. Robb Remix.

-  Yesterday between working on my shit I made a quick remix for Texture’s next release, a trilogy of EP’s as one and a slew of remixes and rarities.  Which will be a treat, seeing all three of those together.  I was telling him that I wanted it to come across as a little more haunting than it does, but I think it still gets the job done.  Had a lot of fun tweaking with his line “nothing is sacred” by adding a whole ass load of modulation, pitch shift, and delay to provide some nice backing vocals for the refrain.  The guitar could be tweaked a bit more, but I kinda like keeping guitars (for the most part) effect free.  Really liking the tone of the new telecaster on this one.  Check it out:

Be sure to look out for NEUROLEPTICA.  I’ll likely be posting here as well.

-  This is old.  BUT, if Game Of Thrones was a 2-D fighting game (probably made by Capcom):

-  Official stills of Tarentino’s Western are now up.  Holy shit this looks awesome.

All for now.  Back to the basement!

-Sonny

Three Act Hamburger.

-  I’m about to dig hard into a couple songs I’ve been working on.  One for the 50th Black Lantern Music release, which should be a pretty cool thing when all is said and done.  The other for my wedding: a song I wrote a while ago for who turned out to be my future wife.  I had never written a song for a girl before, and this one turned out sounding pretty special.  It’s simple and catchy, the way a love song should be.

-  Also I think I’m getting the concept down for my next LP, but who knows when it’ll be finished.  Hopefully by the end of the year.  I want to tell a story with an album.  Cut into three parts, the way dramatic structure is.  Three acts.  I’m not only going to use these devices for the story, I’m also going to use them musically as well if I can.  The introduction of characters (sounds/instruments), the first turning point, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, etc.  I’m going to — I think — break up the album very literally into three parts: 3 long tracks clocking in around 20 minutes a piece (give or take), with “Parts” embedded into each track and also listed in the track-listing.  Step two is what setting to tell such a story in, that could take time.  I’m sure this has all been done before by someone somewhere.

-  I got my Polica vinyl in the mail yesterday.  I just downloaded the digital copy it came with (which really is something everyone should do for people willing to buy brand new vinyl) and am running through the album for the first time right now.  It’s darker than I thought it would be, considering what I’d heard of it.  Mostly the second to last track “Wandering Star”.  Which is a patient reflection on troubling times.  But dang songs like “Violent Games” bring the hammer.  Cover:

-  This news came out a couple days ago, but is still worth mentioning.  It has, of course, massive implications in terms of global hunger and environmental protection.  Scientists have successfully created beef in a lab.

“Speakers said they aim to develop such “meat” products for mass consumption to reduce the environmental and health costs of conventional food production.

Conventional meat and dairy production requires more land, water, plants and disposal of waste products than almost all other human foods, they said.

The global demand for meat is expected to rise by 60 percent by 2050, said American scientist Nicholas Genovese, who organized the symposium.”

-Sonny

Philosophical Unreal Estate.

-  After listening to that M83 album twice all the way through tonight, I pretty much have to add Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming to my list of favorite Electronic records of 2011.  That came off wrong.  I don’t have to… I want to, for reasons obvious enough.  First of all, the record deserves every single bit of the accolade it has been receiving (which feels great to say; and strange).  Also it probably is one of the most complete albums of the year, in every sense of the word.  And, like Gardens & Villa, the dreamy, meandering sound was a breath of fresh air in 2011, the year of Electro-Pop.

-  A couple days ago an acquaintance of mine posted something political on Facebook.  I won’t get into the details.  I do, however, wanna mention the gigantic flaw in logic with the argument.  He/She was arguing why [Philosophy A] was a terrible thing (actually He/She wasn’t but a friend was; this was “shared” or however that works).  His/Her reasoning was that when [Philosophy A] is implemented in [Society B], the majority of people react a certain way which is detrimental both to themselves and everyone else in [Society B].  Which may be an excellent argument for why [Philosophy A] hurts [Society B], but it says little or nothing about [Philosophy A].  If anything, this logic is more an analysis of the general public of [Society B], with [Philosophy A] acting as the window we’re viewing them from.  It’s like arguing how much a 2-3 Zone sucks and how it has no place in basketball, then when someone is all “why is that?”, the argument is that your division has really good outside shooters and they’ll knock down threes all day if you implement it.  Well… okay.  So the 2-3 doesn’t work in your situation, that doesn’t mean the 2-3 itself is flawed or may not work in some other division at some other time and place.

-  An Austin based artist named Tim Doyle is doing an exhibition at a San Fransisco art gallery called Spoke Art throughout February.  The exhibit is called “Unreal Estate”:

Doyle explores locations found throughout popular culture in a variety of limited-edition hand-printed screen prints and original art.  In the artists words, “Unreal Estate’ is a collection of locations that many of us know and have been to on a weekly basis at times, but can never actually visit. These places are in our memories transmitted and entrenched there through a cathode-ray tube. He attempts to preserve and honor the non-physical spaces found in this show with the same care and intention given to iconic real world locations.

Locations like Moe’s from The Simpsons, or Monk’s from Seinfeld.  The picture they’ve got on the official page is the Kwik-E-Mart:

Doyle’s existing Gallery is great too; go HERE if you’d like to but a print or poster or original from him.

-  In between studying, I’ve been trying to begin the slow process of reorganizing my music to be presented in live-form.  It’s a lot of work, considering what I do, but very rewarding.  And lots of fun (not just because I get to wail away at an old Strat with a bullet-style vibrator).  Hopefully I’ll have a chance to show some people at some point this year.

-  Visit the WordPress music blog Minor Scratches (Tree Survived With).  I’m guesting there every once and a blue-moon, not that that matters because the guys who run it are incredibly open-minded and probably know more about Post-War Jazz than I do all of music.  Good recommendations, free of all the pre-concieved bullshit and contrived anecdotes of your typical music blog.  Oh, and they DO NOT piss themselves over someone like James Blake.  Good for them.

-Sonny

The Parallel (Album).

Alright, so the shit is finally done and out.  It’s clocking in as Black Lantern Music’s 48th official release.  It is my fourth release as Mild Maynyrd, not counting any remix type stuff, second full-length.  I’ve been sending the link to friends with the disclaimer along the lines of “not really sure what to call this”.  Haha.  I’m not sure of many people who are doing a heavy, synth-based beat and sampling Sarah Vaughan over the top of that (ala track 2).  Maybe it exists somewhere.  If it does, we’re probably kindred spirits.  Is “Vinylcore” a genre yet??  For anyone interested in what samples I’m using (aka: music nerds) those can be found on each track page at the Bandcamp link.  Just click the track you’re wondering about.  Anything NOT listed is a Creative Commons sample and/or created by myself.  Here’s the cover:

Mild Maynyrd – The Parallel on Bandcamp.

Mild Maynyrd – The Parallel on Black Lantern.

Thanks.

-Sonny

2012 Here We Come.

-  I have just sent high(er) quality MP3s to the boss over at Black Lantern Music.  Still hoping I can find someone to do physicals with it.  The album is done.  It’s called “The Parallel”, for several reasons.  You know, for being knee deep in the Great Depression in the 1930′s, we certainly accomplished quite a bit.  Here’s a short list of things we invented in the 30s:  scotch tape, the frozen food process, the jet engine, the electron microscope, the drive-in movie, the tape recorder, radar, canned beer, the helicopter.  What else?  We built the Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State Building.  New forms of artistic expression emerged like Expressionism, Surrealism, and Realism.  Now, the idea was that tough times actually result in massive increases of creativity.  Ask any CEO of a company, they’ll tell you the same thing.  So “The Parallel” not only refers to the idea that we’re going through the same things as we did in the 30s (so why can’t we go out and invent new things, build new buildings, express ourselves with new artforms?), it also refers to my creative process stemming out of tougher times.  Plus, when I was researching the 1930s for this project I read through a lot of Dos Passos, particularly The 42nd Parallel.  I sat with that book for hours upon hours.  So the title is also a reference to that 30s novel.  Suffice it to say I’m very excited about the whole thing.  I’ve also written a flash-fiction companion piece which embeds the song titles into the “story”.  More on that to come.

-  Holy shit 2012 sounds straight outta some science fiction.  It doesn’t feel right, does it?  The great Paul Sizer created quite the rallying cry for humanity with this poster he made for the New Year:

“2012: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED”

-  There were several albums I thought were going to come out in 2011, so here’s to a better year in music than the last!  I suppose I should, like every other blogger on the planet, release my “2011 yearinmusicaaaaaggggh” list.  And I probably will, at some point soon.  Lots of critics are saying how boring of a year it was because nothing really dominated “Best” lists, I find that to be a lot more interesting than the other way round.  And what’s up with everyone and their brother putting that Bon Iver record in their top 5 or 3??  It was okay I guess, but then I saw Justin Vernon and his band on The Colbert Report and good God I would never pay money to see that.  I mean, I know it’s hard to sing that falsetto in key without multiple takes, but still.

-Sonny