Hello all! I have just released a new EP featuring four tracks I’ve previously shared in various threads on here, so, rather than clogging up another thread, I’ve decided to make this its own topic so I can write a little bit more about the gear I used and the ideas behind the EP as a whole.
First, I’d like to start with a land acknowledgement: part of this work was produced on the rightful ancestral lands of the Caddo, Comanche, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Tawakini, and Wichita peoples.
You can currently find the EP on bandcamp or SoundCloud:
and visualizers for each track on YouTube:
The main idea linking everything together is the use of vocal samples taken from live radio broadcasts that I collected while composing each track. I tried to let each track evolve organically from one section to the next; guided by the vocal samples I pulled from the radio. To do this, I used the Polyend Tracker for the entirety of composition and mixing, and I used the SP 404 mk2 to add some compression and, occasionally, other effects, but the brunt of the work was done solely on the Tracker.
Possible spoilers for the game "Disco Elysium" (nothing plot related, but still a potential spoiler for one of the fundamental concepts pertaining to the metaphysics of the game world)
Because I was sampling the radio for the audio and “sampling” video for the visuals, I felt the title “entroponetics” was appropriate. The word comes from the game “Disco Elysium”, and it refers to a specific concept within the game called the Pale (specifically, the word refers to the study of the Pale). I won’t fully explain what that concept means here (as I think the game does an excellent job of that on its own), but I will say that the Pale is something that can be accessed by radio waves, and it deals with ideas concerning embodied memory and identity (specifically: the replacement of embodied memories and how that affects one’s concept of identity) which I felt were somewhat mirrored by the composition process (i.e taking and manipulating radio “memories” and video “memories”).
For the visual component, I made each of the videos in Blender, as that’s the software I’m most familiar with; however, this is my first real attempt at making this kind of visualizer. Each visualizer was made by layering short clips my partner would send me; then using Blender to re-project the images in weird ways with audio driving certain keyed parameters. I prefer to call these pieces “visualizers” as opposed to “music videos” because I was truly just trying to provide some kind of visual component to the tracks, and I don’t currently have the skillset to produce complex stories within my videos (yet (hopefully)).
If anyone has any difficulty downloading or watching any of these tracks, feel free to send me a message, or reply to this thread! Thank you for reading this rambly (and borderline pretentious) write-up, and I hope you enjoy the music. I hope to have a more cohesive project out later this year, and I’m putting it in writing here (at the end…) so that I keep myself somewhat accountable. Finally, I would like to simply say: all mistakes are my own.
Thank you,
tovia
