Sunday, July 29, 2007

Synthetic-Colorsmoke EP (2007)


This is my first release for the Swiss net label 20kbps rec. It is an attempt to fuse electronica and psychedelic music. The label is one of the most famous lo-bit labels in the world, meaning that the music is encoded at 8-40 kbps. I decided to treat lo-bit almost as an effects pedal, utilizing the low fidelity to my advantage. Songs 1, 3 & 5 are dance numbers that admittedly would probably sound better at higher bit-rates, but songs 2 & 4 are actually better at the low bit-rate of 20kbps. The song titles were somewhat influenced by Davis Redford Triad's Blue Cloud, as well as Miles Davis's Aura album. Purple Smoke is influenced by Neu and Weasels era Zappa, Yellow and Brown Smoke are inspired by Eraserhead, Psychedelic music and Skinny Puppy. Red and Green Smoke features an old Casio VL-1 synth/calculator playing a random melody in the background. To give listeners a choice, I gave 2 versions of Song 5 to choose from, one is in stereo, the other is made to simulate being played on an old suitcase style turntable. I also gave a choice of 3 different CD covers to choose from, one of which was designed by Dutch graphic artist Norbert Croonenberg (lower picture shown).

The album is available free at 20 kbps rec. and I highly recommend some of my labelmate's albums like: Old Oldman's The Tender Ass and Deemage's Nothing Happens Everything Changes.

Link to 20kbps rec.

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