Lucifers

A funeral today so not much time for music, but tweaked Janus Never Blinks and extended Asylum Flowers. So pleased with these tracks now. The hard one is last, Struck Lucifers. A poem about the end of the World War 2, the clean up, British soldiers in Egypt and many other things. Difficult musically, as the imagery in this one here doesn't suggest the sort of music I can easily play. In all of these, as with Burn of God, I'm reminded that the imagery is crucial; that images are the root of music (especially instrumental music) and literature. Images (location!) form the item to describe in these media.

Janus and Mandalino

A difficult night, more disturbing dreams; one involving a sad Kate Bush who was instantly made to laugh by being given some Chambord, but this seemed to be a short term, and incorrect, fix. She then decided to make a curry with her bass-player partner, I thought the food an inappropriate choice. Then an Irish actor (from a Harold Pinter play I've seen) asked me about my life and was concerned about my dependency on my family. A white dove flew by, into the open window of wooden shed, something like a windmill, where a butcher was catching and chopping the wings off doves, hanging the wings on a line, but skinning the birds. He, upset by the act, repeats to himself that it's only a job. At another point I was inside a windmill which was quaking and shaking due to frightening external forces. Perhaps this memory is related to the climax of the old Frankenstein film, which I watched a few months ago.

I rose with a headache which remained all day and appeared to be psychological in nature, yet unfathomable. I ignored it and achieved my daily goals. Worked on Janus Never Blinks and Mandalino, two of the best tracks so far. The production method seems to involve starting with the plain vocals, sequencing those with optional background sound effects, then playing the music live to that as a dub track, then augmenting that (and generally adding parts).

I'm so used to composing and sequencing everything that this method of playing live seems to be too easy, too simplistic and avoiding melody and compositional complexity, structure, refinement, and so quality. This is good training for playing, however. These pieces have been and will be played live, so the sound can't be too different from a live performance. Recorded and Live are very different experiences; ideally both will be as good as each other and both spectacular, but there are always choices to make. The simpler I make the recording, the easier and more accurate a live performance can be, but the recording will be losing something, not as good as possible. Similarly, if the recording is superb and layered and complex then reproducing that in a live setting is all the more difficult.

Asylum Flowers and ArtSwarm

A slow day, I've found it hard to get motivated to work on music, so I distracted myself constructively by creating a new Facebook Group to share ArtSwarm videos and images with the wider world, and adding the ArtSwarm Live (Cirque du ArtSwarm) line-ups to the ArtSwarm Blog. These are important because performance art is the most ephemeral art of all, even more than digital music! So, recording these events is a very important part of the process. This job took until 2pm or so and is now complete.

Then I proceeded to record the piano parts for Asylum Flowers. I made 7 takes, which is unusually high, but this four-verse poem is complex in mood. The fast, 6-time melody does match the pace and feeling the city, and the final 'broken' part is easy too, but the intermediate sections have an indeterminate mood, and so are more difficult musically. I've had fun with the production, adding a distant call, moans, and echoes that gradually fade in to evoke drifting into memory.

These complex effects are easy in Prometheus. From the outset I wanted to make sure that any parameter for any instrument, track, or global effect, can be set in the sequence at any point, faded towards any value (most useful to gently slow down the tempo), or modulated with a waveform modulator; I can attach or detach a modulator waveform to any parameter as part of the sequence. My waveforms are plain wav files, so easy to create.

I had hoped to do more but am sleeping strangely and feeling odd. Last night I had a nightmare about being chased through dark streets by a black hooded figure with odd, hook-like, angular hands, the shape of the stumpy metal arms of the T1000 in Terminator 2, yet black. The date of 'The 30th day of Christmas' was specifically present, and the image of a calendar which, actually, showed about yesterday, a Tuesday in the last week of January. The actual 30th day of Christmas would be 23rd of January if the 5th of January is Twelfth Night, although part of me expected it would be at the start of February.

I've also been aware that there are degrees of rest during a break, and that breaks of doing nothing; no internet (I don't have and will resist ever having a smart phone, blessed be this fact for my happiness and productivity!), no television, no radio... these are the most valuable.

Fall in Green Vocal Recording

Most of the vocal recordings were made today for War is Over and The Apocalypse of Clowns. I had the idea of feeding the piano through the left channel of the sound card, the mic through the right, so that both could be monitored by Deb during recording, and listening to the piano myself through a second set of headphones, so we could perform live together without each other's recordings being contaminated by the other. A separate guide track could be played to the vocalist too, if needed.

This was mostly successful, but the complexity of the system made a good performance difficult for me, as I had to dash from one place to another and immediately start playing. Also, the key depression sound from the piano was audible (just). It did help guide the pacing of the speech to music a little though, there was better live interaction. Overall however, it wasn't much more efficient than starting with a separate vocal recording, which I could chop up as needed before adding music at my own pace.

So far, Asylum Flowers is the most challenging because I've developed a complex 6-time pre-recorded section for the fast parts of the poem, but the slower parts need the live piano parts. It's not too difficult, a matter of timing. A few of the other tracks, Lost at the Fair, Mister and Mrs Knife Thrower, for example, have only been performed live once, over a year ago, and are bound to be different (and hopefully better) on the album. I ache to push the limits more and do more, further than with Testing the Delicates.

We had thought that these releases will be EPs but it seems that they will be full albums instead, as we will probably easily use more than the 6-track maximum, even if under 30 minutes (most of these are under 2 minutes). The only difference this makes is pricing; EPs generally cost £5.99 now and albums £7.99.

More work on these tomorrow and for the rest of the month.

More War and Clowns

More work on War is Over and the Apocalypse of Clowns albums today, including recording the piano music for Skin. Now four tracks are complete for War is Over: The main (short) piano intro, the two Valhalla pieces and a third piano track called Desolation, which is a left over track from the old Erik Satie project but fits this perfectly. On the clowns side of things, Fairytale and Grim by Day are complete. Grim was recorded a few months ago, along with the Fairytale vocals, I added the music to that yesterday and tweaked it today.

That's all I can do for now until we find time for the vocal recordings. This means I have a free week in which to start new art. I must think what; I might revisit my idea of a book of short stories. I've written 20 or so and many are unpublished.

Envy and To Valhalla We Must Go

A strange day. I felt irrationally upset at the implied rejection of a friend who was always somewhat bullying and jealous towards me. I've never really felt envy. I believe that anyone can do anything if they really want to, it's just a matter of trying and repeated practice. There are some limits to what we can master (at 169cm, I'm too short to become a tennis champion) but there are very few exceptions. Maybe the world isn't as fair as I optimistically believe, but if so, then everything is more random or out of our control, and again there is no point in being envious. Envy is so irrational; if we like and appreciate someone, they can be an inspiration, if not, then why worry?

Romantic jealousy is slightly different I think, perhaps more biological and inherent, but then, I've hardly felt that either. Fate draws like people together and if they stay alike, they are inseparable. These paths are mapped by the fates.

These ideas inspired me and I began to explore the concept of envy and jealousy and drew an idea sketch for a future painting, my first in a few months. At times like this I miss painting, but then, I spend each day working on art. Every day is a balance and every day is precious. Every hour should be loved and appreciated!

My mood was still sour. I took a walk, and realised that my attitudes towards this person were pointless and irrational. To be envied is a compliment, and we are free to make, break, renew any relationship at any time, and all relationships are ultimately based on utility and need.

I returned home and started work on the new War is Over recordings for Fall in Green. The idea behind the poems was as an alternative war commemoration, marking the centenary of the end of the First World War, a series we were asked to compose and perform in November 2018 in Knutsford and Congleton libraries.

The first two poems, unusually by me (Deborah normally writes the words, I the music), are about old warriors. I wanted to avoid clichés. It seems silly, inauthentic, to write faux-sad poems about long dead soldiers that I have no connection to. Faux-sad war poems! The worst art!

Instead, I thought of the dead warriors themselves and about warrior's glory, a rare view, out of fashion; this is the exact opposite of Great War poetry. I thought that those dead warriors might feel insulted or patronised to be thought of as victims rather than fighters. This emotion was the basis of my two poems.

There is no music to these. In the live performance, I read the words while Deborah tolled a bell. I've broadly preserved this for the recording, although I did toy with adding rock guitars, I rather liked that but Deb thought that it was a bit too much like stadium rock and out of character, and I thought yes, perhaps so. I've added some flames and roars. Here are the words to the first poem, To Valhalla We Must Go:

Smash the sunset with Mjolnir's weeping fury!
Let crows explode from their castled cones
over the graves of gritted-teeth skulls.
Let their fists burst the blood soil
and banshee at the bad night.
The fight must never die, though we are home.

In august robes, the masters of entropy sleep
limp over thrones of marble decay
letters there to avoid memory
as blind as the dead,
the calcined trees of yesterday.

As trumpets herald midnight and silent guns
let wolves moan their savage flutes,
let moon rockets shoot at the moribund stars
and scream "no!"

Crucify nostalgia.
Set a new red flower to burn.
Set a new clock to wheel
and char the snow.

To Valhalla we must go.

Agony, Ecstasy and Gaming Admin

A rubbish night of constant, grinding stomach pain; as always with me, not so much burning like acid indigestion but a bruised feeling and constant ache. After an initial hour of sleep I awoke in pain to pace (and even jog) for a few hours while watching a film - even sitting in such circumstances is unpleasant and I seem to need my system to move. After much drinking of water I could tolerate lying down enough to rest, although not sleep. So, I rose groggy and with a sore head.

This bad night led to a good day however. I took the bus to Macclesfield and invigilated in the Macc Art Lounge for a few hours, and was happy to sell Tower of Bees hit by Forces Beyond Their Control to a friend and collector, and spend a lovely few hours talking with him.

I am reminded to keep pushing for new limits and to quell the tedious normality of art, especially the commercial decorative art filled with landscapes and pretty colours to match the curtains. There is more art than ever, true, and more creativity than ever, true, but it seems, more bad art than ever, and too much laziness and lack of focus and solitary, driven passion. Today's Battle of Nantwich reminded me to wear my cavalier hat more often too. Creativity must stem from ones being in all forms. I must push!

My stomach still weeps but, so far, it is less achey than last night. These things take days for me to recover from. I think this malady is due to efficiency; my body can't digest too much at once, only what is needed. If I absorb too many calories, my body reacts to preserve itself. Self psychomorphology, imagining oneself into an ideal shape or being, has perhaps resulted in too much efficiency, and I've accidentally eaten too much as a result.

This evening I've set up the first stages of selling the Flatspace and Flatspace II soundtrack albums on Steam. Lots of admin work. I'm unsure whether to do this as there is a difference between this and the other music platforms; different standards on album names, pricing, and other things. An Amazon album now costs $9.49, £7.99, or €9.99 for the US, UK, and France, which is somewhat odd given the currency rates; but this is probably in keeping with these general music markets and the associated regulations, which Steam lacks awareness of. The Flatspace launch yesterday went to plan and about 170 copies have been installed in these initial 36 hours.

Tonight it is a game night, so I'm away with my computer gaming friends for one of our regular play times. I'm less and less interested in games and in the television and film and music culture that they know about and I don't; I'm rarely part of such conversations, but these are my oldest friends and it's invariably a nice break to simply be there.

War and Clowns

A slow day yesterday, I awoke with a desire to just lie there and rest, which is most unusual. I didn't for long, my main jobs now are to work on War is Over and the Apocalypse of Clowns, the next two Fall in Green releases. A Crewe town performance has been roughly pencilled in for May but this is to be confirmed. I think it's connected to Creative Crewe, who I used to be part of, producing their On Track bulletin of local events for a year or two. Like many voluntary jobs, the workload tends to grow until it all becomes too much work for too little reward and in this case the antagonism from a certain member of the organisation made working with them too unpleasant. Generally though, it was a great team to work with, and I always got on well with Carol Wilkinson, the driving force behind Creative Crewe who has been a massive contributor to local arts in Crewe for decades, often working in obscurity and for little reward. Her shop, The Cubby Hole, was quite an arts hub and it was a sad day when she had to close it.

I managed to start the production work on Asylum Flowers, and later attended an inspiring meeting of local art related organisations and politicians. It was a very positive meeting, I felt that the group was capable and enthusiastic of any number of arts related activities. Carol was there, but I didn't get a chance to say hello.

Last night I woke at 3am with shivers and a throbbing pain in my right side, it appears to be a nerve or muscle pain originating in my back. A tension energy knot, like a bioquantum event. I feel it's the result of recent pressure.

Today, it's Flatspace launch day and I released the game, tested it, sent out my Cornutopia Software newsletter email, announced the game on Twitter and Facebook, and on the Steam community pages. I've also ordered the proof of my next poetry book, The Burning Circus, and I thought that it would be an interesting target to have a launch of something each month this year; this could include Burn of God, The Burning Circus, the two Fall in Green albums, a second Marius Fate album, or other books and games.

Onward.