SERIES #1 (It's A Mixtape!)

Y’all…

<miniseries voice>SERIES #1 IS COMMIIIIING!!!!</miniseries voice>

My upcoming release will be available on Bandcamp and on all other platforms 7/31! I’ve been referring to it as a mixtape - let me explain. No, there aren’t a jillion wild songs on it with crazy battle raps and features that my label’d never let me get away with on a proper album. No, there aren’t actual tapes being made (although that is something I’d consider). It’s more about the intent of the recording.

It’s not exactly a revelation that people in general don’t care about albums the way they used to. In addition, the notion of “songs” is antithetical to my workflow as SERIES. The idea of SERIES is that across a <ahem> series of iterations over the same abstracted harmonic structure, I can get vastly different results just with probablility theory, instrument selection and my decisions during the performace either in the Aleator UI or on the synths. I don’t have the notion of perfected, final versions of compositions - the harmonic motion is the only thing that is ever final. Around the time that I feel a composition sounds great and I can perform it well, I move on to something else. All that is to say - it doesn’t make a ton of sense for me to dedicate an abundance of time and energy into producing a paintakingly crafted “album” in the traditional sense.

These (I’m going to try to do them every other month) are quick and dirty single take recordings meant to capture my live performances for convenience. They’re not me making an overarching artistic statement. They’re not me holing up in a studio or using it as instrument. They’re not me having it mixed professionally or even putting much effort into mixing myself aside from whatever basic leveling, eq and compression are needed for it to sound good to me. And they’re definitely not me providing listeners with a set of perfectly executed “songs” they can expect to hear if they subseqeuntly see me perform. To the contrary, if something finds its way onto these recordings, that means I’ve already performed it live a few times and it’s long since been replaced in sets. For the recordings, the goal is to nail the live performaces and provide clean, simple mixes that reflect them. For live performances, the goal is to always play new material…within reason. I can’t promise a completely new set every time out, but from month to month I certainly won’t be playing the same thing.

I hope you guys like SERIES #1. FYI, SERIES #2 tracking is complete, I’ll get into mixing that this week.