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Ratgut wires vibrato

Topics: music, alfred, the fen, flavigula

2014-01-08

I wrote *The Fen* when I was in New Cross Gate[1]. One of its parts was supposed to be played on *mandolin*, but I never performed it to my satisfaction, the anal retentive twat that I am. I am revisiting it now.

Fen Intro [IMG]

The initial problem with this part, which repeats once, is the attack / volume of the so-called Rhodes. I added phase and distortion to remedy that. Also, before this bit, whilst the dirgelike stomp is going on (and, indeed, before it), I added Hela. Yes, Hela. I took a small clip from a voice message she sent me last month and stretched it to 20 times its length. I then reversed it and mixed the two. The result is eerily beautiful.

Maintaining the same timbre between tracks in LMMS[2] is becoming a problem. Perhaps there are unseen settings that affect parameters manipulated by me over three years ago. Ah! Well, part of this composition will be an injection of aleatoric aesthetics.

Where the fuck is that hissing buzz coming from?

I discovered earlier that *Crossover Distortion* can be fantastically noisy. I have employed it in the piece.

As I was riding in the *pickup truck* with my father on the way to the grocery store, I thought of the track that will follow *The Fen*. The name will be *The Bog* or possibly *Silt*. Or even *I Swabbed Your Pet Gerbil's Anus With a Fossilized Paramecium*. My idea is this: firstly, layer many tracks of Hela's voice strectched and contracted, forming chords. If plausible, create some bastardized version of the melody in the introduction of *The Fen* to swim erratically through the resulting sonic morass. Provide accompaniment consisting of mid-range distorted bass and the aformentioned *Crossover Distortion* of the pizzicato violin.

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Fortunately, a part had been left unwritten. The erstwhile *mandolin* part of the second "verse" (I laughingly call it that) now exists. The counterpoint to the Rhodes part penned (I laughingly call it that) three and a half years ago contains many fun dissonaces. Only a select few were planned. I leave the rest because it is one of the wondrous features of aleatoric composition.

Fen Second Melody [IMG]

The final mixdown using Audacity[3], and as I remember, tends to muddle the sound a bit, although I did a bit of noise reduction, as well, so that may be the culprit. *Where, in the name of the pungent liver of Jesus, did that buzzzzzzzzzz come from, anyhow?*

The Fen* is at this very moment uploading (itself - yes, it is a sentient being - fens are **living** ecospheres, don't'cha know, ya leper?) to Soundcloud. I haven't used Soundcloud for years, so deleted several tracks on the *siralfrediv* account. I tagged the mixed down *flac* with the artist **Flavigula**. My electronic and / or electroacoustic music will be under this moniker. In fact, I should create an entrely new Soundcloud account for these purposes.

Yah.

The Fen[4]

1: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Pepys+Road,+London,+United+Kingdom&hl=en&sll=32.727458,-103.162855&sspn=0.173292,0.338173&oq=pepys&hnear=Pepys+Rd,+London+SE14+5SE,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=15

2: http://lmms.sourceforge.net/

3: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

4: https://soundcloud.com/flavigula/the-fen

tzifur (Martenblog home)

jenju (Thurk.Org home)

@flavigula@sonomu.club

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0