#1

two complimentary beat tapes to document my learning processes (like pages in an open notebook)

i’ll be adding commentary for tracks in a moment but please feel free to ask about cover art, titles, sonic textures and equipment used.

thanks!

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#2

as always, your music continues to confound and delight. Thanks much for sharing :slight_smile:

would you mind elaborating a bit more on the process/ideas behind kudu (on side a) and sefmin? Real standouts for me and also well beyond the realm of a thing I could imagine making myself.

Also wanted to shout out dubbledown for sounding like MIKE’s productions at his most out there and abstract, and then taken a couple notches further.

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#3

thank you so much for the kind words (they really mean alot!) + glad you asked about specific tracks

  • sefmin - i’ve got an as-yet-unreleased beat tape made back in march…while struggling to make beats within ableton for that project i discovered a new technique: define a loop, disable warping, map the sample “transpose” to a controller and you can create weird cascading and ascending rhythms when modulating by hand…i’ve been refining and playing with the idea since then but sefmin was one of the first experiments with that method of rhythmic chopping

  • kudu - another freestyle ableton beat…like everyone in the world i really study dakim’s music and performances (esp specific details like his hi-hats!)…this was made while trying to understand his essence + unique approach to sampling / song structure . also i’m 90% the haunting melodies were sampled from @n_ev synth sessions and arranged w/ multiple instances of ekphras m4l looper

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#4

I’m really loving both of these releases.

I especially love the really short tracks, listening to the albums through it almost feels dreamlike … drifting in and out of these different spaces/rhythms sometimes quickly sometimes lingering.

I love bullfunk on [b] and whl on [a] right now, but the whole thing is really fantastic.

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#5

thank you!

quite glad you picked up on some of that

#6

[a]

maya: a song for my 2 yr old niece…used a transposed bugaev synth loop for melody, and acapella from suzi analogue as a vocal sample chop
whl: 1st attempt at remix for another artist
tzm dup: opz tape beat…tribute to legendary VA beatsmiths like timbaland who inspired me to start making electronic music
abdi: outtake from vandaleye sessions
ninudip: teaching myself to sample from cassette into opz for flips…left pretty much untouched
kaafi: made for the hiphop lcrp, all melody is a live session manipulating kaivo and aaltoverb with my midi controller…added drums within ableton by hand (hihats are an ekphras loop)
ninu chip: same sample as ninudip, just rearranged and repitched with opz…drums added in ableton later and I accidentally left ext input on while resampling (where the track gets it’s name)
kudu: discussed above…i listen to too much dak
gicleé: hi-hats made by stacking two ekphras loopers and playing the pos knob on the 1st one…added drums within ableton…then layering in synth sprinkles from a session with nuPG and 856 for zellersasn (in hindsight that is WAAAAY too much work for such a short song lol)
sefmin: discussed upthread
melba: outtake from shekasteh sessions, named for a family friend who passed recently due to covid
ferdez: made this after an ableton zoom class w/ jwords (jen hernandez)…she’s really helped me alot and i love how weird this sounds, also used a gating trick learned from @pATCHES blog (another great ableton tutorial resource)
quar rtm: off balance repetition that represents the madness of extended confinement, using techniques i learned while making zvk (an unreleased beat tape)
blink/bahn: another one made while studying dak…made with max/msp except some drums…i honestly don’t remember how cause the foundation was made in dec 2019
dubbledown: one of the best i made w/ opz…convinced me of it’s full potential for the style i want to make (title is a bit tongue in cheek, had been conversing on lines about why i record in mono and decided to do it again for fun)

[b]

kudu: sampled the break from the a side track and added beefier drums…actually started making the edit for a rapper and planned to add melody but she wasn’t feelin other beats i sent so i abandoned this as is…
zaan: 2020 beatmaking app for my rhythm…nik bugaev added tonal loops and feedback (we released the original track)…while passing back and forth i made this heavily processed mix
rinnin: for brin, a tribute in his style of softcut based drum improv…he uses norns, i used prosody stacks in ableton with a custom drum rack
bullfunk: a scratch beat (for practicing cuts) tipping my cap to old school hip hop, trouble funk and dc go-go music

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#7

thank you so much for always taking the time to detail your process, it really means a lot to me.

yeaaaah right, we all know thats not possible :wink:

pos and fade modulation 4 life

thats all i got for now. i’ve only listened once through to both (its hard to keep up, you release too much great stuff :stuck_out_tongue:) but i’ll come back with questions/more praise when the opportunity arises

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