Ambient 2022 Vol.1: One hour listening experience for rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Perfect for reading, watering plants, small repetitive tasks that need to be finished only by you, and psychedelica.
Special thanks: Kirt Bozeman, David Hobizal.
The Place She Dwells is a full-length feature film from Motivate Pictures, starring Sarah Niarkos and directed by Maurice Moore.
In the film, Rachel (Sarah Niarkos) suffers deep trauma after a horrific event tears her life apart. Refusing to go outside, she depends upon the efforts of Detective Pierce (Maurice Moore) to solve the crime that served as the catalyst of her distress and assure her future well-being. The lines between illusion and reality begin to blur as Rachael battles with her demons, home alone, while all those who occasionally visit don't have a clue how to help.
The Place She Dwells is a cunningly well-executed indie-thriller that demonstrates the dark depths we sometimes go to, even if we don't have a clue as to how to climb out of it. While this film looks squarely and soberly at the personal effects of trauma, it ultimately showcases the resiliance of the human spirit in times of immense duress and adversity.
Maurice Moore and Dave Wirth worked closely together on the music for The Place She Dwells. Equal parts layered Eurorack synthsizer sound design and felt piano with strings, the soundtrack plays to Sarah Niarkos' gutsy, deep performance as a woman who routinely tries to escape the immense grief and terror that threatens to swallow her.
Directed by Jorge Martinez:
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“Listening to Evil Gima’s Alluvion is a singular experience. Its implacable currents of sound pull from two worlds. The first is a place mythic and terribly old, an ancient corridor where monsters lurk with the unknowable thing inside you. The other is an echo of our own voices, captured from some unimaginable future; deranged and waiting. It’s the only music I have ever heard that conjures the cosmic terror/wonder of the world unknown.
Evil Gima and Alluvion are a genre unto themselves, a separate universe from the familiar and predictable undulations of horror than can only speak to the surface of things. Alluvion peels you open and seizes that unfathomable reality within... then sets it churning.
Rejoice, human. Music is not dead. And you are called to obliteration.”
In 2021, I purchased my first Eurorack synthesizer. The obsession with the quality of analog sound took hold very quickly. This album of sketches and tests came directly from experimenting with the synthesizers on the Eurorack. I doubt I'll ever buy another digital synth plugin again...
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Album cover is a public domain photograph of the flutist John Finn, ca 1923. The original is located here: www.loc.gov/resource/musdcmphot.a0169.0
Originally written and recorded in 2005. Dedicated to (and written for) all the servers and bartenders at the now defunct Hickory Street Bar and Grill, Austin, TX. You know who you are.
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Fetch is the story of a woman who walks into the woods to find her disappeared friend only to meet the Fae, the creatures who guard the wilderness. Fetch was written and directed by Heather Halstead in cooperation with Motivate Pictures., and stars Dana Wing Lau.
The original score for Fetch takes the perspective of a mythical adversary: The fae. It features live-recorded piano, voice, kalimba, big drums, and most notable, a cigar box guitar. Heather Halstead, the director of this film, also came into the studio to record the final melody.
Fetch is a chilling story of mythological creatures taking their anger out on a unsuspecting young woman. The result? Absolute fright and mayhem.
Grande Valley Auction Incident takes a look in the rearview mirror and asks, “Hey, what if the music that was created during ____ and ____ wasn’t actually all that bad?”
Archive Volume Two gathers all interesting instrumentals from 2001 to 2003 and brings them together into one whopping collection.
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Archive Volume One houses 11 songs from my past, recorded somewhere around 2001-2004. I listened heavily to The Red House Painters and Godspeed You Black Emperor.
I Won't Untie The Knots was influenced highly by Arcade Fire's second record Funeral and the strange but accessible melodies heard in Band Of Horses in their first two records. Lyrically, it's an expressionistic and blurry impression of modern life filled with the intimate dread of personal responsibility.
This song was originally created in a fit of passion in a random building in South Austin. Interestingly, the drums were not played to a click track. There are around 20 guitars overlaid throughout this recording. Some electric, some acoustic. Piano, and even mountain dulcimer.
Auger In’s first record is all about post rock improvisation at it's best: Raw, layered, textured guitars provide the atmosphere while pulsating and energetic drums provide the pulse of the music. The Human Sea is like a drummer being told to show off while he/she is playing in a cloud, and the cloud changes form to match his/her playing. The contrast is surprising!
The Human Sea features Cale Parks, solo artist and drummer of the band Aloha, and Dave Wirth, film composer and guitarist. Originally recorded in 2001, and released on January 21st, 2021.
Cinematic Piano Improvsations comprises 24 minutes of solo, improvised piano with a cinematic flair. The songs themselves lay themselves bare before you. Incredible microphones picked up every single noise of the piano, including pedal squeaks as well as mistakes. The album feels incredibly intimate and forthcoming without being TMI.
All songs on Cinematic Piano Improvisations were improvised. Improvising is all about using mistakes to your advantage. A wrong note played once is a mistake; A wrong note repeated is an idea. For this record, I accepted the mistakes, turned them into ideas, and called it a day.
Cinematic Piano Improvsations is available exclusively on www.firefireredstardown.com.
PS: You can become a member of the Fire Fire Red Star Down music community for $14/year. Give it a great go!
Photo: White House (gold piano) by Harris & Ewing. Public Domain. www.loc.gov/item/2016855753/
Imagine three pianos recorded one at a time, and each of them was improvised. The pianists could only react when they heard a note. The result? This is the most ridiculously chill piano song.
To me, this record has a nice, sleepy feeling to it. Something to relax into, something to take a nice nap listening to (dare I say even on repeat?).
Evil Gima's ulu is a tour-de-force in ambient experimental sound. The songs themselves have no melody, no harmony (Aak And Quack excepted), and in many cases no sound that is recognizable. It was created using a number of different sound design modules and hyped to sound good at 85dB.
This isn't your suger-coated candy pop, feel good, I'm-the-king-of-the-world type of music. It's an adventure for those sonic searchers that are willing to listen to music with scruity and stoicism. Are you one of the few and proud?
Field Spectra is a commercial-free sound preservation project aimed at capturing sounds as they are at one moment of time. With the world rapidly changing, it's nice to have a little continuity and a sense of history.
This collection of sounds was captured in 2017 in south and central Austin. I aimed to find the moments of nature still embedded within this growing, vibrant city.
Donations are accepted of course! I am giving this one away for free because it makes me feel good to share what a particular moment in time felt like in sound.
Library Of Congress. Photoduplication Service, photographer. Chamber Music Festival. Washington D.C, 1970. Photograph. www.loc.gov/item/2017646184/
I love experimenting with sound, and around 2017 I got super interested in understanding synths. The best way to get my brain wrapped around them? Tests!
All tests were presented by date, in reverse chronological order (aka from the most interesting to shittiest). No guarantees for quality! Some of these tests are embarassing, especially if I had the heart to listen closely.
Plese enjoy these songs as well as my embarassment of them!
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Photo credits:
Library Of Congress. Photoduplication Service, photographer. Chamber Music Festival. Washington D.C, 1970. Photograph. www.loc.gov/item/2017646184/
Slimline feels exactly what it's like to be in your own mind, totally aware of it, and not giving a damn whether or not anyone actually cares about it. You are deeply into your solitude, and that's all.
Musically, Slimline is a relatively noisy album but an ultimately human listen. Elements of IDM, experimental, ambient, big beats (at times), supremely layered guitars, and intensely personal.
For optimal listening, allow yourself to be over-caffeinated after the sun goes down. It's best to be around people, so go to a coffee shop that's open 24 hours and enjoy the ambiance.
Suggested activities: Write in a journal, do some programming, enjoy the process of doing some intensely detailed art. Completely ignore every other person around.
BONUS: Included is a PDF of the original name of the Double Headed Seagulls: The Arms Race. This was a document that I planned upon putting on a website somewhere, but just never happened (until now!).
Flutters Re-Released on Bandcamp! Yes! Best of all it includes tons of bonus tracks not available anywhere else. Get to hear the originals! Plus, I’ve included a ton of pictures from the recording session. Interested in seeing which mics went where, what guitars I used? This re-release is for you.
Today's re-release is a simple, super relaxed, and super chill piano track. The Still Life was written many years ago but put together with a video when I was living in Santa Fe, NM.
When I listen back to this song (in moments of extreme artistic gluttony hahaha), It feels like time has slowed down to a crawl. The video has the same feeling. You can watch the music video for The Still Life:
