MAN IS SLAPPED

new music - ‘tourniquet’

Finally, I gave up witholding my new music and here it is. It’s a little bit rough. It’s a little bit poorly produced. It’s a little bit undercooked. Some would say it’s a little bit rubbish. But here it is, and I’m pretty pleased with how the whole process has come together…

It’s called “tourniquet”.

I’d love to hear what you think about this. I can’t say it’s a new direction for me (I’ve already been writing some new songs more akin to my ‘normal stuff’, more pop than that, even), but there are several things that I have enjoyed about it. Firstly, it’s been a new way of working with a program I use all the time but never have the tendency to use in this way. Secondly, it’s a new way of working for me generally - putting together songs very quickly so the momentum of songwriting doesn’t slow down. Thirdly, I’ve enjoyed thinking less about melodies and lyrics and chord sequences and more about textures and timbres, how best to use instruments, and how transititions between different sections in music can be used for interesting effects.

I’m not arrogant enough to believe it’s perfect. There are some parts I’m not entirely happy with, but in the spirit of the process I’ve decided to put in the ‘public domain’ instead of spending far too long trying to make it just right. Too often I leave things to stagnate and sit in a dog-eared notebook on a dusty shelf. Time to set it free, and shit.

Hope you enjoy it. Get in touch if you want (manisslapped[at]hotmail[dot]co[dot]uk), and let me know what you think!

MIS x

some new music - progress report

Hello everyone,

As I mentioned on my facebook page, I’ve been working on some new stuff, but it’s purposely very different to my ‘usual music’ as it were. It’s kinda originated from a couple of directions. Firstly, I’ve been using the excellent program AudioMulch for making and playing music for the best part of four years now, without using it for what I see as it’s original purpose - doing crazy shit like this, for example.

What I mean specifically is music synthesis and experimentation in AudioMulch; I’m more used to making stuff in Fruity Loops or Cubase and importing it into AM for playing live (it is mighty stable live). Time to rectify this, methought.

Secondly, for a while I was playing as part of a band called Ten, which was largely electronic ambient and drone music, played live using various instruments, including violin and cello and guitar and melodica and xylophone etc. Sadly, work prevented me from being able to fully commit to this, and so I kind of drifted away, whilst Dom, Ten head-honcho, found new bandmates and pastures on which to play - and good luck to them all.  Anyway, I had a lot of fun playing in Ten, and it made me think of exploring some ambient music myself.

So - you can probably see where this is going - I set myself the task of making some ambient-ish drone-y music on AudioMulch.

Whilst at home with the parents over Christmas, I created a new piece of music every day, spending about 30 mins to an hour, and then just left it - moving onto another one the next day without listening to the previous day’s work. That made six little sketches - more like ‘soundscapes’ rather than actual songs. Since then, I’ve returned to each piece: editing, brushing up, and making it into an actual complete ‘song’.

That’s the stage I’m at at the moment with five of them, with one left to do. It’s been strange to return to each of the sketches -  I’d honestly forgot what they all sounded like, even though it can’t have been more than a week between making them and coming back. Sometimes I’ve been left scratching my head thinking “what was I trying to do here?”, and even “what the hell was I thinking?!”. I’ve also restricted myself with what kinds of changes I can make - I haven’t added any more sounds or recorded any more instruments to the pieces since their creation, and it’s been actually pretty challenging to make something reasonable out of some of the arrangements I left a little bit underdeveloped, for whatever reason.

Oh, and it doesn’t really sound very ambient now, apart from maybe a couple of songs.

Hope to bring the results out to the public soon, via the internet. After that, we’ll see. Will keep you posted!

MiS x

worried about SANTA mix

Bit late to the game on this one, to be honest, but never mind - here’s a mix by worriedaboutsatan that they did for Drowned In Sound for Christmas - it’s lovely, and of course still very listenable after the festive period.

Worried About Santa - A Very Merry Dismas By Worriedaboutsatan by Drownedinsound on Mixcloud

enjoy!

tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

thanks tumblrbot. I’d like to visit Moscow.

welcome

So this is my new tumblr page. I’m getting sick and tired of messing around with myspace, so I thought I’d get a new website with my own domain name (coming soon!) and post from there (here). And you’ll be able to get to all my other websites of course, but I ain’t NEVER GETTING TWITTER. (maybe).

I hope to put all kinds of stuff here. Not just my own music and work, but some other people’s too. Mostly music-related i guess. But we’ll see.

Anyway, that’s it for now -  to be honest i was only writing to put something on this page. But now it’s done, it’s done.

TTFN

MiS x