New Stuff

This week is my birthday, so I finished up an album to give away to everyone. These songs are a bit different than the other stuff I've shared (though that doesn't mean they're any good). There's no artsy unifying concept other than it's an expression of my influences and love of electronic music over the years. There's the spirit of krautrock, psychedelic and shoegaze, some Prince, some bangin' 90s acid techno a la Josh Wink or Plastikman, some Brian Eno, some Oval, some drone, some Kraftwerk, William S. Burroughs, and a slow-burn blooming dark minimal techno track all rolled into 35 minutes.
It would mean a lot if you gave it a spin. Hey, it's free... (though you can send me money if you want😜).
Hope you find something you like. Thanks for being a cool group of folks!

https://ciernyvlk.bandcamp.com/album/ethos

Hi Farkas,

Wow! An entire album, well thank you very much for that! I can't wait to listen at your album, however it's just 3 am here and I need to catch some sleep, so I try to listen another time to it. I am sure it will be good so I can't wait till tomorrow and I hope I have time to listen at your entire album.

Thank you very much and kind regards, Garfield.

Here's a link to the first track. I know that time is a valuable commodity, so thank you for letting me take a little of yours.

@farkas I've been listening to these on and off since last night, good work and happy birthday week!

Also meant to ask, are you using your new Roland on Squares? Great acid track 🕺

@troux Thanks for listening! I really appreciate it.
Almost all of the drums on every track are recorded live in one or two takes on the Behringer RD8 (the Roland TR808 clone). There's some WMD Crucible, Loquelic Iteritas Percido, Basimilus, and Rings scattered throughout, but that RD8 is just so fun to use and gives a convincing 80s/90s vibe. That's the Behringer TD3 doing the acid line on Squares. Can't believe I'm saying this, but I'll probably grab the RD9 when it's finally released. Regardless of how I feel about the classics-cloning, Behringer has redeemed themselves as far as sound and quality in my book.
Again, thanks for your time. It's always nice to have someone listen when you put something out in the world.
Take care!

It's good to keep an open attitude about gear @farkas, I've definitely found for example that the modular drum modules I've got don't blow me away and I've started looking around for alternatives. Anyway, good work and keep it up! Hope we hear more of your tunes soon.

Hi Farkas and Troux,

Farkas: Sorry, totally forgot to mention: Happy Birthday! :-)

Troux: Yes, I can understand where you are coming from regarding drum modules & co. Why not considering a Vermona - DRM 1 Mk III (with trigger inputs). Lovely Drum Synthesizer!

Kind regards, Garfield.

@GarfieldModular considering that my studio space is the kitchen island (long story!) I'm not sure that I've got space for a DRM 1, as nice as it looks! But we'll see, nice recommendation.

Hi Troux,

Wow, I do think I would love to hear that long story about you using your kitchen island as your studio

Thus, without knowing your background story about the kitchen island, since you are using your kitchen island already as your "studio", why not f*** the entire kitchen, remove/break out all the unnecessary components like cooking units, fridge (who needs a fridge anyway, hey?), and whatever weird stuff you might have in your kitchen, get rid of it and transform your entire kitchen into a studio. I mean let's be honest here, the kitchen as such is anyway way overvalued, hence get rid of it :-)

Yes but...no but, use take away and delivery services instead and you got plenty space for your studio

So, now you got space for a serious full sized 19" rack, the DRM1 Mk III will fit pretty well into that nicely newly obtained 19" rack ;-)

Ha, ha, all the fun aside, the DRM1 Mk III is surprisingly small, yes okay it's 19" but I do think it's usable if you don't put it in a 19" rack but just leave it as it is. It has (at least for a 19" rack device) a surprisingly small depth, just a few centimetres (one max two inches). Okay I just measured it, 5.5 cm (2+ inch). I also just checked the back side from a 19" rack point of view and it's nice flat, the cables are inserted from the top (behind the rack), so if you would put it flat on your kitchen table the cables wouldn't block it from laying nicely flat on the kitchen table.

Seriously, consider it. Kind regards, Garfield.

This is great advice, thank you @GarfieldModular, almost as good as my suggesting you get a frog pond in your backyard 🤣

@farkas, I've been listening to this again this evening, and wanted to say good work a second time. Really impressive stuff and I like your ear for mixing quite a bit, well done.

Edited to add: fav track, Logos and Pathos 🕺

EDITED Oct 14th 2020, 22:55

Hi Farkas,

Sorry that it took me so long before I managed to listen at your entire album, long story short: Great album, nicely done and that for your own birthday :-) Nice!

Short story long: Beside what I just wrote, wow, track 3 and 4 are for me the toppers. Squares (#3) is a nice composed high energy track that keeps me active and draws my attention full to your album, full to Squares! Then directly followed by Logos And Pathos (#4) is so different from Squares, yet it fits so well to be followed directly after that third track. It gives the listener time to relax, and gives the listener time to process what just happened at Squares. By the way, before I forget to mention it, in both tracks I love your handclap sound!

Though Logos And Pathos provides the listener a moment of reflection on the Squares track, it draws the listener back to reality and the listener gets sucked up its full attention by Logos And Pathos and though a bit sad to start to forget about Squares, the bonus of listening at Logos And Pathos is it all worth :-)

I do appreciate your huge amount of modulation in the first track Drowning In Positivity as well, he, he, nobody needs to explain to you what modulation is ;-) Followed by some nice and funny sounds, it's an interesting track!

Overall a great album to be proud about! Thanks a lot for sharing this and kind regards, Garfield.

Thanks again for listening @troux. I figure what I do is such a niche thing with the repetition and lack of traditional song structure that I really do appreciate when someone actually takes time to listen. I love "normal" verse-chorus-verse music as much as the next guy, but I have exactly zero interest in making it. Haha. I have a lot of visual artist friends, so their strange conceptual influence has probably rubbed off on me. Fun fact: Aside from the drums, the entire song Drowning in Positivity is actually the full mix of Squares run through the Panharmonium with some modulation. I thought it would be fun to create two completely different moods from the same source material.
I dig your stuff too. As a matter of fact, I listened to the track you shared yesterday again this morning.

*Edit: Thank you for listening as well @GarfieldModular. I really appreciate your thorough feedback!

EDITED Oct 14th 2020, 23:23

@Troux, ha, ha, yes, your frog in the pond idea was very good too ;-)

@farkas
Happy birthday! And thanks for your good, direct and sincere work!

@farkas
Happy birthday! And thanks for your good, direct and sincere work!
-- Sweelinck

Thanks for the support and kind words @Sweelinck. You're awesome!