Passing Thoughts

Loch Arklet and other places

Its getting to that time when I need a holiday - and by lucky hap tomorrow is my last day at work until next year. The weekend was very pleasant indeed - on Saturday we didn't even leave the house - just read and watched TV (including half of the hobbit and 3 episodes of the X-Files). On Sunday we went up to Loch Katrine and Loch Arklet (see the picture). Loch Katrine is one of those places that I keep forgetting how nice it is.

I've got too much to do today to make this a long entry - look out for some more relaxed ones over christmas (depending on where I am and web access of course). Also coming soon is a new tech section of the web site with information on my studio and some of the programs and patches. I may even get around to finishing the CGI code for the new picture pages...

There are three new tracks on the recent music page - I finally got round to mixing them down off of my hard disk recorder:

Cracks in the Pavement (mp3 , 2,861KB , 3:03 )

Not really sure about this - its not my usual style. It came about from playing with a sample CD I recently got called American Heart. Full of pump organs, dobros, violas and the like.

Improv - December 2001 - for Michael Karoli (mp3 , 6,135KB , 6:32 )

More playing with the same sample CD. This is flawed in my belief but there are some moments that really work. This is all played as is using an set of infinite loop devices and done in one take. I do quite a lot of these improvs usually as exploratory devices - more often than not I forget to record them and even when I do they are often not worth listening to. It reminds me of early Can in places hence the dedication to the late (and very very great) Michael Karoli.

Riverfall ( mp3 , 8,821KB , 9:24 )

This is mixed down out of a half hour improv using the same setup as above. This section really works for me - my only worry is that it is a bit "nice".

Silly things

Some thoughts before work. First of all - christmas. Now as a non-christian I see still see christmas as an important festival. Its a time for family and having a wee sprog on the way I suspect it will become increasingly important. Whilst all the commercialism is anoying its not that hard to avoid. There are two things - Slade's Merry Christmas everybody which every year since 1973 has been played to death - My son will never know a world without this song - I was only just around before it. The second is the endless remakes of A Christmas Carol. Now this isn't a bad story - Dickens was a damn good story teller. But what is it that makes people think - "Oh I know what would be a good idea - lets remake a christmas carol".

Last night I had some odd dreams - the most perculiar part of which was someone trying to convince me that improvised music is made up by someone other than who it purports to be made by. Your guess is as good as mine.

Today we must link to KPMG for being silly buggers. You can read the whole story here. You should also check out there Theme song - truly scary stuff.

Nostalgia for someone elses past

Some thoughts before I launch into it all for the day. Just been listening to Paul Wellers Days of Speed in the car - great stuff. Now I want all the Jam back catagloue though. Its funny contrasting all the Pop Idol nonsense with an album like this - here is a guy with a great voice and a guitar, on his own and its really compelling stuff. The main reason for this I guess is that the music comes from inside. This whole Pop Idol things misses out on that - its not the music thats important its the fame - the title says it all.

The CORBA stuff that has been driving me up the wall for weeks works - and works well at that. The system is stable under load test and we are now working at improving the performance. Its a bit of a relief really - after that amount of work you get terrible visions of it all being a waste of time. I guess after the amount of time I have being doing this (I started programming in 1981) you get a feel for it. Doesn't save you from those horrible moments of doubt though. At least I get to do something interesting next - got a number of things that need looking at so I'll see how I feel.

Haven't had much music in me this week but I have been doing lots of cooking - I had a long break from it (mainly due to living on my own - its no fun cooking for one). Having a lot of problems with one of the stories on the Storytellers project which is now under threat of cancellation - will have to see what happens with that. The christmas CD is basically going to be the stuff on the recent music page and a couple more tracks that are sitting on the hard disk recorder but need mixing down (and a wee bit of editing) - I might remaster some of them - I am getting the hang of T-Racks now.

Oh well - time to do some work

The hogfather rides

Been very busy of late - the CORBA stuff at work finally works and is now in load testing. CORBA is not a good thing to retro fit to a project - it really needs to be in at the start. Oh well lessons learnt. It shoul give me a lot more freedom in my architecture I think.

Done a lot of travelling this last week - down to Leeds last weekend to see my mate Em. Most enjoyable. It was odd being back in Leeds again - somethings (like the Oak) haven't changed a bit. Others (like the station) have changed a lot. Got to see the Angel of the North at long last. Most impressive - I have always liked Anthony Gormleys work and this is a very powerful piece. In the week I went upto Aberdeen - odd place if you ask me but there you go. Went to watch some of our guys doing a sales presentation - the product is really "there" and people do seem to get it. Very satisfying.

Here are a couple of new tracks - mostly just messing with new ideas. I swapped my old Terratec EWS88MT for a Fostex FD8 hard disk recorder while I was in Leeds. Its nice having a dedicated multi track recorder - rather than setting software up I can just press play and record. The built hard disk says there is 16 odd hours free on it (and thats after recording a number of things). The coolest thing is that it is connected to the pulsar with fibre optic cable - instead of 16 heavy cables like my old mixing desk there are two thin fibre connectors and thats it.

Winterland ( mp3 , 4,457KB , 4:45 )

A seasonal offering - although its more hogfather than Father christmas. The wind is a new modular patch on the Pulsars modular. If you listen to my old stuff (particularly Black Atlantic) you will hear an older wind patch on my Nord Modular. I think the new one is a bit colder sounding (its meant to be). This track is intended to be one of a series but until I have recorded the rest you never know....

Prague Blue (mp3 , 2,063KB, 2:11 )

This a very short piece messing about with a physical modelling sound source (the bangs and clanks) to this I added a trumpet solo and some other percussion noises.