Sunday 4 July 2010

Dream Cargoes

This is not product placement as this isn't designed as product, but something to freely download. No profit is sought; if a single person enjoys it that is sufficient reward.

http://dreamcargoes.bandcamp.com/album/mayhem-in-spring-ep

I'd be interested in what people think. Dream Cargoes is an attempt to make inorganic, avant-pop music. In terms of influences: obviously JG Ballard (from whose short-story the DC moniker is taken), the Real Tuesday Weld, the Clientele, Oddfellows Casino, Darren Hayman, Arthur Russell, Ghost Box records, Mordant Music, Bark Psychosis, Pet Shop Boys. You might hear echoes of Neu!, Brecht/Weill and even Frippertronics (conjured on a Roland Juno-D synth), in 'The Springtime Stomp', which as it evolved demanded a near-10 minute length. Of course this is all an amateur's attempt at conjuring music that matches the above; I am under no illusions that I achieve what I aim to, but hopefully I create something different. Something that people not looking for the run-of-the-mill might just like.

2 comments:

  1. Duly loaded on Ogg Vorbis and listened to. (20 - 27 megabytes).

    Loving the first and second tracks.

    Very seasonal!

    Great influences and mixing.

    Some of the tracks have real social critique in them.

    "Inorganic" = synth? techno? Both?

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  2. Thanks for your kind comments, Adelaide. It's lovely to have some encouragement. :)

    Inorganic = concerned with audio manipulation (i.e. most vocals and samples do not sound as they were originally). Use of this word also reflects how much I use the synthesizer itself, plus other synthetic, non-acoustic sounds... Of course, part of my thing is to use melodica, washboard and ukulele, but then they aren't used entirely without tampering and effects.

    I intend the following three EPs to be just as seasonal in their various ways. If there is a template for the EPs idea, if not the exact style of music, it is the Beta Band's opening sequence of EPs, or Darren Hayman's recent-ish 'holiday' EPs, one EP for a different British holiday.

    Social critique is intended, to differing degrees in all of them. Much of the (political) critique could be ascertained from reading this blog, but there are more personal reflections on language and memory, too.

    I wonder if people think that "Springtime Stomp" merits its length? :) The musical track sort of wrote itself weaving into Robert Fripp terrain that I just couldn't curtail at 6, nor 7 minutes. And then there was a sample I felt I had to add in at the end. It is a fragmentary track, a cut-up of lines and thoughts from April, May and June, i.e. the England-Germany stuff, emanating from the day that game was on (also when I finished the track). Plus, there is some sampling from group discussions drawn from my teaching (Clifford T. Ward influence, there), which had permission from students involved.

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