What the fuck is this thing? Who are The Presets? Never having heard the original version of “Promises”, nor will I be making the effort to do so, I’m not going to say much about this remix.
I’m putting it up here for completeness really and as an oddity of a recording the I would never have recognised as a Luomo effort. If I had to make a guess, and far be it from me to put words in the man’s mouth, I would guess that VD didn’t much care for the source material given that the vocals are easily 6dB lower than they could be, and everything is deconstructed and layered in a way that exposes rather than beautifies. But, again, all conjecture on my behalf.
I woke up feeling pissed off this morning for no real reason, so I made some angry, horrible techno and drank some red wine.
The synths are BLAH BLAH BLAH. Drums done entirely on a BLAH BLAH BLAH. Mastered using FUCK OFF compressor and a SUCK MY BALLS EQ. As always, it was mixed into the mastering chain.
I have nothing else to add, cunts.
Tony Bernardo “Untitled Render 03”
I first heard this when I was driving through Milwaukee in the middle of winter. It still blows me away every single time I hear it.
Years ago I read an interview with Vladislav Delay where he mentioned that he had recorded a track for a demo CD somewhere. My memory isn’t great at the best of times, but what I recall was that he said that the track was entirely acoustic, and that he was surprised by the outcome and how closely it resembled is electronic works. Being the fanboy I am, I immediately wanted to hear this track – little did I know that it would take me fourteen years to track it down (if in fact, I have the correct recording).
I asked Sasu where I could find a copy, and he had no idea. Couldn’t even remember a track name, nor did he have a copy himself. This left me scouring forums and sites like Discogs.com for
Through a combination of blind luck and worryingly focused perseverance, I finally stumbled up what I believe to be the recording. It is from a demo CD, and it is fully acoustic (minus a Space Echo). However, I was under the impression that it should be a CD that was once included with a magazine, and this track was found on a label sampler CD. Secondly, it’s not entirely Vladislav Delay, it’s a collaboration with someone called Zeitkratzer (you’ll need to excuse me, my noise game isn’t what it should be). Make of it what you will, but I think this is what I’ve been looking for. I’m sure it’s as close as I’ll get.
Asphodel 2003 Label Sampler
Not knowing much (anything) about the Asphodel label, nor Zeitkratzer I can’t say much else. But here is the track, called “Self-titled”, in all it’s scrappy, rough glory. I wasn’t much enamoured with it on first listen (what can live up to a fourteen year wait?), but I like it more and more with each listen. There’s something lovely and raw about the recording that is rarely captured. It has all the magic of an early demo, no bullshit just music in the making.
I told you I would finish when I got back from Italy. Amazingly, and in one in a million odds, everything in the studio worked today, so it all went quite smoothly. Of course, the Roland RE-201 did chew its tape but that’s what it does. It’s endearing I tell myself. It is.
Having some free time today I opened up the Eminent 1600 organ that my good lady bought me (she’s an enabler) and decided to fuck around with the spring reverb. It’s noisy as hell, but sounds lovely. I can see myself weeding some more sounds out of this one. Oh, and the drum sounds! Oh man, I’ll need to make some recordings of them because they are so lovely. Completely analogue of course, but deep and grainy. I’ll use those soon too.
The recording is very dense and disorganised. I really like this one. There’s not a lot of dynamics either, and what there is only exists through cutting instrumentation. It’s kind of mastered – and by that I mean I ran it through my ART Pro VLA II compressor a bit. This stuff doesn’t really need mastering now, and when it does I tend to mix into the mastering bus. You know, like a pro. A lazy pro.
BassDress Studio, after a messy session. Wooden spoon for percussion is irie.
I don’t have a title for it yet, but I’ll think of something soon enough. Listen below, I’ll put up some download link later on.
edit: Called it Piedmont. Download links: Flac 24Bit / MP3 V0]
A quick demo piece I wrote tonight. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to finish it when I return from Italy this week.
I watched The Revenant for the first time tonight, and whilst it a really cool film the highlight was definitely recognising a track from Vladislav Delay’s “Visa” about an hour into it! Good choice, Mr. Soundman!
Recorded just before Flow Festival, Helsinki, Finland 2016. Speaking briefly about the intricacies and realities of making music in the current climate. Well worth watching if you’re interested in seeing just how the industry works – even for smaller artists.