Archive for the ‘Looperman’ Category

I am looking forward to January, its quiet, cold and dirty snow, packed up in banks along the curb and soiled by car emissions. As I become more and more aware of the amount of waste littering this planet, the environmental impact of Christmas is pretty astounding. I really too dislike the pressure of running around trying to find everyone a gift.

Two Pieces, one strange little thing I stitched together on CCmixter, and another one that came to my attention via a message on myspace. D.T. grabbed some of my loops off looperman and made a really evocative piece from 4 vocal loops I had previously posted there.

Un Dernier Verre De Cometa (feat. Pitx, purplehood & Brilliant Orange Object)

Ipanema (feat Kaer Trouz) , From D.T.

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9 to 5 Data Shift (aka Mental Health Department) has done a cool DnB track, added a scant few of my vocals offerings on Looperman, and made this:

Underneath

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Once upon a time, in a rainy city, where I cut my adulthood teeth, things were a little rockier. Music-wise. Hard was good, emo hadn’t made its mark, and Ben Gibbert, in his Death Cab, had not delivered his first quiet, emotional line. Well he may have but no-one was yet listening.
I have been thinking about a laundry list of collaborators, some of whom have been good and other terrible.

In college I was in a little jazzy trio, our drummer so high on marijuana that he often played lying down on his bed, because we practised in his apartment.

Then there was a terrible chain of events that caused me to be in a basement with three very foul men, and the one called Bob was very cranky. There too, a lazy drummer who would sometimes simply forget to drum, slow down and speed up at will, and whose haggard wife did not enjoy our noisy nightmare underneath her floor boards. The ‘insulation’ consisted of a couple of egg cartons, randomly stapled to the ceiling. I could hardly blame her as she scowled at us when we left.

After this, I was the singer in a band called Rat King and another called Strega. Fantastic drummer (girl, the same girl) for both. She pounded the hell out of the drums and her idol was Scott Asheton Enough said.

She was also a crazy guitar player who loved the wah pedal and played clarinet. Both were hard rock bands that involved Marshall Stacks, blown out PA systems and fights. Our bassist was exported back to Manchester after kicking someone’s head in with his steel-toed boot, and rendering him eyeless. It was strange, because we had all known each other by then for 5 years, the two of them were roommates.

After this, I became pregnant, and tapered off from these loud, crazy, jam fests of hate and joy. I became the lonely piano player, a Tascam four track cassette recorder (the very same model on which Bruce Springsteen’s seminal ‘Nebraska’ was recorded), a baby crawling around, an old sure SM 58 microphone, which I still have and always use. It is a great microphone, despite its many trips to the floor, dents, and indelible spreads of dark red lipstick, when it was fashionable to wear (and now it is again) in the 1990s.

Music has changed. I am sitting on an mp3 file now, from someone in Belgium, about to voice some new lyrics for him. I am helping the talented James Mullan from Bedfordshire, England, record an alternate demo of a very pretty song. Four years ago, when I started arranging digital music, I came up with a name, Kaer Trouz, which meant beautiful noise in Breton, an ancient language of Celtic origins, with a Gallic twist. Kaer is fading into the background though now too although she will remain a singer, and I am emerging, Shebnem, my real name. A new collaboration sits in the western skies, and very soon I will tell about it. This involves a very good drummer. A very smart, good drummer.

On an unrelated note, one of the loopermen(call DJ S1N), from looperman, put forth a series of tracks requesting vocals. I downloaded some of them, and one really called “Into The Darkness” really caught my attention- a raw hypnotic, industrial sounding track. I put a hard, carnal vocal track over this. DJ S1N was not over the moon about it, but allowed me to post it here. This is NOT appropriate for work, or those easily offended by cursing. Just so you know.

Into The Darkness, DJ S1N, Vocals by Kaer Trouz

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I want to see this
but cannot seem to find anywhere in Chicago playing it. These were the songs I listened to, several years after Ian Curtis’ death, the songs that unhappily led me through my adolescent mires, I would tape them from my record player onto a cassette (remember, those?) snap it into a Walkman (one more relic for your architectural dig, and walk around this dirty city.

I must admit, when I found the true genesis of their name I was a bit saddened; I had just been to Auschwitz (1989) and found that the name had been taken from Nazi semantics- a set of attractive Jewish girls left aside for the carnal pleasures of German officers. In my innocence, I had thought the name was irony, the music was certainly not joyful, although yet a division from standard punk and pop- yes.

I wanted to write something for my sister, M. I cannot express how much I love her, or how much she means to me, and how our 7 year rift left my soul less, empty, ragged and raw. Without disturbing the water under the bridge (which is cool and shiny now) I just want to announce that she is my heart, and sometimes (at least 3 times a week) I awake calling her name.

So two songs came out of this week, and the potential for a Chicago collaboration that has all the hallmarks of being very good/solid/challenging/exciting. I want to post our first song, but the mix is not right yet (says he who I will now S.A.M.) so you will all have to wait.

I have spent the last couple of weeks meeting very cool people from all over the world, and hope to be able to showcase some of their great stuff in posts to come.

And yes, Nittso I still dig your music very much.

Shout out to spysuz in Bedford, UK, which is nowhere near Leeds. Hello Spysuz! You are brilliant.

Melissa’s Song, Unforgiven

Song for SAM to Contemplate (lyrics stolen for Melissa’s Song

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I am unable to watch horror movies. My pathological empathy goes into high alert, I know it is not real, yet it seems so to me- I cannot separate it.

I want so badly to see the new Rob Zombie prequel to “Halloween” but I will not not; because I would become too sick, my heart would drop into a dark and unmanaged place.

Nan Vernon is a Canadian singer/actress whose spooky, terrible and aching cover of ‘Mr. Sandman’ appears on the Halloween 2007 soundtrack. She has also done a quirky, analog, and bongo ridden cover of ‘Moon River’, a personal favorite. I want to know more about her; she seems to have vanished. A languishing myspace page reveals little info, and I do not feel like poking around for hours on the internet, so if you know anything, please consider sharing.

I wanted to do something spooky too, with that little whispery indie voice that seems so voguish now- Feist has one, Jem, the girl that sings Beatles covers on the Target ads etc…

I did this today between 8am & 12pm, it’s a bit muddy and if I told you the number of plug-in effects utilized you might die. Most of the samples I got free at Looperman, which is quite a nice resource for electronic musicians, free to sign up, they merely ask that you contribute to the community, which I have not but sometime I will. I changed all the samples, put on a little midi cello line and a poorly mastered vocal track.

Ode to Nan Vernon

PS: little whispery voice and me do not get along so well…..

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