Archive for the ‘Remixing’ Category

photo credit: Sebastian Fritzon

Oh Sebastian, what a cool photo. And, ever since I entitled one of my posts Porny Porn Porn, I have been getting tons of traffic! Thank you google analytics, for allowing me to see how I can better ’sell’ my product by isolating my most active demographic, apparently a bunch of music loving perverts! Yeah!!!! So Porn may appear gratuitously in every title from now on. But if porn isn’t gratuitous, than what is? I ask you.

When I plugged the search word ‘miss’ into the Word Press Creative Commons photo search tool, I got a lot of sad, forlorn looking dogs and this disembodied arm from Sebastian Fritzon. It’s 4am and (according to the caption underneath the photo) he’s stayed up all night playing the organ, remembering Nick Cave and Tool. I think the photo is sexy, if a finger could express ‘come hither’ this one definitely does.

I also think tino’s new mix of “Miss Miss Kiss Kiss” sexy and come hithery. Many of the mixers focused on the line …’until my eyes die baby, until me eyes die baby’. I thought it was a bit of a toss away line, but it stuck with the boys anyway.

Tino tillmyeyesdie ft Me

 

Lastly, a raunchy rocker that I almost didn’t post, but then everyone seemed to like. I found a little ‘bed’ (this is what we called an unfinished but fleshed out sample) by a favorite guitar player, Pitx , a seriously raunched out garage rocker. I stuck a house beat behind it, and some tambourine at the end, and some really raw lyrics and voila- 1995 all over again!

Moors In The City of Light (Drunken Housewife Mix) ft Pitx

 

 

Oh, and Sebastian, next time you are on the floor tired from your nocturnal organ frenzy, give me a call. (Sorry Zach, I am just trying to drive traffic here, due to my whoreish ways and porny mind, an amazing, porny girl mind).

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This is what happens when clueless city folks such as myself try to ‘go green’. Yeah yeah, the intentions were terrific; Mrs. Farmers Market here gets her lazy ass out of bed early every Tuesday to chat up the farmers and chicken slaughterers of the world. This damned chicken cost $16 and it’s disgusting, bloodied pale and mooning face freaked me out enough that, ouch, I threw it away. I know how terrible that sounds but my son took one look and refused to eat it and honestly the crackly, terrible sound of my decapitating it with my not-so-sharp kitchen knife would have haunted my ears for years to come.

Summer is hard too, for terrible chickens with their heads NOT CUT OFF but also a terrible time for me. Musically, emotionally, in every way shape, form. My stomach hurts, I am anxious, too much alcohol is consumed and I find myself a stranger in my own life. Nothing is easy, or fun or smooth or works. For instance, our air-conditioner, which looks like the robot from Lost in Space, which is set to 62 degrees and on ‘turbo’ mode- yet the apartment is still ninety degrees. I have left the refrigerator open and seem to be getting cooled down more from this than “danger danger will robinson” which is sitting right next to me. Also, those light bulbs you are supposed to buy, the coiled ones that reduce carbon footprints, I call them Al Gore light bulbs, you know them? Well I replaced all the bulbs in the house with them and honestly, now you can’t see anything at night., Every lamp in the house has to be on or we fall. And here my son again, has banned those light bulbs from his room so he can read at night, without needing a flashlight. I bought a five year supply at least, from IKEA. We’ll be squinting around for years, falling over stuff and not being able to read magazines.

Miss Miss Kiss Kiss, Whirling Dervish Mix (you can access my remix on the sidebar to the right there) ended up having a super cool a capella that has already been remixed 10 times! The most successful, in my eyes anyway came from the indefatigable Loveshadow and the massively talented Lasswell.

Laswell’s Dig Deep Mix (ft Forensic and Me)

Loveshadow’s Till I My Eyes Die (ft Me)

 

 

Lastly joyful and peaceful, a little duet with the gentle and empathic Anchor Mejans. This for a moment in my tattered head, made me happy and calm.

Where Do Feelings Come From (Cookie & Milk Mix ft Me & Radiotimes)

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photo credit: Steven Fernandez

Almost, yes I guess it has. This is the strange time of year for me, the struggle between outside and inside, the first rays of true warm sun upon the face blah blah blah.

I am no longer afraid to fly
photo credit: gloom

so I left this country for most of April, looking at various things in the world and letting my ears lull in the rhythm of incomprehensible languages, their ebbs and flows, clicks and rolls, the music that comes when the brain is not busy firing up semantic synapses.

At times I felt like an alien drifting though worlds, with familiar landscapes (grass, buildings cups, bread) but I wondered if I were really there, with the inability to communicate, people’s alarm at my dark and cluttered accent upon my feeble attempts to capture their language.

Before I left I put this up, a collaboration with the amazing Mr. Lincoln, aka fireproof babies. He too is an unusually sensitive artist, we share some of the same pathology, I wish he lived closer so we could hang out and also so I could find him a girlfriend. He would make an amazing boyfriend.

Falls Through Walls (694 Miles Apart Mix ft fireproof babies & Kaer Trouz, uauaua & jaspertine)

 

 

Then, in a moment of quiet simplicity, I put together a two-track duet with the enviably talented Loveshadow, whose acoustic guitar sample here really made me swoon. It got an an editor’s pick- I was completely shocked. These are quite hard to come by and now I have received two!

Love Kaer Shadow Trouz Jericho Vs. Unforgiven (ft Loveshadow & Kaer Trouz)

 

 

Lastly I was contacted by a duo called Woodman and Theo , who have employed a very popular a capella of mine, My Apocalypse Now (you can use it too!) to make

Woodman’s Mix- Rabbit on Your 6 (ft Kaer Trouz)

 

 

 

 

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Creating Kenavo in 17 days has left me bludgeoned and a bit demured. I want to do more things, but I seemed to have scraped the bottom of my creativity barrel. Plus I still struggle with EQ enough to sound as if I am a 1970s am radio producer. Those of you unsure of a sidebar download, here it is again, free for the taking. There are two swear words and some material may not be appropriate for younger children.

 

Kenavo Get the Record Here. Free.

So tonight I am just posting some remixes, some nice ones, others have done with the a capellas I have loaded onto CCmixter.

Tino (if you just hold on remix)

Liquid Eyes (the clouds are godless mix)

scmixer My Apocalypse Now (dark clouds mix)

Vo1k1 (Rain Lament Pretty Mix ft. Jaspertine)

 

Lastly, a cool video from jaspertine, I believe the footage, or at least some of it, comes from his work trip to Quebec.

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I have babies too. Just like Kristin, from Throwing Muses, some scattered in the heavens, one boy here on earth, and he has something in common with her, a struggle that shall remain unnamed, you can hear it in her words, her voice, which has deepened and become more grave over the years. In him, you can feel it, eyes darken, a puncturing of the soul, deflated hearts abound.

I try to keep this blog limited to music, I feel, yes if you listen closely, you can glean all the personal information you want from the music. But I will not spoon feed it to you.

Kristin (and if you are unfamiliar with the Throwing Muses, you are either too young or too dumb (sorry so sorry) and her band were a staple of mine in the early years (1985-1991), she and her tiny step-sister Tanya Donelly (later of Belly) throwing down difficult, disharmonic, hard and complicated rock in times when the likes of of Eddy Vedder and Chris Cornell were bleating out macho, well-contrived, less difficult stuff.

I threw my singing ego away to create this– it is mainly Kristin and I backed her up a bit (the beauty of remixing- you can if you dare). She probably never wanted hip hop drums behind her but I heard a horse galloping there and wanted that percussion Here ’tis—

Morning Birds (Nearly Mute Trouz Mix ft Kristin Hersh & Jovica)

 

 

On another note, I was able to lay down two vocals for yet another RPM Challenge Project, the one created at Ccmixter, a hodge podge of weirdo musicians. I got an email on February 20th, that read like this:

Hello there. I represent a group of musicians, producers, vocalists and
other troubadour-types from CCMixter who have decided to enter into
the 2008 RPM Challenge. You know the principle behind said challenge, I
assume.

We are currently (urgently) seeking a vocalist/lyricist, and I was told
by forces from on high that you were a skilled singer and a fast
writer. Both of which we need.

If you could spare the time from working on your own project for the
challenge, I would be very grateful if you would do us the honor of
lending us your voice.

 

I said of course. The two tracks that emerged were pretty cool, one in a 6/8 time signature that shifted into 5/8 and another that was sort of trance and chill. I loved the remix of Blind Date, by DJ Rkod, but I preferred my own remix of When I Close My Eyes. You can find all the collaboration/attribution files here .

When I Close My Eyes (Kaer Trouz Mix- Not The Final Mix)

Blind Date

 

Lastly, a photo of me and my earth boy, 12.5 years ago, in a tender moment.

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Click To Play

 

Here is where the creative commons, ‘free to use you and me’ attribution stuff gets tricky. Above is a video from Blip TV which employs a remix of

P.P.G (I Heart Nittso Kaer Trouz Remix)-ft Nittso, Brilliant Orange Object, Nurykabe & Klaus Neumaier

done by Darkroom. Darkroom has done many interesting things with some of my vocals, especially his remix of Breaking Apart, Sous Bois, which I posted previously. There is also another version of this vocal done by scmixer who lives in Argentina. His sounds like this:

I Don’t Believe You (scmixer overload mix)

 

Now, so see I am in South America and have helped provide the soundtrack on a short film. My resume is ever growing.

 

 

I have also purchased some AWESOME powered speaker monitors (thank you M.D for your advice), M-Audio Bx5as, $218 new off ebay including shipping. My life has now become a singular quest to EQ correctly, so much so that last night I was equalizing in my dream, trying to get the sound just right. I discovered too, that I was able to access the 31 band AU equalizer from garageband on ableton live, and it is a pretty good tool. Although 31 points to slide up and down is a little daunting. Not to mention dangerous for me.

Jaspertine who I have mentioned before, and whose loops and remixes I have utilized many times, he and I have almost completed a collaboration project. It is pretty cool, but too dissonant for the tender ears of the boys in the house here, but what do they know? I will post it when it is ready.I am working on a new remix about someone who jumps off a train platform and is killed by the el. Uplifting material. Always.

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Good things on the remix front.

1) An editorial pick on CCmixter for my Spoon remix !

2) Remixes galore, people are listening and making my voice a part of their own music which is incredibly satisfying.

I have to report, the more and more I delve into the world of creative commons the happier I have become. I just find it pretty cool that some dude in Barcelona takes a microphone into a library one day and two years later I am mixing it into a weird love ballad called Breaking Apart. The building of something so giant and collective, yet your tiny part is so important.
The only strange part of this particular road I have taken is that I am playing my piano less and less, but my work is becoming less structured and reliant upon complicated chord changes. I am paying more attention to percussion and transitions and finding melody in tiny, millisecond pieces of music that I can manipulate and turn into harmonic progressions.
And no, I haven’t started smoking pot.

So first off, I mix Murat (Ses) and Murat mixes me. This guy has done quite a lot musically, and has put some work up into the creative commons based upon traditional Anatolian themes and chord progressions. I have learned that the etymology for Anadolu comes from two words: mother and full, or to be full of Motherliness which I most certainly am!

Mourning Dew (Ana Dolu Mix)- Kaer Trouz Featuring Narva9 & Murat Ses

Anatolia Meets Central Asian Steps-Murat Ses Featuring Demir, Kaer Trouz & pingnews)

and then a super fun, poppy dance number from Slumberlords in Alicante, Spain

Falling-Slumberlords featuring KaerTrouz (vocal from My Apocalypse Now, vertical Split Mix)

and a lovely ballad from Darkroom (aka mactonite)

Breaking Apart-Darkroom featuring Kaer Trouz (vocal from Breaking Apart, Sous Bois)

 

 

That’s a lot of music in one week-end, non?

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Is it that I will come out on the other side, on February 4th, as someone explained to me the other night? Who knows…. Holidays over. Good. Warm ridiculously windy day. Clear light, aprons and hope. What more can I ask?
Philippe (aka ditto ditto) has done a brilliant job of (not really re-mixing but truly composing) a terrible and sloppy cello/guitar loop I sent him, on which after he worked for about one million hours and here ’tis.
Also another super poppy, percussively driven one from me,
and clever Jave who managed to span a couple different decades of sound (including a cool Tones on Tail reference) in his four part lab series which is definitely worth downloading/walking around the loneliness/driving to.

As for the vertical split, all I can say it, I am one and the other. I am trying to take it straight, this confusing life. Mornings are early again….

Rosehill Cemetery (Raincoat Mix, by ditto ditto, featuring Kaer Trouz, plagasul, Wicked Boy, Solace & han 1)

lab sound (part 4) Jaspertine (featuring Kaer trouz)

My Apocalypse Now (Vertical Split Mix) -Kaer Trouz (featuring Jaspertine & Nurykabe)

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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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