Smunk Pad - Cinestatic Research

::Cinestatic::
::Smunk Pad::

::Thursday, July 31, 2003::

㊈

Programming Enterprise Of The Day
I've just dug up this thing I was working on last year. It's got special functions, so I think I just need a way to use them subtley: Smunk (or Cinestatic) Navigation Core Engine (about 135Kb)

I think I'll be combining it with this thing I've just done:

(It's my live set up)(and you can click on it...)

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Keywords: Smunk

::Wednesday, July 30, 2003::

㊚

Dizzee Rascal...
Yeah - I had to say something on this bwoy... I've been listening to his stuff with mixed feelings: production-wise it all sounds a bit fruityloops-y, but I guess that's okay - rhythmically it's interesting - but the sound of it scares me... The things he's saying seem .. I dunno ... almost too real... It makes me feel utterly insulated, middle-class, white, safe. I have a couple of reference points for all this - working in East London... muggings... other things I won't mention here... but it's not guns and shit, get me? I just feel like if I met this kid we would be incapable of connecting...

But I've just read an interview at hyperdub.com, and there are certain resonances...

DR: You know what? The whole point is the balance. Some people choose one way that's the way they go. But if you keep the balance then it's positive and negative, then there'll be what ever you're doing plus the redemption. You have to blend the both to keep it real.

So I'm paying attention.

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Keywords: Music

㊭

Admiring The Branches?
It is a compulsion, but it also seems somehow necessary to be examining the downiness and attempting to express this in whichever way possible ... not ernestly and one-dimensionally (in the traditional way - choose a 'feel' and stick with that - not wanting to undermine the painstakingly crafted atmosphere by having something funny happen). I like Twin Peaks - the humour against the Horror. And there can be such beauty in sadness.
Thinking about calibration... I think maybe you have more control over how far you go with the upwards calibrations than the downwards. Something terrible happens to you and suddenly the things that used to make you happy aren't enough any more. But then you overcompensate the other way with The Drugs and it see-saws out of control -- the amphetamine hangover - the smack ride - "Everything's shit"..."Everything's gonna be alright"... . ...........fuuuucckk........
[I did once ask a real life heroin addict about what it was like... hopefully I'm not just referencing Trainspotting...]

Anyway. It's not just about Up/Down. It's about Loud/Quiet, Fast/Slow, Left/Right, Wind/Metal, Chops/Mash... all of that. Balance balance balance... Hopefully my idea of making a balanced dance music will work. Filling those periods where everyone has a chance to catch their breath with something a bit more interesting than Warm Pad 02...
Cripes. I was hoping I could do better than this. Liking the prospect of debates in these blogs. I need vehement disagreement. Stat.

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Keywords: Life Music

㉦

Chipping an xbox
--for my live visuals thing--
All I need is two or three fancy looking characters - 3D models, some crazy looking space-instruments and a small virtual stage, and I've got my projectable virtual band-extension. I'm certain that this is possible on my xbox - if I could just side-step the Microsoft Developer bullshit, I could possibly put something together. Computer games need the same low-latencies as music software - instantaneous responses, so it would truly be another 'instrument'. And much cheaper than another laptop.
[Here's a link to an article on xbox chipping which, I should mention, like the PKD link, is nicked from William Gibson's blog]

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Keywords: TechStuff

::Friday, July 25, 2003::

㊍

New track online now!
With the questionable title of "Darned No Good Shoes"... Smunk Audio

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Keywords: Smunk

::Wednesday, July 23, 2003::

㊜

Google
I am finally the first 'Smunk' in Google! Although I have unwittingly ended up with my tentative and silly marketing idea "music for having a sh*t with the door open" as the Google tag line... Try it. It's funny.

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Keywords: Blogging

㊭

Pete's Page!!
I don't believe I have a cross-link to day2 yet, which is a travestic oversight that I will correct now... Day 2: music by Pete Wiseman and/or Chris Long. There.

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Keywords: OtherBlogs

::Tuesday, July 22, 2003::

㊌

Following in the proud tradition of Raymond Scott...
... and, um, Moby, I think I'll market my music for use in... car adverts... and adverts for TV shows. I'll get rich.

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Keywords: Smunk

㊆

Distracting Blogosphere
I have spent all day reading k-punk and the surrounding cosmos (mainly erasetheworld). And I spent ages on Matrix Essays too. My head's kinda numb and I'm supposed to be working. This is addictive shit.

Do you know what a Smunks are?
The draft of my Smunk ethos exposition is staring at me from the lower frame of the blog editor, gnashing its little teeth. I can't bring myself to get back into it. I'll tell you the headings (it was smupposed to be a paragraph but it is turning into pages). I've got stuff about Experimentation [placing the onus on the artist to highlight the good bits], Dance Music [repetition, drugs etc...], Genres [vs creativity], Technology [achieving the formerly impossible] and Emotional Range [you have to know down to know up].

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4:26:13 PM :: permalink
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My gnashings want me to vent them in response to that: "Experimentation [placing the onus on the artist to highlight the good bits]" ...i.e. the bits the artist likes, the safe bits. How to develop an experimental taste? Genres [vs creativity] oppositions! Who's the music for? What's " " " " " " " " ? moneyspin? way of life? excuse to indulge? means of attacking indulgence? "Technology [achieving the formerly impossible]" Otherwise known as BIGGER GUNS MORE CASUALTIES ["Until today I couldn't sit still for ten minutes".] " and Emotional Range [you have to know down to know up]." How about annihilating 'the down'?

[ pW 22/07/2003 17:33:31]

Okay... I'm scared...

[ Smunk 22/07/2003 21:01:51]

Now I'm clear...
I meant "Experimentation [BUT placing the onus on the artist (i.e. ME) to highlight the good bits]". By 'good bits', I mean the parts where the experiment produced the effect that I was aiming for. For instance, say I've been trying to work out (with my often scientifically-oriented brain) why some pieces of music are 'funky', and some aren't, and I think I spot something ('always an even number of beats', or 'as long as you have something on the one, you can put anything, no matter how arhythmic or atonal, in between), and then I try to do something that it doesn't sound like it should be funky, but it is and plays about with that theory in the hope of producing a dynamic along that axis (but the listener doesn't have to know this). If it has the desired effect (on me, initially), I'll see it as a successful experiment, and these 'successes' will be what I want to highlight. How to make pop music that shouldn't be pop music? How to make something induce a certain feeling without resorting to the clich�s? It's a long way from 'safe', and a long way from a 'science'! Experimental taste? That's fine if you can find the people who are interested, but I want to show this stuff to people that would otherwise be excluded because they don't have the time or inclination or cultural conditioning to develop that taste. I want to cut through the barriers that people put up to this stuff ('I don't understand this - have you got any S-Club?') by resisting classification (and subsequent 'understanding' or 'I don't like this kind of music', 'this just sounds like X'... even 'that stuff is just weird' etc...) and marginalisation. It is pop in this respect - but it's a lot riskier than the approach used by the Pop Music Industry with it's intravenous slow (so slow) drip of 'ideas' (ideas as expertly reproduced, polished, normalised, diluted sections of existing but generally unknown pieces of music by people who had the new ideas (or discovered the ideas first)).
"Genres [vs Creativity]"... damn straight it's an opposition! That goes for the emotional range stuff too! (Didn't understand the "" "" "" "" "" thing, by the way). As I have said (or, at least, implied), I want to defy people's tendencies to 'understand' something by making up a word to label it. The 'genres' came from artists who tried something new and by gradual evolution and mutating traditions (I believe technology has by far the strongest effect in altering the environment for these mutations - instruments, musical notation, printing, amplification, recording technology, computers...) - the genres become traps that their 'inventors' did not have. Music is mass produced within a genre-formula and dilutes the truly creative artists' work in a sea of mediocre, simplified, copies. Copies that are mistaken for the original (or the arc, or the interesting mutations, or the discovered ideas) by anyone on the outside. It's the western delusion that things can stay the same, and I am comfortable using oppositions (the more initially crazy-sounding the better) in an I-Ching way. These extremes don't exist ('truly original artists', 'genres') but are helpful all the same.
...
You want me to ANNIHILATE THE DOWN WITH BIGGER GUNS?! (sorry..) I mean to say (since I've addressed technology already)... You can't annihilate the down. Down is part of Reality. You can try destroying it or ignoring it, but it will still be there, ready to consume you in a moment of weakness. It's something that when you stop believing it it doesn't go away (sorry/thanks PKD mate). And anyway, if you were always 'up', it wouldn't be 'up' any more. You'd want something better because you wouldn't know that it could be worse (slipping away from the explicit music topic...). People are becoming truly spoiled - the most minor glitch in safe, habitual repetititive life triggers ugly ugly instincts, previously reserved for times of extreme crisis (historically, prehistorically speaking - murder, invasion, betrayal etc...). If people could only see how bad things could be (away from the cack-handed Eastenders traditions where emotions have no force beyond the scene they are used for, but discarded if they are inconvenient - the short memories - I'll address this later...), they might appreciate how lucky they really are and stop whinging about every tiny aberation from their perceive "norm". I'm interested in Balance. Creatively speaking, if something starts to look something, I'll throw in the opposite or contrasting, (or undermining) before anyone has a chance to think it's the something they thought it was. That's why I've got minimalist experimental music next to silly songs about poo. And a Housing section. It's hard work. I have to show you before you can trust me. The showing is very difficult. But just you wait...

[ Smunk 23/07/2003 10:14:32]

*Fart*

[ Smunk 23/07/2003 11:49:09 :: web]

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Keywords: OtherBlogs Music

::Monday, July 21, 2003::

㊢

Emotional Pangs
I just got a big squirt of endorphines when I saw the link to noiseloop in my Bookmarks. For the first time since having a CD to show people I got excited about the prospect of playing music to people. I nearly started crying at my desk. They're still swooshing around and I feel quite dizzy.

It's been a depressing week. Zero clarity. Clarity is required before I can move on to the next stage. So...

I think I'll start work on "What's this Smunk thing all about then?" today.

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Keywords: Life Music

::Wednesday, July 16, 2003::

㉭

Philip K. Dick Interview - July 2003 Cheekily presented collection of some fine Dick quotes.

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::Wednesday, July 09, 2003::

㊇

Technical things
I'm having to spend this week programming a database (although there's a chance that could be complete by bedtime tonight).

I just had some bloke ring me up at work (who got my number because of a stupid mistake a couple of years ago) to swear at me about asylum seekers and saying "I might as well be a f*cking dead person. I'm just a dead person. I'm paying my f*cking taxes and you're treating me like a f*cking c*nt! I'm gonna make a noise at your office tomorrow... Fifteen years you've been f*cking me about.." and so on. It was sort of fun to be a sounding board, voice of reason, apologist. And in the end he apologised to me, so hopefully there won't be too much of a mess tomorrow (it wouldn't be my office - we have 'local service centres'). Ah, the joys of working for The Caaaancil.

My kiosks nearly work now, and we won a national award for our scheme last week. Plus I have an extensive array of nifty pieces of software I've developed whilst in this job. And I can blog from my desk. (And ftp, which is even better).

Cinestatic is restructuring itself again. I want this to be a very organic and interlinked environment. I'm quite pleased with my (admittedly unjazzadelic) addition to this site's front page. I've made it so you can see who's been most blog-active. It uses Cookies and so on. It's expandable. But local to Cinestatic.

Anyway. I wish I had more time for the website, but at the moment the music is my highest priority. I'm unlocking the Audio page because nobody's listening to anything (but at least I can see that thanks to my lovely code!). Micro-sequenced beats are next on my musical itinerary. Back to the Amiga days.

Bye!

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3:59:40 PM :: permalink
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The 'Freshness' thing on the cinestatic front page will initially be a tad misleading. Cookies have to be initialised and people have to blog!

[ Mike 09/07/2003 15:53:14]

I like it. I've been 'away' at home for the past week, mixing furiously. Now to blog...

[ pete w 14/07/2003 11:04:20]

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Keywords: Work Cinestatic

::Monday, July 07, 2003::

㊨

Getting it played
I gave my CD to the "DJ" in The Telegraph (Brixton Hill) last night. More like the DJ's assistant really. He made enthusiasms and then pointed at the other bloke and said "He's in charge tonight though. He's a bit of a c@nt." Four tracks later (Fatboy Slim, Beastie Boys Fatboy Slim remix, MTV-Base style hip-hop - essentially tunes that would have meshed well with my choon despite being rather predictable choices - anyway, four tracks later I went back up and he said "I think it's gonna be a 'no'" and I said "why?" (thrilling retort there, Michael) and he said "I don't know - I didn't ask" and I gave the CD back to Bruce.

It felt a bit like the last time I got mugged. Only there was less blood.

Learning by doing. I think they were the type that needed to be told "Other people like it, and so should you" rather than people that would know how to spot a good tune that hadn't been played to death on the radio. I'm obviously extrapolating a lot from a little there, but it makes sense, and I'll know next time not to describe anything in descriptive musical terms. Rather, I'll just say how good it is over and over again, using the occasional expletive. Well. Not quite. Once again, I'm giving people too much credit (or more likely, I'm giving myself not enough credit). (Or, I'm giving myself too much credit on a schizo-internal-world level, in a way which is completely irreconcilable with social reality, and is therefore easily refuted by the tiniest pieces of evidence).

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Keywords: Smunk