My name is Mike, and this is my second year that I will be voluntarily putting myself through complete agony for one month in order to make some more of this swingin' MUSIC that's been such a hot topic for so long.
Last year, I was successful in creating a 35+ minute extended instrumental track-album, And Now the Truth, which carried on at 132 BPM for the entire duration. Having gotten that out of my system, I plan to go the more traditional route this year of creating ten separate songs. I will use my trusty Edirol R-1 sound recorder to begin gathering sample material on February 1, and I will feed those recordings into my Powerbook running Logic 7 Pro to build these compositions.
I spent much of last year writing very wordy pop songs, most of which I have scrapped (the music is good and will be applied to other projects of mine... but the words were really poor). I have found out that I cannot force words into the songs that form in my head. This is valuable knowledge that I will be applying to this year's record.
I've thought about using this month to buy and learn to use an mpc. It does sound really fun...if I'm going to do that, I will have to pull the trigger pretty soon. Maybe even this weekend.
Group Members:
Mike Mahoney - Powerbook, Edirol R-1 Sound Recorder
music, etc
RPM demos, works-in-progress, or tracks-finished-early... a musical sketchbook. This is just a sampler -- complete and finished albums will be uploaded into the real jukebox in March!
I want you to have this. It's an album I made during the month of February, 2008 as part of the RPM challenge - the annual event based out of Portsmouth, NH that challenges people around the world to complete a full album - writing, recording, mixing, artwork - all in just one month. I really hope you like it and that you'll give it away to your friends, if you are that type of person, inclined to do such things.
This is my second year taking part in the event. Last year, I put together one long track with a bunch of different sections called And Now the Truth. This time I had some realizations about what it is that I am doing, my place in the world, and so on. These realizations had a significant effect on the final album I came up with.
It's an interesting thing that happens when an album that you have been working on finally comes together. All the ideas and possibilities and outtakes, and even some parts that ended up on the actual recordings, they all seem to flake away until you are left with something that feels really quite small, despite your best attempts to exercise your every creative muscle during the process to make your album as big and bold and wild as possible. With this experience under my belt, I went into this record with a better idea of the pacing, of how I was going to spend the month. I could have done more (more layers, more structure) and done it kind of badly, or I could do less and really try to get it right. Hopefully it's obvious which path I followed. "Less is more" was the operative slogan here.
That "less" also applies to the amount of mixing I did. On past efforts, the first objective of mixing has been to make every instrument as loud (or at least audible) as possible at all times, and then to make the entire mix of each song as loud as possible. This time, I found myself turning a lot of things down, and just letting the loudest thing be the loudest thing. So, my new album is considerably quieter than most other albums that you own. I'm sorry if my songs are too quiet for your iTunes playlists. They will sound good in other places, I think. I did not have this album mastered, but you should know that just because I am against excessive loudness, I am NOT against mastering at all. I think mastering engineers are the closest thing to spirit warriors that we have in this consumer culture of ours. When used for good, they can good music sound totally incredible.
On the topic of sounds, here's a fun thing I did with this record: I bought ten cassette tapes, and I bounced each track to cassette, and then back into the computer. To accomplish this, I used an eight track tape recorder that I literally pulled out of someone's garbage last year. One of the faders was a little dirty and the counter reset button doesn't work, but other than that it's in perfect working condition. I went to all this trouble with the tapes because a lot of snobby musicians insist that music sounds better recorded to tape; that it adds that magical imperfection, not to mention analog "warmth." Never one to turn down an afternoon in front of the fireplace, I decided to see how this "warmth" really felt. Not bad, I'd say!
I'd like to say thank-you to Maren and all of my friends and family for being patient with me, and supportive of the music I make. This album is dedicated to anyone who enjoys it enough to make him or herself part of it. For more on my fascinating theory of how ordinary songs are transformed into classics by way of a societal and communal transformation process, to vent with me over the "loudness war" currently happening in music, or just to say hello, feel free to send me an e-mail at mike at glassanimalindex dot com. And don't forget to enjoy the music. I made it for you!
Best,
Mike
Tracks (w/numbers):
1. Lindsay Lohan Will Make One Lifelong Friend This Year
2. Super 8
3. The Softest Softness
4. Flow Together
5. A Steady Lucky Hand
6. Two Tickets
7. Seven Years Under Hot Lights
8. The Greatest Thing That We Have
9. Watercraft
10. Needs Somebody
Preferred Track:
2. Super 8
Band Bio:
My name is Mike, and this is my third full-length record.
Band Members & Instruments Played:
Mike Mahoney - Edirol R-1 Recordier, Apple Powerbook, Yamaha Midi Controller, Tascam 488 MKII 8-Track Cassette Recorder, voice, cellular phone
Band Location (city, state or province, and country):
Brooklyn, NY
2007 RPM Album Info
Date mailed or hand-delivered:
03/01/2007
Date received:
03/07/2007
Genre:
Electronic - Beat Driven
Album Name:
And Now the Truth
Tracks (w/ numbers):
1. And Now the Truth
(It's all one track, but I think my preferred section for the party would be from 6:37 - 9:17)
Preferred track for listening party:
01 And Now the Truth
Band Bio:
My name is Mike Mahoney, and I have a lot of fun making music. That's where I'm at right now.
Group Members & Instruments Played:
Michael Mahoney - Samples, recording, guitars
Band Location (city, state or province, & country):
LSD 25
