Since before starting University, I have been working on a collaborative new-age project inspired by Hiroshi Yoshimura, Iasos and Wally Badarou. The idea was to get out of a creative slump myself and a friend were in as we mostly work solo and are not the greatest collaborators. We felt an instrumental new-age project was a great way to work on a musical relationship in a more intuitive and less structured way. Eventually we worked out that we had some great results from recording an hour of improvisations, and choosing the best parts. In a way – this relates a little to Visiting Lecturer Lisa Busby and how she explained her process of collaboration, and how certain improvisations seem to manifest a feeling amongst the group that this part has some information that is worthy of being showcased. I used the Yamaha Portasound PSS-780 and my bandmate used a DX7 VST.
As we were mostly dealing with FM Synthesis, there is a quality with this technology that to us was reminiscent of natural almost respiratory sounds of the oceans and we decided to play to a video of a coastal cam to center our improvisations around a mood or theme – this video became the inspiration for the project and therefor we name the album ‘Ocean Waves & Distant Thunders’.
I picked up this synthesizer in second hand shop a few years ago. I have always been interested in old technology and have bought a few practice keyboards in the past, what really drew me to this were its options for changing the attack/decay/sustain/release. FM synths rely on two signals being played simultaneously one that is a modulation of the main signal. With this synth I can change the A/S/D/R of both the library sound and whatever modulated frequency it is paired with, as well as the ‘feedback’ (intensity of the modulation) and the level of both signals. This means it’s incredibly versatile and is capable of producing inharmonic frequencies as well as a wide variety of tones from incredibly harsh and distorted white noise to sutble and complex meditative tones.
https://circuitboredd.bandcamp.com/album/ocean-waves-distant-thunders
After we collated our favourite improvisations, we began the process of getting it ready for physical release. All the tracks were recorded by Sam and I mixed everything prepping it for Mastering. We hired someone to master the album as well as two friends who worked separately on the artwork. One using photoshop to design the logo for our band ‘asmr’ alongside text and finding the right cover image (in which we scoured costal cams from across America, Canada & Wales). The other using InDesign to get the design ready for print to cassette. Digitally I wanted to present this music in the way most resurfaced Library Music/New Age music is presented on the internet. Through a scanned tape sleeve.
In a process that nearly took 9 months, here is the final product! Released on a label I am hoping to start for ‘Neo Age’ called Circuittboredd. Which on future releases I’m hoping a logo will take up room on the back where the barcode is on this type of library template. Here is a mock up on the design I had in mind.