The Lighthouse and The Whale

Northern Nights

Breaching Space

My Whales, They Fly

Ice, ice, Baby

So then, I was lazing around in front of the puter. There was all sorts of villainy going around on Facebook. Feeling frustrated that the second volume of my music theory textbook still hadn't arrived from the UK, I decided to post my own villainous context of this predicament. You see, I'm too cheapskate to pay for music classes, so I decided to learn everything on my own with books. With crinkled brow, I contemplated the possibly calamitous end to this solo endeavour all because a bloody book got lost in the mail.

So much for free shipping. Greed never wins. Neither did Greedo, for that matter, regardless who shot first.

Anyway, so I saw this physics video posted by French saxophonist Chris Stalk, which was really intriguing especially because it starts with the image of a tiny bear sculpture on a glass base. The narration was in French but it's all Greek to me since I'm a native Hokkien speaker prone to bursts of Huttese once in a while.

The documentary was, I was later told, about how scientists compressed water onto two diamonds, to see how crystals of various shapes were formed. And mind you, all this was captured on camera. I had no idea what the narrator was saying - he could very well be reading his wife's grocery list - but the images fascinated me endlessly. Actually the whole idea fascinated me and jiggled my warm testicles.

I took the narration sample and incorporated it - sometimes rhythmically, most times nonsensically - into this 13-minute piece (because that's approximately how long the documentary is). I melded two fascinations - one with Steve Reich's ideas of long-drawn out chords (but mine without pulses), and the other with physics. Near the last minute or so, I added a brief, pulsing horn section just for kicks (or just to piss off Reich and his fans, ahem).

So, here it is. I hope you find some meaning in this, and become so grateful that you'll let me sleep with your sister.




And here is the video that inspired it.

http://www.canal-u.tv/video/science_en_cours/cristallisation_sous_pression.11

Electric Counterpoint without multitracking!

An exciting find on YouTube. Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint performed without any multitracking, but with an entire ensemble of guitar players performing it live. The thing is, Reich originally composed the piece for Pat Metheny, and it was meant for one electric guitarist to record all the different parts (more than 10 different tracks, if I recall correctly) and then play along to the tracks. Metheny did that, and so did Jonny Greenwood.

But these Filipinos got together to play every ... single ... track ... live. How awesome is that! I'm thinking it must have taken a constipation-inducing level of concentration and focus to pull it off. You can hear a few minor mistakes here and there, but overall, it's a highly commendable effort. I mean, to even consider doing something like that is already amazingly brave.





And then, there is this wonderful and imaginative use of a sample from Electric Counterpoint by The Orb. It's really infectious.

A New Phase (So May It Secretly Begin ...)

As followers of redplanetsongs may have noticed, the music took a new direction recently. With this changing of gears, it has been decided that redplanetsongs will be disbanded. From now on everything will be done under my real name.

Lately with this new direction I've felt more comfortable than I'd ever in the past. Thus, it truly reflects who I am. Hence, this decision to do away with a pseudonym/band name/stage persona/concept.

The Luna Mars colony facility will cease operations with immediate effect. All equipment will be sold as scrap to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

No, I'm kidding. They will be sold to Galactus as snacks.

There will be many new things on the horizon, hopefully interesting things.

I came, I saw, I composed.

Final log and transmission.

End

Cities in Musical Flight

We here at Luna Mars are watching the comet fly by the Earth. And somewhere along the way, we are reminded of the James Blish magnum opus, Cities in Flight. Earthlings may soon have to flee, since our skies are pretty busy these days with comets, meteors and asteroids.

So, in tribute to urban colonies, on both Mars and Earth, we have been putting together a symphony of sorts. As of this moment, we have a Section 1 with three parts, and a Section 2, with two parts so far. The endeavour is ongoing, as you may have guessed.

City Songs, Section 1 Part 3 is available on YouTube:



Section 2 Part 1 - Evolving & Revolving is available on SoundCloud:



Meanwhile, Section 2 Part 2 - Bells & Chimes is available again on YouTube:

Yes, I am trying to drive you mad with repetitive bells and chimes

Transmission from Luna Mars
Station log: #354BE768
Output: Alpha 019

Re: Experiment in effects of audio in space

We on Luna Mars love a good experiment once in a while. OK, maybe a lot of times in a week. We've just finished with our petri dish of bacteria in the outer quadrants. Some of it escaped into the Martian soil. Hopefully there won't be an epidemic of killer spores around here.

Meanwhile, in studying the music of the spheres here, we recently delved headlong into violinist Daniel Hope's new release, Spheres. You can check out a listening guide here:




In studying what sweet music the planets and other space objects make, we decided to try and see if we can drive our astronauts crazy with repetitive bells and chimes, in what we cleverly disguised as "minimalist music" in the style of Reich, Riley and Glass.

We decided to upload and transmit the track, Eclipses (Variation 6/8) - Mallets, Bells, Chimes, Phaser & Strings (ya, a mouthful), onto SoundCloud and hopefully everyone else in the universe can also participate in this experiment.

Leave us a note here to let us know what effects, if any, this music has on you. If we see gibberish in the comments, we would then know we have been successful.

Space Rock!

Unless you've been living under a space rock, you would have heard about interstellar stone objects hurtling towards Earth lately. We here at Luna Mars have been closely monitoring these activities. One dropped into the atmosphere and provided proof that Hollywood filmmakers were prescient enough to know exactly what it would look like when outer space threw stones at us.

The second one attempted a kind of outer space-style drive-by shooting, but botched it terribly, which was good for us.

The thing is this: NASA is supposed to be watching the skies closely to protect us from such stone-throwing activities. So, what the hell happened with the Russian space rock? Perhaps they were too busy watching Mr D14. But that's just as worrying. It means if we have another double-whammy in the future, they'll be watching only one.

Anyway, we should learn to stop worrying and love this old track from the days when redplanetsongs first started. It's a Latin-jazz-hip-hop tribute to Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr's Satantango.

Time has come ...

Listen up, space cadets! After months of tweaking, mixing, tweaking again, mixing again, over and over, and over again, Time is finally available on Bandcamp today. It is wholly piano-based, with ambient elements, and very low-key. If you like that sort of thing, you might want to download it at Bandcamp, and if you like a Martian explorer like me, then you might want to give me a few bucks for it so that I can buy some lunch. Yes, it's a "Name your price" digital album.

By the way, I photographed and designed that album cover. It was shot in my room. I climbed to the top of my closet, then jumped while clicking the camera. It was a painful landing on the hard cement floor, but, um, it was worth it.

Also coming soon:

Astronautica - A digital symphony in six movements. Each part will be released individually on Bandcamp.

Six Sunless Months/Sunless, will be a single. It's a remaster of the track from San Soleil, with its original incarnation, Six Sunless Months, tagged on. The B-side would probably be Captain Scott and the 800.

You can listen to it and watch the video here:




Until the next transmission here from Luna Mars, we bid you good combustion engines and a safe exploration!

New on the horizon

Dear fellow Martian Explorers,

It's 2013 and I haven't said a word here. After the recent coronal mass ejection from the sun, our telecommunications system here on Luna Mars were rendered virtually unusable. But yes, here we are again, and with the canned soda-dispensing machines in working order once more on this space station, I hereby declare that the first record of this year was released last night.

It's a single called Silent Seas, and it comes with a hidden B-side, an electronica-heavy tune called Vanilla Night. It's a name-your-price thing, so you can head on down to Bandcamp and lend your support to the successful continuing running of this wonderful space station.

Meanwhile, coming up next, after we finish our experiments with the bacteria in a Petri dish, which we shall attempt to let germinate in the paper-thin Martian atmosphere, there shall be a new album, called Time, a 10-track collection of piano-based, ambient-like tunes. The writing is done, now it's just some tweaking and fine-tuning that's holding up things until February 14 this year, when the head, the tail, the whole damn thing will be unleashed at Bandcamp. So, stay tuned.

And now, for something completely exciting: I've finally found a collaborator on SoundCloud who is completely on the same wavelength as me ... as I ... umm ... Anyway, this guitarist and I are working on a tune called Vodalus which will feature his jazz-guitar solo and my e-piano.

The slight problem in our chance encounter was, he required a chord chart, and I mostly stir my empty head to make up chords. Thus, I had no chord chart to speak of. But after much figuring out, I deduced that the progression for the solo begins with an Fm7, after which is an inversion of a major 6th, after which is some weird thingie, after which is most definitely a C6. Here's the ancient hieroglyphics unearthed in one of the mountains here on Mars:

By the end of this week, we should have a working draft of the tune. So, stay put in that stratosphere and stay in orbit. There'll be another transmission later.

Over and out.

The End of the World or The Beginning of The Whale Tragedy?

Memo from the space station:

As pertaining to the predicament stated above, you decide. This Friday, Dec 21, 2012, when the world is supposed to end, according to the Mayan calendar ...

... and the Mayan weather forecast:

The second album this year from redplanetsongs, The Whale Tragedy, will go public on Bandcamp. Eight tracks, mostly acoustic jazz. The opening track, Hwael on My Back, will be a free download on SoundCloud.

Sample the tracks here:

Vive le Revolution!

There is a small people's uprising happening on SoundCloud.

One morning this week, as usual, I logged onto the Net after breakfast, got into SoundCloud to check activities. What greeted me was completely alien, a black page with stuff.

A black page with stuff. Yes. Not the usual friendly, easy-to-use white page, but a cluttered black page with everything jumbled and confusing. I wondered where my Dashboard went, where my Profile was, where to look for my Main Page, and most importantly, what had happened while I was asleep.

We all knew this was coming, because they had signified that changes were going to happen, positive changes. They had Beta testing, to get feedback from users. Even back then there had already been complaints. Did they listen? No.

Now check this out, from the SoundCloud blog:

http://blog.soundcloud.com/2012/12/04/next-becomes-soundcloud/

There are over 420 comments on that post, all of them negative feedback. Is SoundCloud paying attention? We hope so.

Like I said, a small rebellion has begun on SoundCloud. Users are posting soundbytes complaining about the new design. Here's mine, probably the only angry, no-holds-barred one, so be warned:

A movie from 1955 ...

I don't know if anyone actually remembers this old black-and-white movie from 1955. It's called Back to the Future, and it's a futuristic story about a kid from 1985 who goes back in time to 1955. Geddit? A movie made in 1955 about someone from the future who goes back in time to the present.

It's a great, visionary movie because it correctly predicted that people in 1985 would wear Nike sneakers and life-jackets. And there would be skateboards. How awesome is that? Arthur C. Clarke, eat yer heart out!

Okinawa

I was listening to too much Ryuichi Sakamoto at the time. I've never been to Okinawa.

It's downloadable, by the way.

Still tooling down the 80s highway

Continuing the 80s vibe and obsession, here's the first of my 80s-inspired, semi-retro tunes completed today and uploaded on YouTube. Done with a Roland TR909 drum track. Unfortunately I don't have an FM Bass sound, or this would truly have been a complete 80s tribute that would make people want to wear shoulder pads and baggy pants.

Footnote: There is actually a movie called Night Drive, described as "a gritty South African thriller/horror ... set against the backdrop of the beautifully romantic African Bushveld." Hmmm ...

Nebula

Because sometimes you need beauty, and sometimes that beauty is in space.

This is an old tune done some two years ago, re-uploaded because everyone seems to like it. It comes from a time when ideas were fresher, simpler, unrestricted and uninhibited by expectations. It was the best of times.

Days were the those

So, the future isn't so bright, mainly because out here in space, it's mostly darkness. Hanging out online with filmmaking pal Tony Pietra, we slipped into that old silver car with the thingamajig on top and went back to revisit an old pal named The 80s. Like Steely Dan, we had our Cuervo Gold and our fine Colombian, stretching out to the limit and embedding ourselves in cheesy 80s drum programming and fizzy synths.

A nice sojourn in the era of Miami Vice and Jan Hammer and big shoulder pads. And Harold Faltermeyer. Our jukebox, and my own 80s experiment with Roland drum programming and retro synths in the last video, a work-in-progress called Streetlights:

Here's Miami Nights on Bandcamp, if you dig them:

http://miaminights1984.bandcamp.com

Here's the deal ...

Memo to all space station personnel

Once more, we are on the cusp of a new and exciting era of mind-boggling, testicle-jiggling human endeavour, otherwise known also as human nuttiness. Here's the deal: Mars One, a private Dutch company, wants to colonise Mars by 2023. That's not far off.

Here's the catch: The astronauts will be on a one-way ticket. Leave everything behind. Spend an astronomical amount on your credit card, rent a car and smash it up, crap on that annoying neighbour's lawn, and then get on that spaceship and go live on Mars. Not a bad deal, really.

Apply here:
http://mars-one.com/en/