About the Album:
B:Sides is my first focused musical project. The title is a play on words, alluding both to vinyl record “B-Sides” (songs not expected to be hit singles) and to the word “besides” (a preposition indicating an afterthought). It is a chronological documentary of my very humble beginnings in experimental music, starting with clumsy stock-loop arrangements, segueing into sampling, and ultimately into digital mastering of live recordings.
The entire collection was produced using Microsoft Windows 98′s built-in Sound Recorder, Audacity, and a student-licensed version of Sony ACID Pro 3 for software. Hardware included a RadioShack Super-Cardioid microphone, an off-the-shelf HP pc tower, a Yamaha PortaSound PSS-470 keyboard, a Yamaha ??? acoustic guitar, a Samick SS11 electric guitar, a Kustom Tuck-N-Roll 20-watt practice amp, and a Korg ToneWorks AX1G multi-effects processor.
Limited as it is, B:Sides achieved the simple goal I set for it: Conveying some semblance of technical control over an unfamiliar medium by expressing a range of moods and/or ideas.
Cover Art:
B:Sides cover art
The Music:
Following this paragraph are the twelve tracks that make up B:Sides. This page makes use of HTML5′s multimedia embedding capabilities, and as such, each track should show its own player native to your browser, a Flash-based player, or a textual download link.
01. Euro-Austro-Chino-Techno
02. PianoCore
03. Okeechobee STRIKE
04. Pensant A Vous
05. System
06. A Transient Reality
07. Animus Premo
08. Haunted Mansion
09. Narcolepsy (Electric Version)
10. Memories & Regrets
11. Intergalactic Punkafonic 128
12. Narcolepsy (Acoustic Version)
Additional Credits:
All tracks (except track 10) were sequenced with Sonic Foundry’s ACID Pro 3.0 (Student Edition), using the stock loops that came with the bundle. Tracks 04, 08, 09, 10, 11, and 12 used Microsoft’s Sound Recorder, for live-recordings of vocals, guitars, and keyboards. Track 02 used Scott Evans’s Bucket O’ Tab application, for exporting MIDI files from guitar tablature. Track 05 used CFS-Technologies’s Speakonia, to create a synthesized vocal sample from text. Track 06 uses a sample of the opening strings from “Where Are You, Christmas?,” composed by James Horner, Mariah Carey, and Will Jennings; performed by Faith Hill for Interscope Records’s soundtrack to the 2000 film adaptation of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”