Tinselman

Close Friends With a Count

For the past month, I've been composing the soundtrack for The Immortal Augustus Gladstone. A few days ago, I shared the above piece, Close Friends with a Count, on twitter.

We've been pretty quiet about the film but we're now almost finished with the entire project. Which feels good!

Let me know if you have questions... about the film, about the music, about whatever you like (within reason of course). I'll answer whatever I can! 

Blues ≠ Monkeyjunk

What else is to be said?

The first video I posted of blues artist Son House was mysteriously removed at its source. Here's an excellent replacement... Death Letter Blues!

Crow Jane

Skip James, 1967

Teenage Engineering

It won't be out for awhile, but I'm already salivating for the OP-1, a small but surprisingly powerful controller-synth. At 4 x 11 inches, it's mega portable, sounds amazing, and is oh so styling.

Here's what Teenage Engineering, the designers of the synth, have to say about it...

OP-1 stands for Operator 1 and is a pocket size controller for your favorite software sequencer. Connect it to your laptop and it lets you control your sequencers transport with the common play, stop, rec, forward and rewind. Use it to control your software synthesizers with the 4 rotary encoders and 16 dedicated quick keys for fast selections.

There's also a built in motion sensor; you can shake the thing around to change the timbre of the sounds. Or sample beats directly from the built-in FM radio (how cool). You can even "memorize a tune by whistling it into the built-in microphone." All in all, it's pretty amazing what they fit into this thing. 

Interestingly enough... they're not mentioning a price.

• TE-10

• FM Synthesis

Link to OP-1 site

Announcing...

Just a quick note... after a long absence, the Myst and Riven soundtracks will soon be available again. Give it about 4 - 6 weeks and you'll be able to find them at most online stores, such as: Itunes (U.S. and Internationally), Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, IMVU, Lala, Shockhound, and Amie Street.

I'll let you know when they're out.

Exquisite Tinselhicks!

Melodyne Sci-Fi

I recently emailed a link of the the "Melodyne Direct Note Access" demo to a dear friend; he responded almost immediately with the following reaction:

Melodyne is crazy cool!  Have you actually installed it and tried it out?  I watched the demo, and it's like I'm watching an audio version of one of those eye-rolling effects in a sci-fi, where they snapshot and image and then extrapolate a 3d model out of it, or "enhance" the bit depth of an image =).  If I had seen this in a movie, I would have definitely laughed.

Click here to see the demo.

Final Resplicery

Justin Norman, of Shrieking Tree, has created two "Resplicery" films (as he calls them) set to the Myst/Riven soundtracks: "Escape from Comatose Mansion" and "A Weathered Dream Sequence". All in all, he's put together five of them, but I have to admit, "Escape from Comatose Mansion" is my new favorite (spooky!). You can watch all of them at his Resplicery page (but don't go there expecting to see something that looks like Myst... his work is wholly different).

Russians Say Sky Dog Still Alive

Frank Sinatra sings of the stars (1943). Later, the Soviets show their stuff by sending a small, furry animal into space (1957)...

• Sputnik News Reel – 1957

Cosmic Beats in Outer Space

When I was in high school, it was impossible to turn around and release an album. I could have only dreamt of it. Now, anyone can do it. It's as simple as entering some information on your computer and uploading your recorded music. A couple weeks later it's in Itunes. And Rhapsody. And Napster. And anywhere else "online music is sold."

This is spectacular and wonderful. But also pretty bizarre.

My son is about to release his second album: an E.P. called Cosmic Beats in Outer Space". He asked me to do the cover, and I happily obliged, painting for him the above vintage space-era look-alike.