… in shitty WordPress oriented fashion (Part Two).
Celebrating the one year anniversary of my excursion into noise pop (as Bärkər), I asked a former friend of mine to run a sit-down Q&A session with me. I figured that I could maybe shed more light on the motivations and accomplishments of this Bärkər thing, to allow a reversed timeline peek behind the curtain, so to speak.
Unfortunately, that gesture was undone by bad acting.
Yet I am going to continue to humor myself by thinking that the reader might find interest in me covering some releases.
There’s Something You’re Missing – 2024, Mayfly Records
Ghost of Rucker 的幽灵拉克 is a respected low-fi’er on the independent music scene. Besides an ever growing solo discography, Rucker has collaborated with Plains Desperate Symphony (Canada), Nadine De Macedo (Germany), and Nick Lang (U.K.).
He asked if I wanted to work with him, and I jumped at the chance.
He presented me an instrumental piece that could have been the lead track off any of his albums. The piece was everything one expects from Rucker; low-fi, melodic, and touching. He handed the track off and gave me free rein to do whatever it was I wanted. I am still honored by that.
I added a 30 second prelude that I thought was pretty neat. I then put some effects on a straggler track, which bled through the mix to add interesting sounds. Finally, I took a bit from my prelude and processed it to sound ‘harmonium’, then wove it throughout 2/3rds of the piece. The ending instrumental was, well… Ghostly, almost translucent.
The dialogue samples came from an anti-media outfit from the 1980s, these centering on how television (a metaphor for the ilk of today) subjected latchkey children to constant barrages of alcohol ads, sex, and television violence. I thought the finished piece (released October 25, 2024) rather poignant. It sounds different. The listener is taken on a pleasant journey, while still presented an opportunity to think.
I thought it would be a winner.
Live: From the Basement – Kent, Ohio ’24 – 2024, Mayfly Records
Gimmicks, contrary to the connotations associated them (KISS? 🤮), can be powerful tools in the grand cause of Subversion.
Live: From the Basement (released October 8, 2024) is one of my personal favorites. Rather than pussyfooting around, as I had done for some time, I dove headfirst into the tape loop inspired avant-garde with this extended player (EP).
Over a played soundscape, pre-recorded loops were triggered, cut up, and then manipulated/processed live. I greatly missed recording in this fashion. I did so with Linda Sharpe for close to two years and always had fun with it. When done ‘properly’, the improvisational aspect can be creatively rewarding.
There is a bit at the end of Not Completely Like Other People (@4’15”) that basically hypnotized me. I came out of it a couple of minutes later and hastily threw in a sample of Reverend Ernest Angley that I stretched and manipulated to interesting effect on, ‘Do You Believe?‘
I made VERY liberal use of Puremagnetik’s Ember micro collage plug-in when recording this. Ember can do some magical things. In live situations, it can also very easily escape its pen and do some damage to your petunias. You never know.
