theme for the new year

my idea with this open workflow concept was to show the "in" side as well as "out"... my moods and directions, thoughts, art of any kind that sucks me in or lifts me up, and in this case, tracks that come along and capture what I'm feeling in a moment better than anything I've learned to make myself...

oh. its really long by the way. hit up the first minute and a half if you're in a hurry, you'll get the idea.

Animal Collective - "Fireworks"


this is me right now...
punchy, crazy, loud, hopeful, a little angry, a little desperate, a little euphoric, running in some circles, eating up some time... but going in the right directions, buzzing with some kind of energy, just sick enough of the past to maybe find the future.

[construction]

I'm messing with templates and new layouts, but since it turns out blogger's web based system is kinda wack, you'll probably see a lot of crap moving around or getting ugly until I figure it all out. I'm looking for something good and minimal that I can modify easily... something that feels a little more welcoming and vibrant than what I've got now, yet still not loud or crazy enough to distract from the actual posts.

I'm also moving towards translating my visual style (see flickr sidebar) into motion. This means 3D, so I'm trying to teach myself to use Blender which is, as it claims, free, open source, flexible, and powerful, but not precisely what I'd call "intuitive".

Also, I'm swamped and exhausted, so this is all going to take a while.

The good news is we're perhaps a week from finishing both Subject and Budd, both mentioned in my Project Roundup post, so hopefully I can post links or the actual videos here very soon.

[ekundayo]

[new beat]

Ekundayo - my computer is fixed and I made this beat in 20 minutes


So, to give you a little insight into the naming process for this one, I think the main reason I decided to call it "my computer is fixed and I made this beat in 20 minutes" was because my computer is fixed and I made it (this beat) in 20 minutes. I think that's the best way of describing it. Oh, by the way, the second half is much better, so don't turn it off until then. Really.

[ekundayo]

Noise? Why thats just old Titanium!

So my present, old, downtrodden, slow, sleepy powerbook is being looked over by a team of the finest that the greater Skokie, Ill area has to offer, or at least the ones that happen to be on shift and have decided to work at the apple store, because, hey, its better than best buy right?

It's been since friday that I've been waiting to find out if they fix the problem for free under Apple Care, or give it back to me unfixed and charge me a $75 "Slap in the face" fee for wasting their time. Really. Thats how it works.

So since then I've been working on my previous, older, more downtrodden, slower, sleepier powerbook, from the now vintage "Titanium" generation. The first of Apple's powerbooks to run on the G4 chipset, this little baby clocks in at a blazing 800 mhz. It's cooled by an advanced forced air system which utilizes a variable high speed fan to create buffeting waves of sound that deafen the user. Any heat not dissipated by this primary system (usually about 99%) is vented out of the motherboard, into the surrounding titanium construction of the outer case, and into the users thighs. This watery organic mass can absorb a surprising amount of thermal energy, but of course everything has its limits, so this secondary cooling system is assisted by a safety feature in which, when the computer has reaches a certain temperature from prolonged use, the operating system freezes, forcing the user to force shut down, deactivating the heat source.

While this sleak, minimalist icon of industrial design can run up to two (2) modern script and flash based websites simultaneously, and perform a host of high powered word processing tasks, its abilities stop short of actually running any of my music and sound programs. Though it can run a few of the visual art applications I use in slow motion, I just haven't had the heart to ask it to do that. It needs its rest.

So until these guys actually call me, I'm going crazy with beat ideas and a backlog of sound work is piling up. If this continues much longer, I'll be writing about the near constant stream of media I consume, letting you all in on music, shows, art, & etc that has been blowing my mind lately.

[imagine one of those classic "Hang In There" posters with a kitten in some kind of comical predicament here]

[ekundayo]

imagine the nightmares

As some of you are aware, The Fast sometimes means going to bed after eating pre-sunrise breakfast. This often means bizarre dreams. The one I woke up from just a while ago featured but was not limited to:

• A huge conference of some kind in a dream version of Paris.
• An attractive, fun young woman everyone was extra nice to now that she had suffered some kind of brain trauma that made her spacial perception go all weird. She had a hard time understanding where she was, but was trying to make the best of it.
• Plans to go out to some trendy lounge on the last night of the conference with this woman who was totally not my type.
• Those plans being dashed at the 11th hour by a bizarre series of events in which a groundhog urinated on me and was quickly chased off by Lev, and then while he was busy fending off the groundhog, I was rushed by a skunk. The skunk got me, but it was some kind of stun spray that didn't smell, but left me immobile for a few seconds. Nonetheless, clothes ruined. My date for the night was understanding, and we talked about how I probably wouldn't have gotten into the club, anyway, as the clothes, even before being ruined, where simply not expensive enough.
• The realization that while post - skunk incident, this young woman was Persian, the dream had changed, and when we originally made the plans to go out she was some kind of Fairy Royalty (the old school kind of Fairy, not the Disney kind), and was far more self possessed and fascinating as a character...*
• A screening of a film I was working on.
• A huge conference hall where I chose to sit with my parents instead of my friends.
• A short, mostly harmless conversation that I've been pondering the meaning of for a few hours now.

When I woke up, the very same Lev happened to call in real life from some kind of technology conference in Boston to tell me about a machine which holds a book, flips pages with its little mechanical arms, and scans each page into digital form with creepy/adorable quickness and precision. A whole bunch of them where running at once. He said it looked like a Bjork video. Briefly checking to see if I was still dreaming, I thanked him for having my back with the Groundhog thing, and told him not to blame himself for letting the skunk get past him. It was for the better, in the end.

[ekundayo]

*Clarification - this is not to imply that Persians are not fascinating, but that this particular dream character was, in the second part of the dream, an average and mild mannered young woman who happened to be Persian, whereas in earlier parts of the dream I recall her as being imbued with concealed supernatural power and a subtly regal bearing which made her magnetic and a bit scary. My dreams make random switches like that all the time, which leads me to believe that my brain's writers are a bit overworked and have nobody checking continuity for them.

continued workflow - the variations process

Ok, I know most of you haven't even read/listened to last night's post, so you should do that first.

I did that second one in last nights post in about 15 minutes, and now I've decided I don't like it enough. So I just banged out two more variations with the same instruments. I don't think I'll use ether of these as the final version, but hopefully it gives the picture of how I keep working tracks until they feel right...

Ekundayo - like we used to be (version 2)

Ekundayo - like we used to be (version 3)


I think version 2 is probably closer to what I'm going for, but I like the drum style of version 3. I'll probably refine 2 for a while, and make a completely new beat with the version 3 drums, maybe with some samples, something more rugged.

It's gonna be a crazy week for me, with The Fast starting up and litteraly twice the amount of working days for that lighting company as I usually have in a week. Also, I hear my boy Kiser is in town. So I may not be getting any more posts up, but I feel like trying, now that I've bitten the bullet and, you know, actually [opened] the aforementioned [workflow]. Wish me luck!

[ekundayo]

Actual Workflow! - Beat Tape Vol. 2 Previews

I'm a little embarrassed it took me this long to start making this blog live up to its name, but... NEWNESS:

Ekundayo - puzzle (draft)



Ekundayo - like we used to be (draft)


I wanted to get Beat Tape Vol. 1 up here first, but I'm having a delay - heavy couple of weeks. Constant work, my computer and pro tools gear breaking, perpetual lack of sleep, money, a steady normal person job, etc.

SO SCREW IT - above are two working versions of beats that are going in my next volume of new stuff that will go out to everyone I work with. They're rough, but I think they show where I'm going. I might throw up more, but I'm holding the secret weapons in reserve till the final release - like the fiery second half of "puzzle", a few wacky remixes, some funny samples, short & sweet beats, everything that makes instrumental hip hop work without the MC.

Don't worry - Vol 1. is still going up some time soon. I played it for some friends over the weekend - even though 6 months is a long time in the evolution of anyone's style, I think I still feel pretty good about those beats. Stay tuned!

[ekundayo]