Someone in my apartment building was practicing Christmas tunes on an Oboe (or something similar). I totally loved it, for it brings back memories when a neighbor’s child was practicing the Violin, and hearing sour note after sour note. My girlfriend at the time hated it, and I adored the free flow of inspiration found within the discord of becoming “one” with an instrument and losing oneself in the process.
Slow and relenting existential bliss
•••
preliminary extension and sketches/double process/reversed [091121/101621]
SF 3.0
TR .75
Dystopian electronic project Detraction has a new album out. This one fascinatingly introduces pop sensibilities through trip hop beats that weave in and out of the experimental, dense soundscapes. As a concept the whole thing feels like one is retrieving fond moments out of distorted dreams. The final track drones on as if the dreams are becoming more vivid until ultimately they wither away. Detraction juxtaposes joy and dysphoria in a poignant way.
via/Breaking And Entering https://breakingandentering.net/2021/09/02/audio-detraction-umami-land/
This is a complex album. Production started in October of 2020, then it became a collaboration and then became a type of retrospective when unfinished tracks from 2017 were added and remixed. Umami Land is more or less a meta-album, spanning 4 years of input marked by collaborating with outside influences. It was a difficult recording to archive, and it had many phases in development. At one point it was almost decommissioned, yet the ice thawed and necessary improvements were acknowledged. Umami Land became a conglomeration of forces ranging from past/present/foreign input and output methodologies marked by a cohesive flow of texts, emojis and other goodness.
It’s not a perfect album by any means, yet it strives for the Sun.
I hope you all enjoy this splendid round of recordings.
A very heavy thanks to Matt Dardis, my prime co-conspirator on two tracks in this venture, and his profoundly-relentless artistry, meticulous track engineering and super-sense of humor. And a heavy thanks to Pat Glassel for letting me remix his ‘Quench the orange sun’ [a] into unrecognizable certainty, and for his grace on opening its release for this album.
All proceeds from this album are going to The Humane Society International until the end of time. Both collaborators wanted no monetary cut from this venture, so I focused on what we all love, that of the welfare of all animals large and small.
Track listing and attributes [b]:
1) Nostalgia (Dubec/2020)
2) [anxiety feeds paranoia] assassins at every corner (Dubec/2020)
3) Ritual (Dardis/Dubec/2020)
4) I’ll always love you (Dubec/2020)
5) On three legs (Dubec/2017-2021)
6) Apophenia (Dardis/Dubec/2020)
7) Everyone referred to him as Colonel (Dubec/2017-2021)
8) Syntax and Memory (Dubec/Glassel/2019)
Esoteric titles/design nomenclatures:
1) Nostalgia 102120 V4 – 8:1:21, 12.52 AM
2) [anxiety feeds paranoia] assassins at every corner 101120 PS v4
4) I’ll always love you 110320 102120 re ps rev 3 – 7:11:21, 12.12 AM
5) On three legs 072917v7 – 8:8:21, 12.50 AM
6) Apophenia/Rebirth (Dardis/Dubec) v2 – 8:5:21, 10.07 PM CUT
7) Everyone referred to him as Colonel 071117 [2021 redux 070421] vol adjust 082721
8) Syntax and Memory (Dubec/Glassel) QUENCH April 23, 2019, 9.24 PM CUT
Collaboration notes:
1) Ritual (Dardis/Dubec/2020)
Dardis supplied all source material, and Dubec stretched, reversed, layered, added some tambourine and conceptualized the final mix.
2) Apophenia (Dardis/Dubec/2020)
Dardis supplied all source material, and Dubec stretched, reversed, layered and conceptualized the final mix.
3) Syntax and Memory (Dubec/Glassel/2019)
Glassel supplied ‘Quench the orange sun’ [a], and Dubec added rhythm, synth, stretch, layering and final mix.
Final Notes:
[a] ‘Quench the orange sun’ by Perplexions:
https://soundcloud.com/user-164068566/quench-the-orange-sun
[b] collaborators are in alphabetical order, followed by year
There’s something thrilling about editing music in the midst of a thunderstorm. The energy is high, and the chance of electrocution is relatively low… but then again…
Sometimes time slips by.
060321
Sometimes it rewinds,
and collects unspent energy.
Either way, time is a resource,
a curse, a pathway
into willingness
stillness, and procrastination.
Either way,
Time is itself
and you are
just Time in the Making.
It’s happened before, yet how will it happen again?
060321 v2
Perhaps it will be done before it has started?
Perhaps it’s done and finished?
Perhaps it’s finished and no-one will notice.
Thus is creation, its own reflection,
incomplete science jettisons us
straight into absurdity.
Spring is passing!
Matsuo Bashō, Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no hosomichi, 奥の細道)
Birds are singing, fish weeping
With tearful eyes.
Such wonderful introspective qualities in all of Bashō’s work, where spirituality meets the Earth, like lightning creating an arc of light over the horizon. Then there’s Issa (Cup of Tea), another Haiku poet that I love, for his material tends to speak for the voiceless, and transcends the earthly realm, being earthly nonetheless, and like Basho, Issa’s work contains a heavy amount of voidness and beauty.
Even with insects—
Kobayashi Issa [all the time I pray to Buddha]
some can sing,
some can’t.
And my favorite of all time:
On a branch
Kobayashi Issa [On a branch …]
floating downriver
a cricket, singing.
Experimental electronic artist Detraction has a new video out from his recent album “As Above/So Below.” It begins with a slow-motion shot of a snow shower on a busy Milwaukee street, eventually switching to a rain shot filmed in reverse. In the second half, close-ups of the puddles flowing down the curbs reflect a fascination by perpetual motion of matter. Then we are taken into Fresh Thyme Market, where people are lined up with their groceries, ending with a shot of a big unicorn balloon. It seems to be a commentary about the movement of society against the elements while other objects remain perfectly still. Detraction is working on another album due out later this year.
https://breakingandentering.net/2021/05/28/video-detraction-progression/
Once again, big thank you to Ben Slowey and your pure words. Thank you once again.
Video of Progression from the album as above/so below was over a year in process, yet 12 more hours would have made it better.
Dubecian 