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YOKO SOLO

The Modyfier machine asked if I could make some music and then deconstruct the birth and writhing existence of said sound. Of course I had to do it. So I did. This is some of what happened.

I thought it would be fun, or interesting, or um... actually I can't remember exactly what I was thinking... but my plan was to attack the song, make something quickly, focus on not focusing, drive aimlessly at full speed. Loose, but heavy. The only rule was that I couldn't make it at home. So the track that became Modified and Left for Dead was made in two days while at a tire shop getting two tires replaced on a "car", in said "car" parked near Glen Park Bart (twice), and on top of the gun-bunker-thing at Fort Funston (which was the worst place of the three... felt very goofy sitting up there in the wind with a computer). Strangely, the waiting room at the tire shop was a wonderful place to work. A 4 year old girl sat next to me for 10 minutes and was reacting to the headphone bits she could hear, seemingly with confusion and/or glee (she liked the beats when they weren't falling to pieces, I think). It was a fun exercise so I kept at it and made 3 more loose, swirling tracks as quickly as possible but without the "not at home" rule. The vocal recording is from an audio library project I did for Quake Trap with Shaggy Manatee in which we recorded rants and yabber in Golden Gate Park.

I also had two tracks that didn't , don't, belong on anything I'm working on: the hopped-up, lurching Krak v.13 and Fuzz and Froth, a song made from Mochipet's pile of audio junk he posted for people to sift through and chop up and remix. When they met the other drooling "Modyfied" works, it was instant love.

download: yoko solo's set "the froth"

1. I Am In Yer Base, Killing Yer Doodz
2. Modified and Left for Dead
3. Burning Plastic at the Gate to the Place
4. Sorrow of the Filthy Wind
5. Krak v.13 (slobberBreaks)
6. Fuzz and Froth (Remixed bits of Mochipet's flotsam)

It's about 15 minutes or so and should be listened to without any gaps or crossfading. Each track should hit, one after the other with just the gaps that exist in the recording. This is only important if you want to experience the full "froth-style" bath.

For me the songs I made for this project have a breezy feeling that may have come from the relaxed, structureless methods and the taste of this music that emerged from nowhere. All music emerges "from nowhere", but in this case I really wanted to let the flow take over. They were like little seeds that sprouted, gnashed their teeth, gurgled and then crawled out of the soil and started running. The other tracks were like two little sprouts wandering/staggering alone in a void, moaning, until they found their elusive counterparts.

In making music for the sake of looking at the actual process of making it a bit (this project), I repeatedly sloshed a half-assed idea around, a thought about music. When we listen to it, make it, play it, in our room, headphones, in a car, making food, for people, by ourselves, it changes the state we are in and changes everything around us. The music itself changes, too, based on mood, light, wind, people, smell. There is an excitement in living a life with music, in knowing that each time we bring music into the fold, it's like shuffling the cards and changing our experience. Each time we loose the sound into the air, to our ears, we are exploring anew, even if it's a song (or set) we have heard (or worked on) forever. Another thought sloshed around in my head but it was the usual type of apocalyptic, imploding, debris-strewn, pony-fueled junk that flutters around in my brain all the time. So nevermind that piece.

The whole thing was made with a computer. I used Abelton Live, Reaktor, Mode and a great shareware synth called Crystal. A weirdo named Pu22l3 gave me a strange plug-in called Minion that I used, too.