April 23rd, 2012

LOOK AT ME I’M DIRT

Finished mixing a live EP that was recorded in February. Keep Your Hands in the Dirt was recorded by Vergril Sharkya’ at his personal studio during a performance by myself and DirtyOrgans. The EP is available for free (or PWYC) and contains five original songs from the upcoming Black Friend LP. Download it here.

This is being released in anticipation of the Bug and Fat Square music videos which are being filmed this May. Bug is being filmed by Jeff Pavlopolous with choreography by Claudia Chan Tak and Fat Square is being shot by Kaja Levy. Both videos should be available with their accompanying singles early this summer. More info to come over the next few weeks.

April 11th, 2012

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

I recently completed the music for an upcoming game trailer through Kopano Studios in Portugal. The game is called Nobu: Fat Revenge! and the trailer is available on the Kopano blog.

The composition is a fairly traditional North American take on Japanese music using mainly free Vst’s for instrumentation. Vst’s used were the DSK World StringZ Kanun from DSK Music and the Mini DiZi wind section from Kong Audio.

I would like to apologize for the delays on the Original Words CD’s, I am doing everything I can to get them to you but need to delay them until the beginning of May due to printing problems.

March 13th, 2012

ORIGINAL WORDS

The Original Words EP has been released into the wild. Consisting of 5 covers recorded in November and February, the EP is available as a download and limited CDr through  ¡FLIST!’s Bandcamp site.

Original Words EP

I realize putting out a collection of covers isn’t necessarily the best course of action for an emerging artist trying to make a name for themselves but I treated the EP like an experiment for my mixing and production abilities. All vocals save those on Boys were recorded at VergilReality by Vergil Sharkya’. You can listen to some of his experimental works here.

Work has moved back to the Black Friend LP and several short films to be incorporated into its release. The first video will be for Bug which will be released as a single some time in May of this year. Until then I will continue to post my experiments and upcoming shows and events.

March 11th, 2012

MARCH IS MUSIC MONTH

DirtyOrgans - Erratica
DirtyOrgans – Erratica EP

Just finished the final mix on a debut EP from DirtyOrgans. Everything was remixed from a live mono recording with some light effects added here and there to smooth things out. DirtyOrgans is Shea Bishop Duffy’s amorphous, experimental sound project. The Erratica EP features Jacob Fauvelle on vocals, electric guitar and keys.

Charlie Twitch - Midtown Hearts
Charlie Twitch – Midtown Hearts

I’ve also completed a full length album for the 2012 RPM Challenge called Midtown Hearts. It mainly dance music but there are touches of my more common works mixed in with it. The album is only available as a free download through the FLIST! Bandcamp site.

A lengthy post on the Original Words EP I am releasing this Tuesday coming by the end of the week with some alternate mixes and details on the limited CDr edition. Download and physical versions available for pre-order now.

February 18th, 2012

DOWN IN THE DARK

Silent update, February has been insane. Played shows on the 5th and 10th that went pretty swell if I may say so. Wrapping up the Original Words EP mix and artwork has been a learning experience (I’m still not set on a printing method). Mixing an EP and a full length for some good friends and doing my best to compete in the 2012 RPM Challenge. It should be interesting to see when and how everything comes crashing into place at the end of the month… I am also having some of my lyrics in an upcoming Montreal zine thanks to Marcus Lake (Markus Floats, Silver Dapple). More info on that in the coming days.

Here are two songs of no consequence that I figured somebody out there could appreciate. Both are electronic and were part of Derm, an early, early version of what is now Black Friend.

Pleasure in Parts (2007)

Muik (2007)

February 1st, 2012

SOMETIMES IN MY DREAMS I HEAR

Here is a FLIST! work in progess that I’ve been hammering out for the last few months that I hope to include on the incredibly delayed and over-produced Black Friend album this year. I will also be playing the full song at my upcoming shows on the 5th and 10th of February.

¡FLIST! – Set (2011-2012, unreleased work in progress)

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The intro is taken from Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s Sundown Sundown off of Nancy and Lee from 1968. While sounding similar there are quite a few differences, particularly how much heavier I wanted my version to sound as it serves a different purpose to the song. While the Lee Hazlewood version starts off sweet and rises into a bass and kick heavy bombast mine stays relatively flat and drops off into a broken beat. Another disparity between the two is the use of virtual instruments for the strings and horns. Little has been done other than velocity control to hide this fact and there is still quite a bit to be done at this point but it should still give a good idea of what my intentions are.

For those who know the Hazlewood original my hope is that they will be reminded of Lee’s opening lines which will be tied into the songs lyrics later on. Working such direct references into anything is always a risk as it can often take a lot away from the song if it’s success is dependent on the audience getting an inside joke. Here is the original intro:

Nancy & Lee – Sundown Sundown (excerpt; 1968, Lee Hazlewood, Billy Strange)

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The sample that plays directly after the intro is taken from ToneScape’s (free!) Animato pack which I highly recommend, along with his other sample packages for any digital musicians looking to expand their libraries. While I’m not sure I will be using this sample in the final version of the song it serves it’s purpose at the moment.

I am playing this weekend on Sunday, the 5th of February with the Dirty Organs at Virgil Reality and on Friday, the 10th of February at the Concordia Co-op Bookstore for their annual Anti-Valentines day party. Hope to see some of you there!

Nancy and Lee

January 26th, 2012

A HUNTING WE SHALL GO

I completed my new Demo Reel today, trying to cram as much diversity into the shortest amount of time. It runs at just under two minutes and covers everything from my cartoon work to my personal music projects. Enjoy!

Comments are welcome as I will be updating it over the course of the year and as video editing is not my forte I will take all the help I can get. Read the rest of this post for the full video credits and links to their creators.

A near disaster has put a short delay on the Original Words EP and Warm/Bug 7″ but production has resumed and I will post the complete details on both projects shortly.

Read the rest of this entry »

December 28th, 2011

WE DON’T THINK SO

Getting things ready to release the Original Words EP next month. I made a video for Boys, originally by Bauhaus.

The songs were recorded for a benefit for Blue Sunshine, an experimental film center in Montreal and are being released on CDr and as a digital download. More details to come!

Edit: I will be merging this blog with my main website over the next two months but will be back to a semi-normal update schedule.

Edit 2: You can download the single through Bandcamp for free now http://flist.bandcamp.com/track/boys-video-version

November 24th, 2011

COAL MINER

Had to take a short hiatus from posting as a lot of different projects are coming to a head right now. Here is a rough image from a secret EP that may be available in the next little bit.

There are two shows coming up, one on December 10th at Blue Sunshine around 2pm in Montreal where several bands will be raising money to keep the wonderful film house around and another in January that has yet to be announced. More info to come.

Linocut

 

I also updated my portfolio and added some new work as well as a FLIST sampler that has some new works in it.

 

October 24th, 2011

MONDO PAZZO

Here are two comps for a short film by Samuel Hilton who had a showing in a recent Kino Kabaret in Montreal called Kill Him. I was asked to make something akin to the soundtrack from Drive and came up with these two pieces:

Mondo Mondo (2011, music for Kill Him)

Uomo Uomo (2011, music for Kill Him)

The two songs picked were Tick of the Clock by the Chromatics and A Real Hero by College. For bass and lead synths I used the Novation Bass-Station and Tal-Bassline. I would also like to take this oppurtunity to share with you the wonderful world of free Togu VST’s. I tend to use their generators sparingly in my own music but their reverb and delay effects are great to work with.

Hammer time

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