31.03.11 - DAY 90 - Suggestions And Encouragement

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Ending March with a bit of a party track!

First of all I wanted to include a recording of the wind outside my studio today. Was it not fierce! And then... On with the proper song: It's a reaction to a song I heard today that made me slightly angry: How many songs tell us to get on the dance floor, make some noise, throw our hands in the air? Does it never get boring for people? This is 2011 and rappers and producers are still writing songs about dancing and getting down tonight. I just wish people had more original ideas for expressing these notions sometimes. Tonight's gonna be a good, good night... I mean, really? *ROLLS EYES!* Anyway, aside from that, the tune I heard today was pretty damn PHAT and so I thought I'd try and make something similar, but with my own slightly sarcastic (and yet polite) take on those cliched "lyrics", or "instructions".

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

30.03.11 - DAY 89 - Springing The 90's

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Today I was planning on doing something kinda quirky, heavy and dark, a la Fantomas, but got side tracked playing the "nice wee riff" that this opens with. In my head I was hearing The Charlatans and The Stone Roses. I was never big into those bands when I was younger. But today I've been thinking about the people I used to know back then and that part of my life (my late teens). Not sure why. I like that era and style of music more now, all these years later. Back in the early 90s those "Mad-chester" / original "Indie" bands had their own sound. Not entirely sure (or concerned) that I've replicated it or "done it justice": As far as today's song is concerned I just got a vibe and went with it! Peace, love and Springtime!

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

29.03.11 - DAY 88 - Space Girl Love Beat

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Today's track is a free download! I didn't quite get as much done to this track as I would have liked, but I'm fairly happy with the results. I went for something of a hip hop vibe, with lots of sampling of random orchestral music. This was heavily inspired by a Wagon Christ song called 'Toomorrow' (from the album of the same name). It's fairly straight forward in that I haven't processed the individual sounds much: There are drums and percussion, a bassline that stays fairly straight throughout and the samples on top. Mild editing, pitch shifting and stretching of the samples in Ableton... And that's it.

SAMPLES USED:

The Off Beat - Beat Girl (remastered) - John Barry

Space Drift - Outter Space Suite - Bernard Herrmann

Love Theme - From The Terrace 1960 - Elmer Bernstien

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

28.03.11 - DAY 87 - Change The E For An R

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I was struggling to think what to do this evening, but eventually settled on trying to programme something with an interesting time signature (sort of carrying on from yesterday's track that used Poly-rhythms). I very much like pitched percussion instruments like Glockenspiel, Marimba, Vibraphone etc. So I used some of those sounds in this. After getting a riff going in 3/4 time, the ideas were flying and the rest of the song pretty much just wrote itself.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

27.03.11 - DAY 86 - Udumbara

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This track contains several layers of bass. It takes inspiration from the new techniques I've been learning as the (stand in) bass player for Hexxed: Playing in different time signatures and playing them against each other. It's a lot of fun. I started with a riff in 6/8, then layered a 4/4 bass melody over it. This then progresses into a more complex section of one bassline at 7/8 and another moving between 3/4, 5/8 and 7/8. Another layer in 5/8. Then the large underpinning bassline in 4/4 with lots of 3/4, 5/8 and 7/8 bass tracks on top. I also recorded some bass through a pitch shifter to make it sound more like a guitar. There's a lead line with loads of fuzz and reverb in 4/4 and two other tracks in 5/8 and 6/8.

Music is math!

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

26.03.11 - DAY 85 - MEGA HARDCORE GABBA IRISH FOLK SONG

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This is all Caroline Pugh's fault. She said "Do a song like 'Tell me ma...' but with Gabba!" I knew how awful a combination like this would be, but I kinda couldn't resist the temptation to make something truly the aural equivalent of projectile vomiting. So here it is folks. A terrible Irish folk kinda song, "remixed" into a hellish 240 BPM "Happy Hardcore" / RAVE track. The first half is the pretend-remix, the second half is the original.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

25.03.11 - DAY 84 - Hombres Ride Out

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A collaboration today with Andy Harrison (he has a guitar and he's not afraid to play it) and Adam Orr (who drums both "real" and electronic drums rather well). Andy and Adam are both studying Music Technology at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (S.A.R.C), Belfast. Andy also plays in Queens University Belfast Ensemble (QUBe) along with myself and around 13 other musicians. We decided to create something of a pastiche today, referencing flamenco-style music you'd perhaps hear in cheesy cowboy movies. We threw in some nice glitchy / electronic textures and drums, along with some tasty latin percussion and trumpet, just to balance it all out.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

24.03.11 - DAY 83 - From Bernagh To Mars

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A walk in the Mourne Mountains today. Right to the summit of Mount Bernagh. Great weather. Great views.

Photo by Niall Kelly.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

23.03.11 - DAY 82 - Beggars Can't Be Choosers

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As you'll hear, I'm feeling pretty mellow tonight. Very chilled and looking forward to starting a new job soon that will help fill that missing part of my soul. I can imagine this new job will make me feel that time is more meaningful and it will give me a sense of pride as well as making me feel that I am playing some sort of important role in society again. Yes, I think tonight's song reflects these feelings well.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

22.03.11 - DAY 81 - Music For Time Travellers

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I thought I was being very clever today, soloing with that lovely Rhodes patch over two chords. I then realised that G major and D minor are all the white keys, so I could literally play anything across those keys and provided I didn't hit a black note, it would at least sound harmonically correct. I guess this is similar to how people sometimes tune a guitar to an open chords and just belt it out.

Anyway, all the sounds in this are derived from that one live take on the Rhodes. I took little snippets from that performance, reversed, stretched, filtered and looped them etc. They work as a backdrop to liven up the main track. Sometimes hinting at what's to come, sometimes floating around complimenting the main track. Sometimes it works like a residual reference to the main track. I like this effect.

I've called this Music For Time Travellers as a slight reference to Brian Eno's ambient piece 'Music For Airports', which this is definitely a little influenced by.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

21.03.11 - DAY 80 - Carpe Denim

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Beats and treats today. Aimed for something that would grow and wouldn't be tied so strictly to a structure. Nice floaty synths and vocals. Crunchy spacey beats. I had a lot of fun playing the Rhodes bits.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

20.03.11 - DAY 79 - All This Flawless Wisdom

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Have I managed to capture subtle sarcasm in this song? Hmmm not sure. Hopefully people will understand that guitar solo is definitely taking the piss.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

19.03.11 - DAY 78 - He Done His Best

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A short piece, piano and voice. In terms of length, instrumentation and lyrics, I feel less is more.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

18.03.11 - DAY 77 - What Are We Gonna Do?

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An a capella piece today. All sounds are voice samples, beat box style voice hits and voice loops. Recorded in my bedroom and arranged in Ableton. This one is a little bit tongue in cheek and maybe giving a bit of lip.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

17.03.11 - DAY 76 - Apocalyptic Patrick

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And so we come to pass through another dark hour of the soul. The Hypraxis Index and Martin Byrne empty and unfurl the bowels of distant questions and thoughts. Screaming in agony at the sinister revelations.

Enjoy

Happy St. Patricks Day!

16.03.11 - DAY 75 - I Don't Normally Expose Myself To My Parents / Chilli Sprinkles

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Today's masterpiece features members of the QUBe (Queens University Belfast ensemble). The QUBe is a forum for improvisation and experimentation. Or as some of us like to coin it: "We steal good music and make it worse!"

Conor Barry, Dave Stockard, Andy Harrison, Caroline Pugh, Paul Stapleton and myself all contributed to this piece, along with the general background noise ambience of the Parlour Bar, Elmwood Avenue, where the majority of this was recorded. Additional sounds, percussion and effects recorded at Studio23, Dunmurry.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

15.03.11 - DAY 74 - HHHHWWWhoopah!

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Niall Kelly is nuts. Martin Byrne is very sick, indeed. This is a two layer live performance. It incorporates V-Drums, vocals and lots of processing via Kaoss Pad and VST plugins. Very marginal post-editing (fades and levels). This is truly the deep sub conscious outpourings of our Cyborg-selves.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

14.03.11 - DAY 73 - Chanson de Meh

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Today I'm not particularly feeling it. I wanted to get this done and dusted so I could get on with other things to be frank. I think the general theme and ideas are cool but I don't think I've realised it to it's full potential maybe... Ah well.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

13.03.11 - DAY 72 - Pulling At The Thread

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Another collaboration with Adam Mc Causland today. What else to say? My head hurts from the excesses of the weekend, but I think we managed to write another great piece of music.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

LYRICS:

The storm inside your tea cup

Runneth over

Troubles like an earthquake

Rumbling

Can't get away

From the hangover

Hair of the dog

Is no cure

Do you want me

Diamond dogs

Running free

Out like a log

No escape for you

In your plastic suit

Look at me

Close your mouth

Dismembered

Burning skin

Can't give my heart away

Original sin

Where do we go

My pretty robot

Reset the bone

I got my head

And my toolkit

Deceptive goals

Exceptional

Yes you did say

You can use it

Don't pull that thread

Like a child I'm wandering

A drunken man, rambling

12.03.11 - DAY 71 - Cascades

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Another spin on those "Spinning Plates" - the Ableton Live set up of loopers and effects I've created. I spent a bit of time this evening experimenting with ways to automate the recording of my voice so that I could create a "cascading" effect with the loopers, i.e. timing the record state to kick in on each looper, one after another. And I mean "experimenting" in the traditional, scientific sense (at least G.C.S.E. level of science anyway), where I documented my aims, my experiments, problems, solutions and so on. Finally discovered there was a way to achieve what I wanted and I played with that approach to the set up, then allowed myself to improvise over around it with my controller (the Korg Nano Kontrol is such a great wee piece of kit). Feel this set up is at a point where I could easily turn up at a gig and create a decent range of improvised vocal music for the length of a performance. ... Which is nice...

Also, as schmaltzy as this will read, I want to dedicate this song to the friends that are there for me and who nurture and encourage me in both my creative ideas and in who I am. I just feel there is a time to stop and recognise how fortunate I am to have some really fucking brilliant friends who make me feel valued and who I hope are aware of how much I truly value them too.

Right. Enough of that sort of thing. I'm getting all emotional here...

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

11.03.11 - DAY 70 - Perception / Belief

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Another beautiful collaboration between the very sexy Adam McCausland and the very beardy Martin Byrne :D

lyrics

Yelling
As the worm crawls out
Every movement
Every moment
Is emphasised

Livid
Fluorescent new thoughts
Grinding
Gripping tightly to my soul

I don't know what this is
Do I fear the unknown?
I don't know what this is
But fear won't overcome me

Breathing
A universe in synch
Every wave of life washes through
Laughing because we are so small
And yet of all, in this infinity, we are involved

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

10.03.11 - DAY 69 - Spinning Plates Part 4

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Another live vocal performance thang today. I cheated a little and prepared some of my vocal loops before I hit record, so perhaps one could argue that it's not 100% live. Though the final thing you're hearing was all performed and recorded in one take.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

09.03.11 - DAY 68 - Spinning Plates Part 3

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Another live vocal piece using my "Spinning Plates" approach to looping in Ableton. Recorded at the studio tonight, I've updated the set up to include the Kaoss Pad and I'm now controlling all the midi parameters in Ableton with my Korg Nano Kontrol. These two new ingredients give more options for layering and makes things a hell-of-a-lot easier to perform with. Synching the Kaoss Pad with Ableton was tricky though, as my laptop refuses to communicate with it via USB (crappy Windows drivers strike again!) But I always like a bit of the "punk" ethic of having to wing it.

More sketchpad doodles + Pixlr colouring with the difference tonight being that the image was photographed and transferred to the computer (my scanner is at home).

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

08.03.11 - DAY 67 - Spinning Plates Part 2

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Carrying on from yesterday's track, I decided to make another live vocal piece that is based on my set up in Ableton, that I'm now going to call "Spinning Plates" (not a reference to Radiohead).

Still toying with the idea of dedicating this week to vocal / a capella pieces.

My set up in Ableton is quite fun! It is made up of multiple "Looper" plugins, with a midi controller assigned to certain parameters so that I can switch between each looper track and re-record into them as I perform live. I call it "Spinning Plates" because of the way I switch between the different looper tracks: Re-recording into them is like making them spin again. My motivation to keep the whole performance interesting was to keep updating the looper tracks, so that nothing stayed the same for too long (and became boring). I guess I'm always trying to find the balance between repetition and change when I'm doing these kind of live performances.

As for today's image: It's more sketch book doodling and Pixlr colouring.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

07.03.11 - The Err Chorus

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Today's track came about after watching a short performance by Caroline Pugh at Blick Studios. Caroline is a folk singer who uses a loop station and other experimental techniques to create unique vocal performances. I created a set up in Ableton Live that would allow me to layer several tracks of voice and apply some "slice" effects.

Also, today's artwork came from some doodling I was doing in my new sketch book, followed by a bit of colouring in from my mate, Poopy Bear Face, who was giving me a bit of a crash-course in Pixlr.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

06.03.11 - Some Pretty Things

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Today's track is a little bit more structured than recent uploads. And maybe it's even more "musical" in the sense that it has plenty of melodic/harmonic content. It's fairly dramatic too. Quite pleased with this one.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^