I know a kid who thinks he's hip hop cause he buys it
I know a kid who thinks he's hip hop cause he never buys shit
Underground or mainstream
Some are bound to change schemes.

     -- Sage Francis, Underground For Dummies

So I'm listening to Sub.FM a lot lately -- I first saw it mentioned on Warren Ellis' twitter -- seeing as dubstep and its related spinoffs seem to be the in thing of late, and for once I actually like the genre. (There's also the more obviously-titled Dubstep.FM, but I'm not so keen on that one; DubTerrain is pretty neat though.) The quality of the stream's not brilliant, but in a conversation elsewhere there was some talk of audio enhancers. Normally I'm skeptical of these, but mikosquirrel pointed me in the direction of the DFX Audio Enhancer, which (on certain types of music at least) works really well; with dubstep, you can crank the bass to obscene, bone-shuddering levels, as it should be.

( In which I ramble a bit about music and other cultural stuff. )

Finally a couple of arty type things that I rather like: Multicolr Search Lab lets you pick up to 10 colours and use them to navigate a selection from "10 million of the most 'interesting' Creative Commons images on Flickr". It's a nice idea. Also, New Math is all kinds of awesome; reminds me a bit of one of my favourite artists, Jenny Holzer.

So, based on various people's comments, the view on Twitter seems fairly sharply polarised, with some people quite vehemently against it. (Personally, I like it a lot.) As this post is not so much about Twitter but more things from there, I think I'm safe to proceed with only a reference to nidonocu's rather eloquently-put post, "Twitter, or how I learned to stop worrying and love 140 characters". For what it's worth, although I still have the service set up to ship tweets to LJ, I've now set it so only tweets with a certain tag will appear, and even then (assuming it works) they'll be under a cut. And surely, if scrolling past a cut tag is that much of an issue, then it's not just my entries you'll have trouble with.

( Anyway, without further ado... )

So, I've been playing with a few new toys recently, both software and hardware.

( First up, and my favourite thing in ages... )

Finally, it's worth mentioning that I'm looking into expressing creativity in writing; two books I got recently, Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down The Bones (which treats writing as Zen practice), and The Ode Less Travelled, a book on writing poetry by the ever-lovely Stephen Fry, have made me think about giving it a try.

So, this has been a pretty awesome weekend. I've got a lot done, and I'm feeling generally in a positive frame of mind. Hopefully things will continue in this vein; for now at least, I figured I'd make a record of what's been going on.

( I guess it starts with Friday night. )

Overall, it's been a very good weekend. Although at the moment I'm far from depressed, my stepdad sent me a link to a very good article by Clare Allan, on the Guardian site: One of the very worst features of depression is the impossibility of communicating the reality you are in to anyone outside it.

I've taken out a paid membership for 3 months for my DeviantArt account, as well as having put a couple more pictures up there. Hopefully it'll be worthwhile; it's good karma if nothing else. Along similar lines, I wanted to give a regular small donation to Soma FM as I listen so often, but there's a bit of trouble with PayPal at the moment (it's set up with my mum's card, and we can't remember the password) so I've not been able to do that as of yet. I did a little more work on the computer though -- freed up a load of space by deleting crap I never use, and installed all the old Fallout games to have another play through.

Also, I've been meaning to update my profile, since they changed the layout, but I haven't found time for that yet. I'll make a note when it's changed; for now I should get something to eat and go to sleep.

So, now I'm back home from nearly 3 weeks with my folks, I figured I'd spend some time writing about what happened, seeing as I didn't manage to find the time to write while I was there.

( I'm going to split it into two posts to avoid WALL OF TEXT. )

The last thing I want to mention on the creative front, and something that kind of leads into the next post I want to make, is that I got Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg; it looks at writing as a form of Zen practice, and I'm hoping it'll give me some ideas to not only write better in general, but also perhaps to start doing some more creative writing as well -- I've always rather envied people who manage NaNoWriMo and suchlike.

I think the best thing, really, that's come of all this is a sense of hope and greater confidence in myself. I'm a bit behind with uni work -- on the photography course at least -- but I should be able to catch up, and the tutor for the arts course I'm doing called me the other night to introduce herself and give some advice. We also arranged for a tutorial by phone next Wednesday, by which point I need to have read the first chapter of the textbook. Should be manageable, and with a bit of luck I'll successfully complete both courses this time.

Oh, and I changed my journal layout and posted the answers to that lyrics meme.

Happiiy, there's more good stuff to talk about today. I've been pretty busy since I last wrote, but (mostly) in a good way.

First up, I've put some of my new art online; after looking for a place to host images and music, as I already have a place for ordinary photographs. I returned to DeviantArt (as electricdog) after a six year absence -- my old account, straywulf, has some very old artwork, but I may repost some of that on the new one, which currently has 5 pieces not posted elsewhere, three of them brand new.

I also got an account on SheezyArt, which -- unlike DeviantArt -- accepts music as well as images, but there were issues with the site yesterday so I've not yet uploaded anything there.

Talking of music, I wish I'd seen this Penny Arcade strip before I named my 'band' -- Schrödinger's Wolfman would be an awesome name.

Finally on the subject I've added a few bits to my Miscellany gallery, all or less of which may be amusing.

( There is yet more. )

I've not been neglecting my spiritual side either. I managed to get Natural Radiance by Lama Surya Das, a book and CD set of teachings on Dzogchen, something which I've been wanting to practice ever since I heard about it. I've found the set to be incredibly useful and effective, and I'm not even halfway through yet. Also, I got an email telling me about the Foundation Course now available on the Free Buddhist Audio site; along with the downloadable talks, it's proving to be a valuable resource.

There's a little bit of a downside though. Despite getting all this creative stuff done and potential courses coming up, I've sacrificed a holiday to Amsterdam in order to study. And, although I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of my games, books, and so on lately, and as much as I prefer to be solitary, I'm still getting pretty lonely. Hopefully that'll pass in time, and I'll have classes to keep me occupied.

• Schrödinger's Dog - Digital Headache [1:58, 130bpm, 3mb]

  
  
  A icy little minimal techno arrangement I put together on Thursday night after the Hard Drive, having been listening to too many wipE'out" soundtracks (thanks huskion) on my mp3 player of late. I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out, though I think I probably could have extended the idea into a longer track. If I was better at animation, I'd make some kind of video to go with it. Click the image for the bigger version.

Quite a bit's been going on these last few days since I got back, and I haven't really had time to process it all yet. I want to write and get things down, but there's a lot of stuff I have to sort through first and I haven't had the time. At least I've had chance to do something creative, though. Hope folks like.

[edit: at huskion's suggestion, I modified the track slightly to make it sound a bit less harsh:

• Schrödinger's Dog - Digital Headache (Alternative Mix)

The highs are softened and the whole thing is a little deeper and more atmospheric; even though I'm listing this as an 'alternative' mix, I think it's probably the better version.]

Image by skyseeker

Schrödinger's Dog - Sakura [Trip-Hop / 70bpm / 4:42 / 7.3mb] Another piece that I'd been working on and forgotten about, this is supremely chilled trip-hop. I've decided to dedicate this track to the awesome folks at HardDrive.FM. To paraphrase H2G2, it's so laid back it's practically horizontal, so chilled you could keep a side of meat in it for a month. The title has a lot of meanings; as an article I found points out, Sakura holds of lot of significance for the Japanese...

I'd use one of my own photographs to go with this, but I didn't have anything suitable; that's the beauty of Creative Commons, I guess. I'm planning to take more pictures soon, though, and I have a couple of links to post on the subject. First of all, someone from b3ta has a pretty useful Beginner’s Guide to HDR, and El Reg has an article about police action against photographers, which is pretty worrying stuff.

To sneak in a couple of more light-hearted links, these t-shirts are all kinds of awesome, and this is possibly the best edit of a webcomic that I've ever seen.

Hope folks like the music...

I thought I'd try writing some music the other day, and although I made some degree of progress, the best thing I found was an old piece vaguely in the style of Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka; I finished it up, insofar as I could, and I figured I'd post it here.

Schrödinger's Dog - Theme from Nowhere (2:30, 3.8mb) While I've classified this broadly as 'dark ambient', it also has elements in common with musique concrète and electroacoustic music. I think what I'm most pleased with about this piece is that (by happy accident more than design) I've managed to make it sound like the music's being played/recorded live on real instruments, rather than the samples that are actually being used. On the downside, it does finish rather abruptly.

I do have a few more tracks to post (2 or 3 I think), but they're not on the PC yet so it'd entail lugging stuff through here and transferring the music over; I just haven't got around to that yet.

So, today's been pretty goddamn awesome. I fell asleep really early last night (no idea when, can't have been later than 10pm at most) so woke at 5am, and I've been up since. I've got quite a lot done, though, and it's virtually all been good.

( In which I ramble about NIN for a bit, then move onto other topics. )

Back home, I got back into playing Lost Odyssey -- a thoroughly excellent RPG with the most depth to a main character I've seen since Planescape: Torment -- and beat the first disc (of four). Since then, I tried (and was pleased with) a couple of cheap PS2 games I got with the leftover credit I had from trading stuff in to get Lost Odyssey and Odin Sphere last Friday, then came on here to talk with friends and write this journal.

I've got things to look forward to as well. Tomorrow, I'm meeting kyu_diary in town and spending some time with him -- I've not seen him in a while -- then (as I mentioned earlier) seeing kitsunefury in the evening, and going with him to the Buddhist centre. Further into the future, my stepdad's booked us tickets to see the comedian Ed Byrne in April, who (according to Wikipedia, at least) "is currently writing a sitcom [...] about two gay men who begin living together after meeting on a comedy panel show about owls". You couldn't make this shit up.

I'm really tired now, so I'm going to wind things down over maybe the next hour or so and go to bed. A day well spent, I think.

I got back home yesterday, and despite a warning about torrential rain and gale force winds, the weather was -- at worst -- a bit wet, and thus didn't impede the journey. The weather today is considerably less pleasant, but I managed to get out and around town before the worst of it.

Anyway, I worked on some new music last night, and have three tracks to share. I'll put them up on Jamglue or MySpace at some point, in all probability, but I figured I'd post them here first.

Schrödinger's Dog Spacy Stimulation
1. 49-DR-GN	100bpm	Electronic	2:26	3.8mb
2. Drowned Sky	120bpm	Illbient	2:51	4.5mb
3. Lumin8	125bpm	Ambient Techno	2:25	3.9mb

Artwork based on a picture by Sven Geier.

That's pretty much all I have to post right now. I have games to play, things to watch, and I really should get something to eat. As ever, comments on the music are very, very welcome, and I think this is some of the best stuff I've written in a while, almost back to the style of when I used the name Anechoic Frame; and, although I wasn't able to achieve exactly the sound I wanted in Lumin8 and may try and rework it at some point, I'm very pleased with the way the other two tracks came out. There may or may not be more added to this release in the future; it's for a specific subset of my music, and I'm not sure if I'll work on that again anytime soon.

[edit: hi to new friends on Last.fm. also, the new Autechre is pretty cool.]

It's been some time since I've written here -- my last post was just over two weeks ago, and the last public one a week before that -- and so I feel it's about time I made a post.

Things have been pretty variable these last few weeks, and there's little point in detailing every up and down. More to the point, I at least managed to find the medicine I'd misplaced and got my glasses repaired, so everything's OK on that front.

( Cut for rambling about games. )

Other than that, while I've been out and about I've taken a number of photos; nothing's online yet, but I found that with the cheaper camera I got, tweaking the settings to a certain degree offsets its limitations (mainly a poor CCD) and enables it to function as a reasonably-competent black-and-white camera. The more expensive cam, which will produce images of far higher quality, has still barely come out of the box; I have at least another hundred pages of manual to read before I know how to operate the thing properly -- beyond the standard point-and-shoot functionality, at least, and I'm not content with that alone.

I also updated my profile, deleted a few friends that hadn't updated in a year or more, nuked a couple of activity-free communities I used to own, and added a few more userpics. I've also started using Twitter -- now I can finally access the site -- for semi-pointless little messages, or 'microblogs' if you prefer; I like it regardless, if for no other reason than it's really neat to be able to update it from my phone. That's also aggregated on Iminta (invites available if anyone wants), along with updates from StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Digg, and so forth.

I mentioned a while back about the Dalai Lama giving teachings in Nottingham in May; after discussion with my folks, we decided the best plan was to buy the tickets and worry about the practicality later, which we have done. There's plenty of time to work the logistics out, and I think it'd be really great to go -- but I know it might not happen, so I'm trying not to set my hopes too high. Similarly, going to that might -- though by no means definitely -- preclude a trip to Amsterdam for my birthday, as we've done the last few years. There's still ample chance for both to happen though, and I think that'd make for a really great summer.

Finally, a couple of things that don't fit anywhere else: I've written some new music, but there seems to be little interest in it here, so I've just stuck it up on MySpace; the tracks A More Perfect Tomorrow and Ascension Manifest haven't been posted anywhere before. I've also been a bit more active in terms of sorting out relationships -- be that friends or (possibly) more -- and, sort of on that note, I confirmed that foxb has moved to Sheffield, so I should hopefully get to spend some time with him soon.

( I got a fair bit done these last couple of days. )

I was supposed to be telepresent at the Dream Machines workshop today, as I'd got hold of the right dates too late to physically attend, but due to oversleeping and other factors (didn't get to bed until late-ish, then couldn't get to sleep for ages, then was ill) I missed the opportunity. However, I've been invited to discuss some things via Second Life tomorrow morning, if I have the opportunity. Failing that, I've asked to be kept in the loop if anything similar happens in the future.

I've also been approved for half-price concessionary tickets to see H.H. the Dalai Lama giving teachings in Nottingham in May. The concession won't be processed until next Monday, which gives me time to look into travel and accomodation; still, to use an albeit-accurate cliché, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I really hope I can make it, though it may come down to a choice between that and a trip to Amsterdam for my birthday.

The reason I was up late last night was due to finishing off a piece of music, the first of 2008. I'm very happy with it, so I figured I'd post it here along with other stuff, maybe repost it on its own later (or if I can find some good music communities on here):

• Schrödinger's Dog - Kyoto Midnight Garden (160bpm, 4:10, 6mb)
  
  This started off as a few ideas while I was away from home, then later became a drum'n'bass track, and the final version (thanks Ishkur and Wiki) is pretty much neurofunk. Inspired by roughly equal parts Susumu Yokota and Ken Ishii, with a dash of Ghost in the Shell philosophy. Really pleased with this one.

Tomorrow, amongst other things, I need to pick up a few more techy bits; a bunch of audio interconnects, some more network cable so I can connect the PS2, 360 and PC at once without having to swap wires, a USB cable or two, and a USB hub, to let me connect more than two USB devices (currently keyboard and mouse) to the PS2. I could probably do with some more rechargeable batteries for my cameras as well, and possibly a microphone.

Other than that, I'm going to try and make it to the Buddhist centre in the evening if the weather isn't too hideous, and kitsunefury (who visited on Friday) is interested in coming too, on the Wednesday; that's when the next introductory course starts, something I've already been through with steel_phoenix and kyu_diary.

( Pretty much everyone has done this meme, but I didn't have Photoshop while I was away. )

Now, I actually have a *real* ep to promote. It's called Sanshou, and has three tracks, the first two of which are lightly edited from versions I posted previously. Japanese titles as translated ably or otherwise by freedict; artwork and all music are entirely my own, and the Creative Commons license applies as usual:

Schrödinger's Dog - Sanshou EP Namigashira (3'07", 120bpm, 4.7mb, Ambient Techno) Tengai (4'49", 133bpm, 7.2mb, Progressive Dark Trance) Yumegokochi (6'15", 145bpm, 9.9mb, Psybient)

I'd also like to take the opportunity to promote my good friend lord_kook's latest musical output, the minimod ep over at glowfish. He made a post about it about 10 days ago, but I got to hear it a bit before that, I think, and enjoyed it a lot. Also, serfox wrote this track, which is also pretty neat, as is this by kageri. Yay.

I'm working on making my music available from other sources than LJ and MySpace, but it involves some fiddling about, so it's not quite ready yet. Next place I'll upload stuff is probably Facebook, though I've got accounts on various other places now too, so I should be able to distribute it a bit better.

Finally, while I was away from home, I wrote my first track of 2008. I still need to transfer it over to the PC and do a bit of editing, but I'm really pleased with the way it turned out; I mean, I like this EP that I'm posting now, but the new track is something special. I'll post it soon.

Just a few things I want to catch up on before I go away; I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon to go stay with my mum and stepdad, and I doubt I'll be online much, and even then, probably only after they've gone to bed. Also, I am atrocious at keeping this thing up to date lately.

( So on and forthwith. )

I've worked on a couple of new tracks, though; figured I'd post them in the context of another entry as I don't often get a lot of feedback if I just make a purely music post, so here goes:

• Schrödinger's Dog - Namigashira
  Ambient Techno / 120bpm / 3:08 / 4.78mb
  
  With this piece, I was trying for a similar sound to that of net.label Thinner; I think I did quite well, and I'm pleased with the track as a whole. It's night-time music, maybe for driving somewhere, with echoed, layered beats and synths; elements of ambient music, techno, and deep house here.



• Schrödinger's Dog - Tengai
  Progressive Dark Trance / 133bpm / 4:49 / 7.2mb
  
  This is one of the bassier, faster (and longer) tracks I've put out. I started with this sawtooth hook and built it mostly around that; although the track has two distinct phases, I'm still not totally happy with how it ends. It's a bit dancier than my usual stuff, but still designed for headphones; there's still some darker elements to it too. I may go back to this at some point and extend it; as it stands, it's slightly uneasy listening, but I think I managed to achieve a good atmospheric feel with it.

Also, I think I already mentioned this, but shirosirius asked me recently if he could use some of my music for a university project; as it's licensed under Creative Commons, I couldn't really say no (I wouldn't have anyway; he's a really good friend). I was a little surprised that he chose a pretty old track, Icecast, but it's one that I was pretty pleased with at the time. He's also going to give me some help using digital video, which my new camera can do; I've never used it before, so I'm not sure how much of my knowledge will apply, as I learned on VHS.

Anyway, the video's finished now, and it's up on YouTube, and embedded ( behind the cut. )

Just to make it clear, the only part of that video that's by me is the music. I think it's a really good video though; I'm impressed, and hopefully I'll be getting to see Shiro while I'm away from home.

It's a while away yet, but I've been thinking a little about getting hold of some creative tools in the new year, as I usually get a fair sum of money from my grandparents at Xmas -- not that I really celebrate it, being a Buddhist and all, but it's nice to see family. That, and assuming he hasn't sold the house and moved by then, my dad makes a pretty good Xmas dinner.

( Anyway... )

There's a few bits of creative stuff done by others that I wanted to mention too. First of all, abiku linked me to James Jean's artwork for one of the Fables TPB's, which is just gorgeous. It has wolves. (To sneak in another quick animal-related link, this is the best page on the internet, if cuteness is any kind of measure. Baby big cats!)

Over on Vox some time back, I made a post about The Fountain, and someone responded saying I might like these micro films from the movie. I figured I may as well share that here.

Back to photography for a moment, and the BBC has a story and pictures about Cathal McNaughton, winner of the Fujifilm Photographer of the Year award.

Finally, I've been liking Michael Whelan's artwork; I'd not heard of him before, but he beautifully illustrated the covers to Tad Williams' Otherland series, and I got interested that way. I'm thinking to get a print of the cover of City of Golden Shadow and frame it.

[edit: I forgot to mention that shirosirius has asked to use some of my music for a university project, and as my work's released under a Creative Commons license, I agreed (though it was nice of him to ask first). He wants to use Icecast, an old piece from 2005, and make a mock-up advert for it, as if it was being released as a single. Seems pretty neat, and he's said he'll send me the video when it's done, so I'll be posting that here.]

So, I've been working a few things out with regard to playing imports and other stuff on my PS2. There's some uncertainty about whether the ELF loader/Independence exploit can run things from optical media -- to use this exploit, and also to modify some games and other functions (more on that in a bit), I bought an Action Replay Max Evo -- so to compensate for the possibilty of that not working (and it's a tricky method at best anyway), I got the SwapMagic system. This entails putting a special disc in the PS2, then using a shaped plastic card to hook out the CD tray, switch it for the import or backup game, and then shut it again and hook onto another part of the CD tray to properly close it. It's a fairly low-tech method, and a little difficult to get the hang of, but I've confirmed that it works with most if not all games I've tried. (I don't actually have any import games yet, so I was trying with UK ones; only one of the dozen orso that I tried didn't load.) [edit: actually, the Action Replay doesn't load half the time (you get the PS2 Red Screen of Death saying it's not a proper disc), and so I've taken to booting it via SwapMagic. Silly, but it works every time that way.]

( moar )

Finally, a couple of creative things: neillparatzo has some utilities on his site enabling the extraction of music files from various game formats; I've not looked into this in detail as of yet, but it occurs to me that this would be an interesting project, as I've often been rather impressed by reworkings of game music on sites such as OCRemix, and I'd like to try my hand at that sometime. Indeed, there's several commercially-available pieces of music creation software for the PS2, and when I find the cables, I'll transfer my work to the PC. (Another digression: I've been marginally confused recently when listening to netradio, and hearing samples I've used in my own music in tracks by other people. It's not that weird, I suppose, but slightly disconcerting in that I expect it to continue into the song I wrote. I'll be doing more when my course starts on the 26th, though I've not yet had confirmation of that.)

I also heard back at last about this machinima project I'm meant to be working on; apparently we didn't get the grant we initially applied for as it wasn't marketable enough or something (yeah, because creativity is all about the money), but we did get a smaller research grant, so I should hopefully be working on that before the end of the year.

I'm getting my phone back tomorrow in all probability, after about a month without it, so people can get in touch with me again; and, after after repeatedly getting flyers about it in orders from Amazon, I (rather pointlessly, though it was very cheap) got some business cards and other bits and pieces from VistaPrint. I might sell some of my own stuff on eBay, so I could stick a card in there with the goods or something as well, but overall I guess it wasn't really something I needed -- not like that's stopped me before.

Three new tracks:

• Schrödinger's Dog - Data Drain 5.5mb / 3:48 / Trance / 120bpm
  
  This is inspired by Project .hack, chiefly .hack//Sign; trancey goodness with a bit of a retro feel to it. Note that this is an original piece, not a remix of the track(s) with the same title from the various .hack OST's. That would probably go on OCRemix.



• Schrödinger's Dog - Decompression 7.4mb / 4:53 / Nu Jazz / 80bpm
  
  Thankyou Wikipedia's List of electronic music genres; leisurely-paced grooves with a dash of IDM-ish beats. The name comes from the tag 'Sunday decompression' on Last.fm; it's the sort of thing you might hear there, or on Soma.fm's 'Groove Salad'. Quite possibly one of my best, at least according to lord_kook.



• Schrödinger's Dog - Firebreak 3.4mb / 2:16 / Minimal Techno / 125bpm
  
  I found this by accident when I loaded up one of my music programs; it was obviously the last thing I'd been working on with that software, and it didn't take much to finish it off and call it done (more-or-less; this is on Junk Systems, after all, a collection of ideas and fragments). Ear-tickling stereo seperation, soaring and growling synths, and processed beats combine in what's a fairly pared-down and fast track by my standards.
  
  Previously: Song of Broken Wings

Overall I'm pretty pleased with this latest set of tracks, both with the quality of the final mix and what I've learned by experimenting with a few new ideas. Hopefully other folks will enjoy these too, and (as always) I'd really appreciate any feedback. There's also still a small hope of getting some music hardware very cheaply; someone I vaguely know online was wanting to get rid of a Digitech Quad 4, Nord Micromodular, Yamaha TX81Z and a Yamaha CS1X. I've not heard anything back yet, so maybe it isn't going to happen, but it'd still be cool. I kind of regret passing up on the opportunity to get a Korg Kaoss pad when I saw one in the pawn shop a while back, but maybe after Xmas or whatever I might look into hardware a bit more -- though I'm also still waiting to hear about this music course that's meant to be starting this month, using Logic and ProTools and such.

I have a ton of other stuff to write about too, but I've been either really busy or feeling really ill (occasionally both) in the last week orso. I'm out again in about an hour, so I'll likely post again over the weekend sometime.

So, over the last couple of days, I wrote a new track for my forthcoming album. That's 4 down (5 down, technically, but I'll get to that in a minute), and 5 (or 4) to go, assuming I don't increase the number of songs.

Schrödinger's Dog - Song of Broken Wings (3:30, 4.93mb .mp3)

Darkly dreamy progressive psytrance/psychill, with sweeping synths and bassy beats vying for attention. The vocals here are like another instrument, a texture in the fabric of the song, with underlying tension beneath it all.

This is from the second triptych on the album, and the titles for this group of three tracks come from the lyrics to the Neurosis album Through Silver in Blood.

For those of you keeping score at home, this is actually track 5, but the fourth one to be released. Track 4, Ascension Manifest, a piece of tech house that I'm quite pleased with, is on another machine and I haven't got access to it right now until I buy some cables.

Previously: Zone of Fire

( More music and tech stuff )

Finally, via CDM, Kepler's Orrery (needs Java) is rather lovely. Generative music with physics. (Also, changing the colour temperature both on my monitor and the colourscheme I've used for Windows has made me feel a whole lot more comfortable using the computer. Go figure.)

• Schrödinger's Dog - Zone of Fire (3:54, 6mb .mp3)
  
  Progressive, semiorganic trance with dark undercurrents, loosely based on/inspired by Galerians. This is the third track for the nine-track album The River of Light, which I'm hoping to finish by the end of the year; this completes the opening triptych of songs (the first two in this sequence being Ghosts in the Snow and Fire or Snow, respectively). The finished album will comprise three sets of three songs each.
  
  Feedback, as always, is welcomed.

( More music news )

On the downside, Fopp, my favourite record shop, has closed down its 105 stores, after being in business for 25 years. I've yet to find anywhere that even comes close to how good it was. At one point I was going to have my music distributed via their stores, but obviously now I'm going to have to look elsewhere.

Also, when I was getting ready to go out today, I found that my mp3 player was damaged. The spring that holds the negative end of the battery was loose, and in attempting to fix it, it snapped away from the circuit board. I doubt it can be fixed, and from browsing what was available in CEX, I'm looking at about £40 for a similar product as a replacement.

The subject line, by the way, is just a random phrase that got stuck in my head, possibly through listening to too much post-hardcore and the like. Maybe I'll use it for something, eventually.