RobotBlogger

So we've been a bit busy in the studio. Two projects: Recording a singer songwriter Mike S 'Unsung Heroes', and doing a remix of a Dntel track. Dntel is a member of Figurine, The Postal Service, and is one of the founders of microhouse. While i'm not fond of the name, i do dig some glitch, and find some of the early microhouse stuff to be great to work to. Isolee in particular has some fantastic stuff and is a favorite of mine. It reached #3 for all of Metacritic in 2005 - pretty surprising for glitch techno.

Recording Mike was a lot of fun. We did all the tracks live, and it only took a few takes. Our live/recording room is pretty wet and bouncy with the 10 meter ceilings, so i decided to mix in some stereo ribbon mics in a secret configuration for a bit of a live/ambiance sound. The vocals are through a tube condenser mic, which i've heavily modified (surprised it works still!). He's got 4 more tracks which we're in the middle of working on. They're freakin awesome. Mike has such a great voice.

Here's the first track Beautiful

The Dntel track is a bit of a downer. The original is about a washed-up rockstar, unhappy with friends and life in general. We only took the vocals from the original and added everything else. Listening to it again, i'd change 1000 things... What's that saying? 'Art isn't finished, it's abandoned' ...? This is like that i guess. Brie did a great job on all the keyboards, my guitars however are a bit nasty...

Dntel 'Dumb Luck' AdamandBrie_mix

Next up: Finish Mike's tracks. Get him a tidy demo together. Then continue some AdamandBrie remixes, as well as some stuff from another project called 'Viscount' which is.. well.. i'm not sure exactly how that is going to turn out yet... and isn't that all the fun?

Ok, this is like so totally out of order. Brie and i are in Melbourne, an utterly fantastic city. There's been a number of things to blog about, but i'll have to get to them after this, for this is Melbourne and it's worth blogging about right now.






Australian cities are hard to describe, and that might be what's so special about them. LA is like LA, Vancouver like Vancouver, NYC, London, Paris, San Fran, Istanbul, Berlin - dare i say Naniamo, like their respective Naniamos. The peas and carrots don't touch that much, each one rather unique and separate.



Then there's Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. I'll leave Sydney and Brisbane for now, so let's talk Melbourne, since i'm here and it's new and fun.

I sort of sat here for a sec trying to make a metaphor for what Melbourne is like. Thinking about mixtapes, and fashion and TV dinners and how 'the remix' has been the core component of fashion and music since the 90's. Melbourne was around before the 90's, i'd guess, and it was likely appreciated before then too. Funny how it foreshadowed the remix before there even was a mainstream the-remix.

Should any Melburnian be reading this, it shouldn't startle to think that this might be offensive. San Fran is like Melbourne! To be sure, it works that way around also. Everything is relative. I'm just speaking from my personal frame of mind.









What the hell do i mean by this. I mean, Melbourne is like a compilation album, a greatest hits, a mix of familiar things from all over in one package. Familiar and new somehow at the same time. One minute it feels a bit like London, then like San Fran, then like Vancouver - you know - until a parrot flies by or you notice that towering palm tree.

They kept their trams










Brie on a bridge










Hey look! I'm growing a pole out of my head!







More to come...