Description : Pure electro mid tempo chillout and upbeat groover with various tribal elements eg shakers, didg and djembes. Lots of lead, arpeggiated wailing synths and 5 or 6 synth basses. Some hip hop thrown in with the drums. All made within Reason software. It's complex but I think it's good fun.
Description : Psychedelic blues hip hop with lead banjo and acoustic resonator slide guitar. Acoustic drum kits, fat basslines, soaring filtered strings, some strong Eastern elements (from guitar and strings), some dub and funk from the bass and drums and a bit of rocking electric guitar. Very unusual piece of music and a trip like no other I've heard. Some of it is like a dark, deep Southern delta blues track over a hip hop and dub backing. All played and programmed by me, no loops used.
Description : BIG UPDATE 26/02/2014 - So, this was an 18 min track that I have now successfully split in two. 2nd half I uploaded a few weeks ago (Things That Should Always Be, with the bouncy 2 min reggae intro). This is the first half, which has a new mix, a mega chill, meditative ending and a little jazz thrown in for good measure. Takes a few minutes for beat to really kick in. Constantly evolving electric guitar, bass guitar, acoustic drums and lead banjo driven by fat, busy 80BPM grooves with a bit of a reggae and shuffle feel. Also: synth choir voices, dulcimer, violin, cello, shimmering pads. Builds up gradually to nice and rocking and then gets taken back down for the big comedown chill. I really don't know what sort of genre this is except 'far out'. I think it sounds more like a live band than one guy playing instruments and manipulating a DAW. Not my best track but a bit of blissful, sunny island fun. Real positive vibe here so I hope you give it a chance to unfold and unfurl. Sit back, clear your schedule and immerse yourself in these trippy sonic experiments cooked up deep in my off-planet underground laboratory. I have to send the MP3 to Earth via space courier (not cheap).
Description : Prepare thyself for an epic hard rock, metal, grunge and ultra heavy funk assault featuring shitloads of heavily layered and sometimes weirdly effected guitars (including slide resonator), multiple basslines (bass guitar + 3 synth basses), a few other synths and a bunch of programmed hard rock and metal drumkits. There's a bit of hip hop in the middle, some hints of reggae (from the guitar) and d'n'b (from the drums) in places. So much energetic guitar, so many double kick and crashing drums and sub basses make for a difficult mix. I wanted it to be absolutely banging but not clipping and distorted. I think I did OK there because it sounds half decent played back on shitty, bassless laptop speakers. If you don't like heavy rocking guitar, you won't like it. But, if you do, you might just love it. It's not just evil metal - I've tried to also keep it funky and melodic as that's more my natural home than all-out brutality. There are a few relatively quieter and strangely chilled out sections as it builds back up to new forms of heaviness and layered psychedelic weirdness. Perspectives and viewpoints welcomed - the more in-depth and interesting the better (the bigger, the fatter, the better). You might want to turn your speakers and sub bass up now...
Description : A gentle, reflective and beautiful shuffle blues piece featuring one of my best ever electric guitar solos (for about half of it). Also has bass guitar, synth bass, two programmed acoustic drum kits, two types of sample-based sitars, a heavenly pad and a distinctive main string part. Special, text-based prizes to be awarded to the best comments!
Description : Chillout, funky fat 95 BPM organic electro led by some fun, tinkly arps. A bit of an organic, tribal feel, especially when the flutes are playing, and some fat smooth synth basses, plus a big fuzzy one later on as the track gets bigger and heavier. Slide resonator guitar in the second half, including a dual slide resonator solo (2 different resonators playing simultaneously sort of duelling with each other). A few drum loops but mostly 3 programmed acoustic kits. The heavy, double time drumming before the flutes return around 3:53 may be a bit unnecessary (I'm not sure, let me know). Interesting reflections, praise, suggestions and criticisms welcome and appreciated. "Nice track bro"-ers can save that unhelpful type of comment for another track (or 50). I hope listening to this transports you to a magical place, even if it is for only a few minutes...
Description : Yet another lengthy psychedelic epic by me, though I'd say they're all quite different. This one has more of a focus on electronic dance music and funk but is based around programmed acoustic drums, bass guitar and electric guitar. Also Rebirth 303 loops I made over ten years ago plus various synth leads, pads, basses, arps and glitch effects. Most of the bass is bass guitar and there's even some slap bass! Fairly uptempo but also chilled out though it builds and goes pretty heavy towards the end, featuring crazy lead distorted synth soloing backed up by some pumping guitar riffs and crashing metal drum kits. I do like this but it's not as good as its sister track Lord Of Misrule https://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/146013. Let me know what you think, what you'd change etc. I hope you have a fun journey through this constantly shifting sonic landscape...
Description : A progressive journey incorporating deep ambient chillout, swing jazz, hip hop, d'n'b, trance and a slight touch of acid with a thousand ninjas battling in space. Features a great deal of my lead slide resonator guitar playing. Also a whole load of synths, programmed acoustic drum kits and manipulated drum loops, big basslines, regular electric guitar, vocoded guitar parts and bass guitar (distorted right at the end). If you like deep chill, far out soaring beauty, fat beats and 170 BPM uplifting slide trance controlled mayhem, you might just get into this. In my heaven there is an endless supply of honey mangoes (an exquisite beauty of the fruit world) and even more slide guitar. A 1,000-year-long version of this track plays there on a loop (long enough not to get bored of it) but here I offer you the Earthly 11 min version. You must be very good to be accepted into my heaven to hear the full thousand year version so best start now. It may be heaven's main theme tune but it's not above criticism so feel free to let me know what you think of it. Maybe you prefer the soundtrack in hell. I hear it's pretty badass...
Description : This unconventional metal track is dedicated to Valvedriver https://www.looperman.com/users/profile/841435 though it's not a parody of his fine music or me actively trying to sound like it. I struggled for months with the first few minutes of this track knowing that I must be able to take it somewhere deeper, more psychedelic and powerful. Then I loaded some sampled choir voice instruments, as used in my track Reckful https://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/160356 and suddenly found myself happily in Valveland - not a place I visit often. Feeling amply Valvedriven and newly inspired, I added the last few minutes fairly easily and very quickly. So: it's a twisting, turning mixture of grunge, menacing ambient, mystical metal and ultra-heavy funk. Instruments: electric guitar+bass, synth basses, female choir voices, one synth pad, some other synths on the nastier side of things and a few programmed heavy acoustic drumkits playing a mixture of triplets and straighter grooves. Interesting thoughts appreciated. Favourite bits? Shit bits? Please listen on good headphones/speakers as there's a lot of heavy bass in this. Now get ready to rock: balls out, hands in the air and with rebellious joy in your heart. Just try not to headbang the hell out of your laptop. Go!
Description : A powerful piece of epic chillout dance music that's something a little different for me. Rhodes and filter swept, bowed strings are heard a lot but there's also one section of rocking guitar, one slide resonator guitar solo, fat basses, various far out pads and other synths and 10-15 drumloops supported by 6 or 7 programmed acoustic drumkits. Look out for the funk section in the middle (3:02) with some delicate grooving from bass and guitar. Lots of beauty here so I really enjoyed making this. My favourite section is the last 90 seconds with some bowed string melodies I find highly memorable and could listen to for hours. Let me know if you have a favourite section/moment as well as any you don't like or think could be improved (that's always possible). Now press play and sample some of what never really ends in my mind but has to in track form so that people will at least attempt to listen to it. It's only a little bit of infinity as infinity is much larger than 10MB so won't fit on Looperman...
Description : "Oh no - not jazz metal! You're not supposed to mix those genres together." Yes, but someone's got to and the musical gods have chosen me for the difficult task. 9 mins of instrumental jazz metal - damn I sure know how to write a hit song - US No 1 here I come. Anyway - there's some dark, swinging groovy jazz, with Rhodes and guitar as the main instruments, for a few minutes and then some haunting, thumping evil breaks loose. Look out for the powerful synth horn sound. And then it just gets heavier and heavier before returning to some nice chillgroove funky mystery jazz. Instruments played and/or programmed: electric guitar, bass guitar, electric cello, multiple programmed acoustic drumkits, filtered strings, Rhodes, big synth bass, evil synth horn and a few other assorted synths. I assume this has too much jazz for metallers and too much metal for jazzers. So, only for weirdoes like me who enjoy both. This will surely be too odd for most people but I like to think it's pretty interesting and powerful. Let me know how its weirdness worked for you...
Description : This started out as hip hop but quickly turned into something much more beautiful, psychedelic and epic though I've still kept the hip hop drums plus added many others. There is a quite a lot of lead bass guitar, sometimes layered, which is partly why I'm dedicating it to Evisma as he loves a good bit of bass layering and has influenced me. Also: electric guitar, resonator guitar for the obligatory slide solo (you've got to have it - it's the law in NomadLand), big pads plus haunting granular synth choir voices, two very different types of programmed VST guitar, fat synth basses, a few drum loops and various programmed acoustic drum kits. There's some deep chill and funky grooves in this constantly changing journey of unravelling sonic mysteries though it gets much more uptempo and rocking in the second half. Interesting thoughts, reflections and ideas are always welcome in NomadLand. Warning: fat beats and deep psychedelic sounds ahead...
Description : Dark, slow, ambient, cinematic jazz with funereal piano turning into something much funkier, psychedelic and beautiful in the second half. Out of the darkness and into the light, you could say. Instruments: electric guitar + bass, lots of synth sounds, including a horn, double bass, another big legato bass, pizzicato strings, two types of piano, a heavily delayed slide guitar instrument, zither, synth arp, one brushy drum loop, kettle drum rolls and 4 programmed acoustic drum kits. This is quite a special track for me and is only the second I've put in the cinematic genre. The more you listen, the more it changes (it even has key changes) and the last three minutes are really quite far out and should probably be longer. Best track I've made for a few months. Interesting thoughts and reflections appreciated. Free sex for the best reviews...
Description : Hard rocking, euphoric and triumphant stoner/slide blues rock with dance and deep ambient elements and some tight grooves. Most of the guitar playing is old recycled slide resonator guitar parts of mine put through some fat distortion. Also features some ethereal, ambient timestretched resonator guitar parts (in the middle breakdown section and at the end) plus some electric guitar and a little bit of bass guitar. This has probably the least synth work of any track I've ever made - just a sub bass and a bass arp patch. A few repetitive dance drum hits and the rest is multiple programmed acoustic drum kits, with the main two being a metal kit and a reggae kit (though there's no reggae in the track) and then other rock kits and a "trash kit". No drum loops. Some serious rocking out here so if you like that sort of thing, you might like this. Let me know what was interesting to you and which were your favourite and least favourite sections. Title is an anagram of 'resonator'. I hope the track isn't too painfully loud but it is supposed to be pretty damn loud. Enjoy...
Description : One of my greatest heavy tracks. What I find unusual is the amount of melodic and deep ambient guitar that sits on top of low, distorted riffs and fat, heavy drums. Very little synth work here apart from the sub bass, which plays almost throughout. Bass guitar in two sections and a couple of slide resonator guitar solos. Drums are a few programmed metal/rock kits, no drum loops. What I still have trouble believing and understanding is that all of the many vocal sounds in this are actually timestretched guitar parts (8x or 800% slower). I don't know why the timestretching adds such a clear vocal component to the sound. Gets darker and more intense in the middle (and towards the end) but this is otherwise quite melodic - perhaps in a way that might put off some metallers. Shitloads of guitar playing, some fairly badass, and lots of heavy, crashing drums so press play if you want to rock hard but also in a deep ambient, psychedelic way. Interesting thoughts and reflections are, as always, greatly appreciated. Detailed comments preferred...
Description : Psychedelic chillout stoner/doom epic. Badass heavy riffage and drumming plus big chillout vibes. Heavy electric guitar plus slow attack lead parts. Other beauty and ambience from filter swept violins, two synth pads and some subtle female vocal samples. Also bass guitar and sub bass. Two programmed, heavy drum kits and one lighter one, to fatten up the sound.
Description : An 80BPM psychedelic, chillout, deep groove electric cello spectacular. It mostly consists of multiple layers of my heavily edited cello playing techniques (harmonics, pizzicato, bowing, tremoloing and a little spiccato) plus drums. Other instruments: bass guitar, 8 bars of electric guitar, Fender Rhodes, a trancey synth, one occasional bass synth and a processed chimey guitar synth. It's fairly minimal instrumentation for me as this is all about my cello explorations as I learn how to play the instrument and what sort of sounds I can get out of it. Drums are programmed hip hop and hard rock kits (2 of each), plus some fun glitch processing on one kit in a middle section. No drum loops. This was quite difficult to make and I've had to show real restraint in not making it longer and not adding any guitar in the rocking last 2 minutes. That just seemed too predictable so I chose not to do it at all. Shimmering, high, bowed, funky cello all the way instead! Have a listen and leave me some interesting thoughts and/or suggestions.
Description : Here is my new genre and I call it 'electrocellometallo', or just 'cellometallo' though this is also a dance track. My aim was to make some dirty groove metal without using any guitar. Instead, all of what sounds like heavy guitar is actually distorted, bowed cello (yes, it's my cello playing). There are also no bass instruments (eg bass guitar, synth bass) as that's cello, yet again. I only played one proper cello bassline - the rest of the bass is incorporated within the dirty cello riffage. Other instruments: Fender Rhodes (clean and then distorted) a few synth arps, a synth pad and soaring, sample-based strings. Lots of fat beat drum loops and two programmed hard rock kits. I enjoyed making this but let me know what you think. Interesting and intelligent analysis appreciated. Humour is also permitted...
Description : A fat groove journey incorporating hip hop, jazz, rock and more. Chilled out and rocking, with some big riffs and basslines. The main instruments are saxophone, piano and cello plus some resonator guitar and banjo. Sax is the only instrument not played by me as the parts here were contributed a few years ago by a guy I know. Anything that sounds like distorted guitar is actually distorted cello. Loads of that, including solos, in the second half. No electric guitar or bass guitar. Not much synth work but there are two synth basses and an organ. Otherwise, it's quite an acoustic "played instruments" kind of sound. Lots of drums, including loops, multiple programmed acoustic kits and drum hits. I know Radiohead have an excellent song called Everything In Its Right Place but I still like my title and there's a story behind it (nothing to do with music). Interesting feedback appreciated. Do you have any favourite or least favourite sections? Details are appreciated...
Description : Cosmic Eastern chillout atmospheric shuffle blues with loads of bluesy/Eastern electric guitar playing and warm sub bass (the same synth patch I've used in about 20 tracks). No drum loops and just two programmed acoustic kits - probably the simplest drum setup I've ever used. One day I hope to make a track containing only one drum kit. Also: a few female vocal samples (including a heavily timestretched one), one section of bass guitar, a few sample-based string instruments, a few notes of organ and two synth pad instruments. So, quite a minimal instrument lineup for me. It goes uptempo around 4:31 into a grooving, stomping bit of shuffle blues and I wonder if I should have brought this section back at the end for a triumphant finale. But I'm trying hard these days not to make things too long and this is already a decent length. Also contains some darker, Eastern sections but nothing too dark. Have a listen and leave me some interesting feedback - the more detail, the better.
Description : Psychedelic, Eastern, dark dance/jazz/fusion based around my cello playing plus minimal other instrumentation. Two sections of electric guitar, one of Fender Rhodes, one synth pad, some swirling female vocal samples and one sub synth bass. Apart from multiple drum loops and programmed acoustic drumkits, everything else is cello, including most of the weird sounds.
Description : A psychedelic techno cello epic. It's not really techno as it's only 110 BPM but something like that (eg breakbeat), with lots of banging beats and arpeggiated acid synths, plus a whole load of my layered cello playing techniques. There aren't that many synths used but they do a lot of work and are carefully automated. No guitar. Drums are mostly a lot of drum loops, supported by a few programmed acoustic drumkits. Very busy and complicated with loads of different sections (funky, chilled, fast, heavy) that make up a constantly progressing trip. I don't know if there's any other cello music like this so let me know if you think there is. Interesting feedback appreciated - criticism, praise, ideas etc. Enjoy...
Description : My heaviest and most extreme track. Also the first with no synths. Crashing and smashing programmed drums and dirty layers of electric guitar (with a psychedelic, Eastern feel at times). Bass guitar plus a slide resonator guitar solo. No drum loops. Don't play this at your grandmother's funeral. Not unless she was a real headbanger.
Description : Deep grooving, slightly psychedelic cello grunge. There's no guitar but there is loads of electric cello, all played by me. The only other instruments are a violin VST, 5 seconds of Rhodes, a fat organ, a few programmed acoustic drum kits and no drum loops. No bass instruments but I do sometimes use an octave effect on cello parts to give a fatter low end. Starts off with some cool, smooth basslines and a funky little beat and then gets a lot more badass. End section is a real dirty rockin' surprise but it's only one distorted cello part plus heavy drums (very minimal). Have a good listen and then consider leaving me your fascinating feedback. Get ready to rock!
Description : Psychedelic Eastern cellhop progressing into a heavy and not at all hip hop ending. Lots of cool basslines and killer beats, all at 80 BPM. Cello is the main instrument and it also covers all the bass parts (no other bass instruments used). I didn't have to add any octave lowering effects to those cello basslines. A few synths, including a dark, trippy pad that gets very psychedelic and swirling when delay and distortion are added. Also a lyre to occasionally add an Eastern drone sound and an 8bit lead sine synth in one section. Drums are mixture of programmed acoustic kits and drum loops. You can really bounce to this shit while firing your guns in the air. So, do that and then come back and let me know if you enjoyed it. Criticism, praise, suggestions etc all welcome. Now get ready to bounce...
