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Is done! Here’s a taste:

Phylum Sinter - From Unity To Segmentation

Thanks to Shift @ Futurorg for the design. See his site at www.futurorg.com

Album progress: 93% done! One song to go.

^FREE-NESS^

protip: click above image to skip longwinded post and get to the free album.

Hello Friends,

Today i’ve decided to give away my Exclusive Remasters 2004-2006 collection to everybody as a free download.
Previously it was burned and sold only at shows and given to people who donated $5 or more through the donate link on my myspace music page.
While you’re still more than welcome to donate as a way of supporting my experiments, and if you did i’ll still burn a CDr along with some goodies as thanks for your support and all, the whole collection can now be downloaded by any and everyone that wants it.

Just go to the Exclusive Remasters 2004-2006 page at last.fm and follow the little blue text. Should say ‘free download’ right next to each title.
Additionally, you can stream the whole thing from the player there, so have at it!

Consider this an early Hanukwanzmas present from me to all of you, in thanks for all the support and kind(red) words and spirits i’ve met so far.

Much love,
c.
todd
phylum_sinter

p.s. i know you may have seen this elsewhere, i’m putting it on all three of my most updated spots. Consider my technolust and juggling ability optimal as long as the motivation is strong.

In proper-use-for-this-blog news, the EP is very, very close to completion – only two tracks left to go. I’m hoping to still get those last two interviews (with Set In Sand and Hecq) in before the album goes live. Blogs are hard. See the other ones for other music related news though, i’ve been busy.

Even though it’s Tuesday morning officially (as per the star in the sky), it’s still monday night for me.

Down to business, MAYBE just in summary form this time?

• The Interview with Set In Sand hasn’t happened yet.  It should be the next weekly update if not before.
• Tracklisting for the album is now official – no more edits are possible (drat?).  I’ve given them to the designer and they’ve been transformed into part of the design.
• Next track to be finished is called ‘Midnight Alembic’, expect a bit of it to show up here/myspace by next saturday, August 9th.

Aw, maybe some of it can’t be summed up… That’s what i get for having so much coffee so late at night.

So i’ve been digging through my archives of live stuff in hopes of figuring out my identity (as it is perceived, live) and incorporating some of the techniques used there into the studio arranging process.  Pretty tricky, been a very long time since i’ve done anything completely live.  My current computer wouldn’t let me record stuff live even if i wanted to; IT IS JUST TOO SWEET heh.  Really though my laptop is a total dinosaur and the arrangement process is far removed from the “Phylum Sinter live-show setup” of yore.

The gist –  While digging through the boxes i’ve found a few things that i like enough to share them, so i’ve decided to release a live album titled ‘Pissed Up & Near Blind’ To be released on my own imprint in early 2009.  It might be free and internet-only, we’ll see.  For now, i’ve got some placeholder art:

…There’s also a track from this live collection on my myspace page too, at the top of the player.  It’s called ‘Oh, Dont’ and you can download it here.  It’s a bit funkstorung-y, emphasis on beats but i dig it.

See you soon!

[note: all links are BOLDED].

BULLET POINT SUMMARY OF RAMBLING NONSENSE:

• Monday offically ‘BLOG UPDATE DAY’.
• Art for the album is nearly complete!  Tim [Aka Shift.] @ Futurorg at the helm and doing a wonderful job dealing with my irrational requests for album concept cohesion with the visuals.
• Radio PRUN 92fm, out of Nantes has played me. the show is called Triangle.
• The 1st track from the album (titled ‘A Long Day Ends‘) now finished.  excerpt now on myspace.
• NEXT WEEK: Set In Sand interview!!!

It’s Monday, and my whiteboard tells me that it’s my designated blog update day.  This week there is more than just rambling yaddas to mention though.  Honestly.

As any of the 9 people that hit this page may have recognized, this blog doesn’t get as much attention as it really could by its’ author.  Maybe i’m not cut out for the whole “keeping tabs on my work progress” thing — it takes cracking the whip from other sources to remind me to post stuff here.  Of course, not having a label/pr/manager type person constantly asking me to keep people informed is part of the equation.  There are many larger (in audience and number of actual players) bands that i speak to who do play ball at their management’s request.  This blog was my own idea though, and thus the enthusiasm i had when i decided that it could be neat is constantly swinging from “very much” to “do what now?”

So the enthusiasm, right — well i am genuinely happy to have a designer on board for the  album’s art.  For awhile it was just me, and though i have many lovely designer friends i ultimately chose shift [aka Tim] from Futurorg.  His work is not to be missed.  Hit the link there to see what he’s done.  The cover concept is more or less completed and i’m very happy with the results so far.

A show based out of Nantes, France called ‘Triangle‘ on PRUN 92fm has played some of my music, click the link there to listen to the latest show — wherein my music can be heard at a few points in the broadcast.

For album related information — the 1st track from the album is now FINALLY FINISHED.  Hear an excerpt from the song ‘A Long Day Ends’ up on myspace right now!  Arrangement is the hardest part of writing these days.  My computer just won’t play the full arrangements live, so my way of working has changed completely over the past few months.  I think it results in more slow, sweeping changes in the music, and is closer to orchestrating songs more than just banging them out.  Less live, more planned has many benefits though, and this album will (hopefully) provide a good example of those.

Crap this is getting long, i’m going to put a summary at the top…

Next week: an interview with remixer/friend/genius Set In Sand! — come by next Monday for the full thing.  Any questions or comments you’d like to have included can be posted to here as replies and i’ll try to work them into the interview when it happens over the weekend.

And that’s all i’m writing for now.

I’ve just gotten an email confirming that i’ve been selected to play one [of no-doubt a billion] afterparties at this year’s DEMF!

This has happened as a direct result of Xynthetic’s support and their sending Paxahau (The masterminds behind DEMF 2008) a fantastic collection of Demos for live consideration. It’s an honor to have been chosen and it looks like i’ll be debuting much material from this EP at this show!
Yay!

More details as things develop.

This news literally had my hair on-end. Yes, i just have one hair. One, long, sinewy hair that spells things out in latin while i sleep.

Hello Everyone.

Today I bring you the next part of the interview series, with the co-curator of Brainstormlab and glitchbomb producer extraordinaire Julian Frank! He and i gathered round the warm, glowing, warming glow of our computer screens to type for a few hours about Brainstormlab, our releases, as well as some stuffy turtleneck things like the nature of noise versus music.

At the bottom of the interview I’ll also be sharing new sample bits from my track ‘Drowning Coins’ along with his remix of the track… so scroll down if you want music! otherwise, read on.

Chris Todd [Phylum Sinter]: Hey Julian, thanks for being a part of the promotional thing for my next ep — i’d like to start by giving the audience a mini biography of you, can you describe your public/art/music self in 5 sentences or less?

Julian Frank [Jfrank]: I Started tinkering with audio programs in 1996. In 1998 met ‘TopforTom’ and started a collaborational project simply called brainstorm. We opened the website in 2003 and continued to produce untill the first Brainstorm night in January 2005 (also my first live set). Since then, although Brainstorm nights are rare, I continue to play live around Europe and independantly produce music.

PS: Right on, and that leads me to the point where i discovered your music… I found brainstormlab through its’ myspace page, I think FM control’s page had piqued my interest and i think he had Brainstormlab as one of his top friends. Brainstormlab.org seemed really happening at the time – how often does it curate events?

JF: Well, in reality Brainstorm is a network of people… and hence a vehichle for their work as well. Brainstorm doesn’t officially curate nights as it were, but aids in building connections between the people involved. It connects it’s members to other organisations and social groups — so if a member is organising a project of his own or knows of someone organising a project which involves the kind of material we make, then chances are they will involve the other members as well.

PS: Sounds like a nice agreement. So it doesn’t aspire to be a public promotional organization, just more a group of friends that approach the public as a group?

JF: …But not quite! Even though it has been around for a while, the group of people in Brainstorm is by no means fixed. To my eye it is still in an evolutionary phase. Of course alot of my contacts i only see 4 or 5 times a year, and others i still have to meet!

PS: What do you and TopforTom imagine Brainstormlab to become over the next five years?

JF: Well – nobody knows what TopforTom has in mind!

PS: oh, why’s that?

JF: he is the man behind the curtain… but no there is no real manifesto, and at first that was the manifesto in itself. At the moment brainstorm has taken more of a definitive direction by having accumulated a certain type of electronica, but that is not to say that that is all there will be. It does, however, function as an able ‘window’ as it were.

PS: Focusing in a little here, your myspace page has your first genre defined as ‘Live Electronics’ — just how live is live?

JF: Ah, the great question…

PS: Does that mean you’re writing completely improvisationally?

JF: To be entirely honest i’ve only done 2 livesets principally using/modulating midi instruments, partially pre-written and partially written in the moment. Nowadays my computer can’t handle the strain though, so most of my live performances are done by mixing wave files with effects and outside inputs such as harmonicas, casio keyboards, old radios, flux pickups attached to cel phones etc. When playing an already existing track obviously there is a lot less live to it – it just becomes a reinterpretation of the track. When you start to mix elements from different tracks improvisationally (with no knowledge of how mixing they will sound together) it becomes a bit more live. If then i break into a solo on an effected casio, or create a drumloop on a drummachine, it becomes a little more live and so on. It goes by degrees. ‘Vowel Movement’ from ‘Laptop Tans & Digital Cowboys’, for example, was created live by recording and looping each take and adding effects as i went along.

PS: How about the birth of a song then – do you write with specific intent before you put harmonica to mouth, or is it more an exploratory exercise that leads to the songs?

JF: The processes of each individual production vary. There are tracks that are whistled for weeks before putting them down. Others spawn unexpectadly from doing live takes. The most interesting process is often searching for sounds ‘within’ sounds. I use plenty of originally recorded foley – from kitchen pots to cats purring — When you listen to foley after it’s been recorded, the process almost becomes a game of hide and seek. When working with midi and plug ins the process is more academic – like sculpture – you have to chip away and model to get what you are looking for.

PS: …even though the ideas, the parts inside of you, do the opposite — they blossom or unfold, while when it comes to translating to external mediums it becomes more about making that unfolding seem palatable, right?

JF: hahaha …Though at times I put things out especially because they are UN palatable, but on the other, i do censor myself!

PS: There’s the segue i was steering for. I find that for many people, the concept of noise has negative connotations, while i think for most people the concept of music has nothing but positive connotations. What defines music for you?

JF: uh oh! OK, To be honest…

PS: Please, yes, honestly only if you can manage…

JF: Music is sound that, filtered by the human brain, is given rhythmic or melodic significance. more specifically… any sound filtered by the human brain is attributed to a physical action, a movement. Some things we can all agree on – if i hear a bark we assume it originally comes from a dog. Every persons sense of rhythm and melody is different, however.

PS: Certainly, there’s so much subjective to the world. Variety is the spice of life. I always like to say that music can contain noise, but noise cannot contain music at the very source of it – music is noise that transcends mere action and has been given purpose, would you agree?

JF: If i hear scaffolding fall from a roof top for example – i am more likely to hear music within it than someone else… Regarding the question: Only if that purpose is to be noticed and filtered by a human mind that would then attribute the noise as music, then yes i would agree.

PS: Hmm… that’s suitable i think, still fits with my definition. The ‘purpose-ness’ can be as simple as communicating the sound of collapsing [anything] or as complex as the infinity of all space, so it’s very flexible in my mind, but it is reliant on the observer too, but everything is from my perspective. Noise is what can happen before that mental filter, but music is what happens after?

JF: Exactly.

PS: So with this in mind, the ‘mental filter’ aspect in mind, how does writing a remix compare to writing an original Jfrank track?

JF: The starting point is entirely different, That’s the main thing. Even if i don’t have an original reference mix [ed note: none of the remixers had the final arrangement of the track they remixed] the sounds at my disposal were created / imagined by someone else. Trom that point on, the remixer picks up the story.

PS: That’s been the most interesting aspect of writing this album for me, i gave the remixers just bits of the track, the elements… or the words, per se, and let the remixers interpret them in their own context. It’s like hearing someone retell a story from a list of words.

JF: …Like chinese whispers or those games where one has to start telling/drawing and the other has to finish.

PS: yeah! So when writing your own tracks, there’s the searching for the ‘word list’ before any arrangement happens, but when you’re doing a remix the ‘word list’ is a launching pad for other ideas?

JF: yes

PS: stop me if i get too abstract

JF: nono, your descriptions are quite precise!

PS: Moving on — i understand you’re near ready to release a new album, could you tell us about it?

JF: Well, all the albums i’ve made lately have been almost like interpretations of different genres (or feeling of genres). this particular consists of referencing the acid techno genre (through jfrank filter!).

PS: Nice, while i’m not huge on the acid techno thing myself, i do enjoy the jfrank filter. Where & when will the album be available publicly?

JF: It will be free to download on www.brainstormlab.org sometime in March [ed note: this album is available now to download from this page]

PS: Great! any plans for you musically past May?

JF: Actually, May is about as far as i have thought! There’s plenty going on before hand though.

PS: Aha, please elaborate then unless it’s secret… in which case you can send me a smoke signal.

JF: On the 6th of March I will be playing a live set on a web radio here in london – at www.Illfm.net, In April there will be a remix compilation released by brainstormlab to look out for. The remixed track is called ‘un1q’ originally by ‘iqbit‘.

PS: I’m looking forward to all three of those things! Looks like we’re about at the end of the interview, any closing statement?

JF: none, apart from looking forward to hearing your final completed album!

PS: Hopefully life’s distractions will settle long enough for me to finish it sometime before summer! Stay tuned and maybe i’ll get a chance to return the remix favor for you sometime too?

JF: Definitely, I am currently working on a remix pack for the near future!

PS: wicked, to the near future then!

[end interview]

The track ‘Drowning Coins’ is the second on the album, and is a transitionary moment on the album from the first track that covers alot of narrative territory.

Here’s a bit of the original:

JFrank’s remix takes the basic themes, as displayed in a loop-based remix pack and makes them completely his own. Here’s a sample of that:

…Great stuff! The full versions of these songs, along with 3 other remixes and 6 other original tracks will be released on the full EP ‘From Unity To Segmentation’ on Xynthetic Digital later this year.

Comments and feedback greatly appreciated! Stay tuned for more…

There’s been alot of activity the past few days.

I’m just about done editing the first interview with Adam of Dirty Fire Project – it should be ready to post here on the blog in the next day or two. I’ve also been rearranging the studio, brought in another desktop and was returned an old faithful amplifier, so i’ve been rocking the SK-30 with stereo stacks… absolutely wonderful drones are possible with just one oscillator and a nice, slow PWM-linked LFO. Resonates the entire house. Any more gear and i’ll have to head to Ikea. Working on arranging some tracks for the album, done alot over on the tumblog [which holds plenty of other non-album-related debris from yours truly], and started a remix for Rekt.

If you’ve been here before you’ll notice the look of this blog has changed… I’ve given up on that last theme, the markup was in an ancient language akin to Aramaic. Great for conversing with cosmic intelligences, but nearly impossible to edit under normal conscious means.

This theme should be a bit more legible, and i’ve finally added that mp3 player plugin… let’s see if it works, shall we? Here’s a bit of opening atmosphere from a track titled ‘What Once was One Now Adds Two’ -

Well that seems to be working. Expect more sounds in the near future.

/C.Todd out

Whoa! Look over here!

There’s a whole track from the upcoming album… be sure to vote on it or comment on it right here on the blog.

Not that it’ll change the final album… or will it?

p.s. i know the links are still way hard to read … sorry! i’m still trying to figure out what CSS to edit without nuking the whole site.

It has been officially 2008 where i live for the past 67 minutes.

How was your year?

Are you still partying?

Were you able to hold the right people in your mind as the calendar page flipped?

As 2007 comes to a close, i’m given the sense that a strange weight, inconsequential as the actual numerical change of a year may be, has been lifted from my self. 2008 in it’s approach has been, in my mind, some sort of milestone for at least my own output, giving me many strong currents to be directed within the scope of my projects — especially when it comes to music, to art.

I’ve chosen to to notice that — in some mostly-subconscious way– what is created from me is in essence always a clue regarding next step when it comes to steering the good-ship-sinter. My tastes and perspectives are in constant motion as I write, and the end-product mostly reveals itself “in-the-process-of-becoming” itself… which in the case of ‘From Unity To Segmentation’ has spanned almost two solid years.

Life has given so much to consider (if i am paying close enough attention) it often feels so very overwhelming; the overall sense of awe (whether manufactured by ‘my-self’ in the singular or ‘the-self’ in the grand scheme of things) is enough to dredge tears from my eyes. The very ponderance pulls away a veil between the spaces between me and a larger thing.

When it comes to the gift of life, what i believe makes it so valuable is at least the sense or possibility of an underlying, unifying, element. I swear i’ve felt it, could never deny it’s being. This influences a large set of proposals that become known every single day for me. It, for instance, means that there is a genuine cause for coincidence outside-of-it-self. It may mean that all there is, is ideas: executing themselves in slow motion — but it gives me great strength in knowing that it’s impossible to be alone as a some sort of nodal point, to be a cog in an impossibly large machine whose sole purpose may only be the recognition of itself over the course of many aeons.

I knew i’d go a big rubbery one here, but i’m leaving it because this is what this thing is for innit?

Thoughts? Comments? Complaints? Questions? Put them in the comments! Interact!

p.s. blog will receive some plugins by the end of the week; expect the ball to begin rolling ever faster!

Happy Temazepam Tuesday! I’ve just shuffled out of a 14 hour coma.

Stealing a page from the Sundance Channel, i’ve decided to include an interview series between myself and the remixers that have participated in the upcoming album. That means that you’ll be hearing the perspectives of Hecq, Set in Sand, Jfrank, and Dirty Fire Project on their remixes, their outlooks on music, and probably something about pandas.

None of these interviews have been coordinated yet, but i’m thinking of either recording them via skype [since 3/4 of them are on the other side of the planet] or just doing them in an instant messenger and posting them here.

What do you think? Would you rather read an interview or hear one?

Somewhere in the process of this blog, if and when it ramps up to the visibility levels i hope it does, i’d like to compile the questions that you, the audience have for myself (and my inner children) and post the answers here for you.

I planned on having a couple of bits of music for you to hear, but the wordpress blog plugins folder is not as robust as it should be yet. Later this week you’ll be able to start hearing some bits of tracks right in the blog.

For now, here’s an excerpt of track 7 of the upcoming album, entitled ‘beside you through the wires, forever’ and it serves as a tribute to all the people whom i’ve grown close to that i never would have met if it weren’t for this beautiful tangle of networks that wrap around the globe.  I had the idea of communication, binary bits bouncing along light beams and the pulses of loved ones coming in sync as i was writing this.  This track was also remixed by Dirty Fire Project, hopefully we can get them to talk about their version later this month.

Beside You Through The Wires, Forever [clip1] – mp3 link, right click->save as [in windows] or left click if you’ve got the right players installed.

jeez… that link text is dark isn’t it? Something i’ll be fixing asap.

Comments welcome~!