Miniature Airlines

I’ve been feeling pretty inspired by what I’m working on lately, and I’m starting to think ambitious thoughts about putting out a new release. Things always take longer than I think they will though, so we’ll see how that shapes up. New single soon! Promise! “First Snows of Summer” has changed a lot since it debuted as a work in progress ages ago, and I’m excited about letting that shit drop.

New track up at em411: “In Girlsh Curiosity“. Continuing the proud tradition of song titles stolen from Pynchon.

Possibly also another show coming up. I don’t have time to make a new set from scratch, but I think I’ll be playing a modified, rearranged, and updated version of my Baltic Room set, featuring alternate versions of “Survive to See Tomorrow” and “Horses Never Know The Odds”, as well as a bunch of exclusive pieces of music that don’t have proper studio versions. I will also possibly be using an exciting new piece of hardware/software that I’ve recently “invested” in. If I can get it work the way I want. More news about this as it become official.

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I’ve been compiling my in progress tracks over the last couple days, as part of my mental preparations for shaping a new release (or new releases). I actually have a lot more than I thought. Roughly 12-14 tracks that are written and just need some fixing, editing, mixing, and so on (a few of these have been released in some for over at Em411.com). Another 3-4 tracks that are well on their way but need some additional composition, plus the same finishing work needed by the other tracks. And another handful of fragments (4-8 bar loops mostly) that have potential, or the seed of an idea, but haven’t found a direction yet. I’m thinking I should polish off a few of these and sort the wheat form the chaff, at which point I’m well on my way to having a significant release together.

I’m also thinking of taking a new approach to writing more material. Take my exisitng tracks, strip out the sequencing, and work with the existing sounds to create new songs. i’ve done this before (it was the genesis of my Pushpin Revolution EP, as well as a handful of tracks that were salvaged from failed songs along the way). That would give me a few more songs beyond what I already have in progress, plus it would give me the luxury of having a bigger pool of material from which to extract the cream of the crop. Also, increased sonic coherency. Right now, these tracks are pretty much all over the map in terms of instruments used, amount of reverb, overall sonic signature, etc.

I’ve still got a long way to go, but I’m farther along than I thought.

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I’m trying to finish off a single right now, because it’s been way too long since I released anything. I guess that’s not entirely true, since Perestroika was somewhat recent. But I don’t feel like I’ve had a real “project” to focus on in my music. All ideas, no follow through. So I’m trying to bring a pair of songs to completion in the near future, for D.iscontent.

I’ve got one song that I think of as the B-side, that came together really quickly and I’m really happy with. The mix is jiving, it’s got mood, it’s a really fun track that’s about 90% there. The track I’ve been thinking of as the A-side though…it’s been kicking around for ages, and returning to it, I’ve found that I’m needing to drastically rethink it. The melodies are solid, some of the sounds are good, but it doesn’t mesh. Everything is competing, arrangement and mix -wise.

I did some work on it last week, stripping everything away and reconfiguring the sounds. Replacing a synth with a piano, reigning in the super-compressed distorted drum track…then forgot to save and crashed my music software. So I left it alone for a while, but I think I’ll go back and try to recreate what I was doing. It’s tedious work, but it was yielding results. And if it means I can get some new music online again, it’ll all be worth it.

This is all jsut a ramp up to my next real project though. Still ahven’t nailed down the details, though I figure I’ve got about half the material written that I’ll need. It’s either going to be a full length album, or a pair of EPs. At least that’s the idea at this point in time. We’ll see what happens as it shapes up.

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There is a new Miniature Airlines release over at the D.iscontent site. It’s a split EP with Hjalti, with one new track and one remix each. It’s fun. We originally released this to a limited audience at Static Glide Part 2 back in May, but it’s now available to the whole wide world. Go get the Perestroika EP now!

Hjalti’s debut album has just dropped as well. It’s called Winter Asks What We Did in the Summer, and it’s fantastic. You should hear it. On headphones.

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Note to self: Great idea for a pair of songs (A-side B-side?). “Everything’s Going To Be Alright Alright Alright” and “Keep Telling Yourself And It Might Come True”.

I’ve always loved the idea of paired songs. I have two semi-finished tracks right now called “First Snows of Summer” and “Last Leaves of Spring” that I plan on releasing as a digital single at some point. I’ve also always had an urge to write a companion track to “A Counter Productive Luxury” titled “A Luxurious Counterpart”. Stuff like that.

Maybe I should just write two EPs, where the title of each track on the first EP corresponds to the title of each track on the second EP? Like they’re responses to each other or something. Hmm. This could be an idea worth pursuing, if I can ever find the motivation to finish a track again.

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Hey there, kiddos. There a new MiniAir track floating around these internets. It’s called Survive To See Tomorrow. It’s still a work in progress, but you’ll get the idea. The first half was part of my live set back at Static Glide last month, but I added a long, psychedlic ending with a lot of delay plugin abuse that hasn’t been heard before. This is going to be part of my nest project…which is so far untitled, of undetermined length, and has no set release date. I’m hoping this year, but we’ll see.

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That pesky CPU bug I mentioned earlier? Fixed. My set is running smoothly again. For the record, it was a delay plugin that couldn’t deal with silence and sent errors upstream to the mixer plugin. Odd stuff, but it works now. Just swapped out one very utilitarian stereo delay for another, better coded one.

Also, Scobot has just been added to the Static Glide lineup, providing live visuals! Yet another reason to enjoy the middle of your three day weekend at the Baltic Room.

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The good news: My live set is about 97% finished, give or take a little bit of time spent cleaning up the sounds and adding some extra effects to play around with. The actual composition is basically done, except for about 8-16 bars to take me to an ending point. I know how it’s going to end, I just need to actually write it. I’m in the home stretch, barely 7 days away from the show.

The bad news: The software mixer plugin that I’m using has decided to start using an ungodly amount of processor power at a handful of specific points in my set, and I can’t figure out why. there are 5-6 transitions that cause the mixer to use 60% (or more) of the CPU power of my Core 2 Duo Macbook. For reference, the normal range of CPU use for that plugin should be closer to 3%, maybe peaking around 10% if I’m moving a lot of faders at once.

So, now I need to spend some time hunting down the cause of this spike, and eliminating it. Because performing live and having your music slow to a crawl and get choppy is pretty wack. For obvious reasons.

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I didn’t realize this until Thursday night, when Hjalti and I were doing our dry run of our live sets, but I’ve been working on this set for so long, and setting it up so logically, that I can play it without looking at the screen. I would be sitting there, hunched over my MIDI controller rocking some plugin or other, and I’d look up and see that my screen had gone into screen saver mode. Once I hit F5 (the Buzz shortcut for play), it’s all hands on knob action. No mouse clicking and staring at the screen for me! I’m pretty proud of this accomplishment, even though I didn’t plan things that way.

If you’re reading this blog and I haven’t sent you a friend request for D.iscontent on Myspace yet, I recommend you get on over there and yourself to our list of virtual friends. for my own selfish reasons of course. But it will also be informative and useful, as the D.iscontent cadre ramps up their activities over this summer.

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Not to be completely insular, but I’m listening to Hjalti run through his live set right now, at Casa D.iscontent. It’s fucking killer. This shit is going to own your ass at the Baltic Room next Sunday. It’s glitchy, minimalist, industrial, melodic, and dark. It’s a fucking riot. I am not joking. I can’t wait to hear some of these bass drops on a nice, big PA.

written by Miniature Airlines