My Musicmaking Journey

I never really expected music to be the main thing that I focused on. I was originally fine with being a software programmer/game developer for my whole life, and I never really bothered with any sort of extra hobbies that much, except for gaming. Of course, that all changed and I suppose my life has been made better for it.

It all really started when I heard music from Aphex Twin and Autechre in a Portal 2 mod entitled "A Minuted Millions" (highly recommend you check it out by the way). I've never really heard that sort of experimental electronic music before, but I was hooked pretty much immediately. However, up until 2018 IDM was always a more casual interest. I wasn't at the point where I was listening to multiple IDM albums a day, and making some of my own. So, what happened in 2018 that led to me going down that path? I found Snareup.

"Lonely Up Here" Era

Snareup was an online radio show hosted in Discord, where IDM was the main focus. After I got kicked out of bits & Bytes (thanks cammy. i'm serious! i wouldn't be in music if it weren't for you :^) ), I decided to have a look. They were looking for new hosts at the time, and just as it happened I was diving into the work of Pete Namlook and his 'Fax' label. I asked if I could host a show diving into his diverse discography, and they gave me the OK. After hosting that, I then learned of Snareup's connection to a little label called "Color Squad Records". They were an open netlabel dedicated to IDM/braindance, and at the time there was a bit of fame for one of the songs they issued entitled "Lipid Funk". Many presumed it was the work of the almighty Richard David James, and I'll admit I was one of those people (for the record, it was by anothernonagon). I joined their Discord to see what the fuss was about, and learned I could submit my own music to the label.

Ignoring the two experimental EPs I've already released (Tribalism and Corruption), I've never ever made full pieces of music before. The idea of making my own full pieces seemed intriguing enough for me to run the copy of Ableton Live 9 that had laid dormant for a whole year on my hard drive. Up until that point I've only used Ableton for recreating other people's tracks, or making small track ideas that I would forget about immediately after. It was from one of those drafts that I made my first full-length track: Skydive.

Looking back on that track now, it doesn't really hold up as much. I was a beginner to making music in Ableton, and this track really showed. Ableton stock synths, plain usage of a popular drum break, and clipping. Oh god, the clipping. Didn't take until my second album for the quality to rise, in my opinion. All the other tracks I've made for my first album were more inspired by Namlook's spacey ambient works, with some trance sprinkled in. For the most part, the same mistakes from Skydive were present in every other track here. Except for one: Outer Pulse.

Easily the best thing to come from this era of musicmaking. This was me trying to make a minimal techno sort of track, and I think I pulled it off pretty well. All it took was an 808, a sine wave, a flanger, and a fog pad. This track was also the track I pitched to Color Squad as my first official release on the label. It ended up becoming the 60th release, with the album it came from coming out only a week after. Once it dropped, I felt pretty good about making the kind of music I was making, even though most of what I made in that era is what I'd now consider to be 'sub-par'. Over the next few months, I ended up with five ideas for my next release. Three of them have been discarded, but the last two ended up as an album, but not really how I originally envisioned it. I'll get to them later, though.

The first idea I had was for an EP centered around Outer Pulse, with similarly titled Pulse tracks leading up to a new mix of the techno track that inspired it. Only two tracks were made for this idea: Core Pulse, and Radiating Pulse.

The second idea I had was a project called "Airwaves". It would have been a concept album showcasing multiple different styles of IDM. However, this didn't really pan out. I had trouble coming up with unique ideas and fitting them to radio frequencies of actual stations in my area, since that was how I was gonna title the tracks on the album. In the end, only a few tracks from this excursion were made, most only partially.

The third idea I had, and the last one I'll discuss for now, was "Aqua". Another concept album, this time about the aesthetic of early Mac OS X. Future Jazz ideas, and all that stuff. Only one track was made for this, "Behind the Code", and it didn't even fit the theme! However, the whole concept album about an OS thing would end up being revisited later on.

I was left going through dead idea after dead idea for the remainder of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, but right around February of 2019 I had gotten more into glitch music from Raster-Noton. From those new glitch sounds I heard, I decided to experiment with remixing a track from my previous album.

"Byteabit" Era

This track, no joke, had changed the course of my music-making endeavors forever. This was the first time I've delved into more complex sample manipulation, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Once I made this track I knew what my next album would be: a collection of more glitch-inspired music. So for the whole month of March, I made eight more tracks for the album, most of which involved sample manipulation. I'd say this is where my music went from "meh" to "good" in my eyes.

Now the trance influence didn't completely vanish yet, as shown by the "escapism." track. I originally envisioned it as a bonus track idea for when and if I would redo "Tribalism". I eventually decided to scrap that and turn the track idea into a glitchy trance track that segued into the centerpiece of the album: "ville."

I dedicated this track to the city that I have called home for pretty much my whole life, and with it I tried to convey the sort of busy feel of downtown Louisville. Rolling bit-crushed drum breaks, car horns, and a melodic sample recycled from a track originally planned for "Airwaves". After I made this track, I had an idea for making a whole EP centered around tributes to the neighborhoods of Louisville. That idea got released on Color Squad only three days after "byteabit" dropped on the 4th of April. The only thing that slightly dampered the good mood I had from this was getting kicked out of Snareup for being annoyed that the person I have collaborated with for all my radio shows had turned out to be a furry.

"Dgtl Dnzn" Era

Despite that though my musical drive has still kept strong, and now with a new idea for my third album: "Vortices". I honestly can't remember what the idea behind this one was, but I do know that it didn't last long. Three tracks that I had made for this album were compiled into "transmission.ep", while one other is still sitting on my hard drive. Maybe I'll rework it for my fourth album. Anyways I eventually decided to revisit two ideas I had back in 2018, which were for making themed albums around classic MacOS and Windows XP. I merged them together, creating the blueprint for an album centered around my first experiences with computing technology.

I also originally wanted this to be a cassette release for one of the cassette-only labels in Louisville, so I split the album into two halves of 30 minutes so it could fit on a C60. Unfortunately none of the labels I contacted had ever responded. Additionally there was an incident where the owner of Color Squad Records, Tunnel One, was defending the spreading of anti-semitic conspiracies by one of the label's artists, Jake Darkne$$. Due to this, I left the label and officially started my own: Lemony Records.

This was where I released my third album, entitled "Dgtl Dnzn". As I mentioned before, it was split into two halves. The first half, which I dubbed the "hardware" side while making it, is filled with percussion made from MacOS Platinum sounds, and melodies either made from Ableton stock synths or microsamples of any audio file that I found interesting enough to use. For example, the main stabby sound from "free." originated from an audio clip of a poor Bill Clinton impersonator that should be very familiar to veterans of the file-sharing world.

The second half, or the "software" side, is driven by the usage of samples from the sound effects used in Windows XP. The best example of this is the above track, "desktop." It's got notification balloons and other click-y sounds for drums (kick was taken from elsewhere), and a sample of the startup sound for the main riff. I used other XP sounds for the other tracks on this side, some usages are more obvious than others though.

Lemony Records And Beyond...

The label where that album resides was never really intended to be an actual label, it was more of an imprint to me. Seeing as I left Color Squad though, I figured I should open it up to more people starting with a compilation effort called "Real Sour Hours", featuring myself, Mause, C62, *&a, fxbip, and DDX. This brings me right back to the present day. Will the label stay open with more releases from different artists? I certainly hope so, and I hope that everyone who's been following me thus far will keep an eye out for my next LP, "Deep Dive", which should be coming out in the Winter months of 2020. Let's hope that 2020 will bring forth better music from myself and others.

Long live the lemons.

-L