So here finally, is my first music video. This is a track named “Midnight Monologue” which wound up becoming the title track from my 2007 E.P. entitled “Logue” (download it for free from QED RECORDS). It’s a little bit melancholic and a little bit poetic. But here, drama is king.
“Everything Will Be OK” is a gloomy little tune that spouts optimistic lyrics — but has nothing bright or sparkly supporting any of the vocals. Even the melody is in a minor key. The vocal melody line is taken straight from a dream I had back in 2007. I woke up with the tune in my head and sat down at the computer right away to get it recorded into my Reason software.
Tributary is basically a house music track done with some jazzy percussion, latin keyboard and bass parts and mixed in with some floating pads and ethnic male chants. I imagine a raindance in the middle of a busy urban area. But that’s just me. This track has been in my computer for some years but never released. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe I’m just waiting for a good collection of songs that fit well together.
“Bahay Kubo” (Nipa Hut) is one of those Filipino folk songs that every elementary child in the Philippines used to learn early on since it was a lesson in naming your vegetables set to a catchy tune. I used the folk song as inspiration for this track.
I decided to try creating a remix for Porta’s first track “(I’m A) Loser” — and I wanted it to be more laidback and closer to the original tempo. And this is the outcome. It’s a short track. Still rock. Still lo-fidelity. But with a little Acid42 jazziness and of course, some electric organ.
Here’s an ’80s-inspired synthpop tune made entirely in Propellerheads Reason which mixes a typical pop beat with some ethnic instrumentation and a lot of soaring synth pads. The result is a bouncy, positive, feel-good theme for a Friday morning.
Back in 2005, I set out to write a rough guide on how I personally use Propellerheads Reason software for live gigs, in the hopes of shedding light on this most elusive topic: how do electronic musicians rock out on a laptop and MIDI controller?
Here’s a short, jittery, glitchy Latin-fused house music track that screams carnaval and mardis gras using some repetitive phrases and bouncing bass alongside a distorted drum break.
The title comes from a line in William Burgess’ brutal novel (which was turned into a movie) A Clockwork Orange, meant as a slang way of saying “apologies.”
Manila-based musician Cocolulu (AKA Spazzkid)(aka Mark Redito) is releasing an E.P. on my QED RECORDS, and one of his compositions “Panda Extravaganza” caught my ear so to speak. I felt like doing a remix, but he lost his assembly files and only has the final MP3 of the song. So, I built up his track from scratch using Reason, and played with the sounds a bit, and then sent the file to him. Cocolulu added on to it some more and moved sections around. I got the file back and added a few more touches.