I recently dug up the lyrics and thought it might be interesting to get someone else to write and produce a new tune out of it. So I sent out a call to Electronica Manila members for a collaboration. And Emorej volunteered. He took the lyrics, set it to music, and used a vocal software named Miriam to generate the vocals with the French accent. The result is a simple, but catchy downtempo tune complete with a synthetic but sultry French singer: “STARS.” See the lyrics below.
Author: Acid42
2 Fan Exclusive Tracks on ReverbNation
Two exclusive tracks by Acid42 are available for free download at ReverbNation. You’ll have to create an account and become an Acid42 fan in order to freely listen and download the complete songs, but signing up is quick and painless. Plus, there’s a LOT of good music on ReverbNation.
The Trick to Translating
In the past few months, whenever I’ve been able to grab a few minutes, I’ve worked on some Filipino songs for Acid42. Things I’ve realized: composing lyrics and music in Filipino is pure gut feel. You create using your gut and the end result usually comes out strangely honest. You can’t hide behind fancy twists of phrase. Or at least, I can’t. And because I haven’t written in Filipino in years, it felt strange at first. But afterwards, it just started flowing more naturally than ever.
Remix: Moon in the Man – Riding On A Beach (Acid42 Battlemix)
Here’s an old file from the vaults. This remix was done back in 1999/2000 when I was first learning the Acid Pro software and cutting my teeth on the sound editing software Sound Forge. I downloaded a zip file of tracks from the artist Moon In The Man, and remixed his tune to sound like a sweeping but aggressive battle soundtrack. I seem to have used a lot of stutter edits and effects processing on some parts. The end result was something I was very happy with.
Acid42 Everywhere on the Web
A quick run down of the websites I’m on.
Cult Of The Amateur and Netlabels: Mediocrity Will Kill Us
For those of us closely interested in the future of internet and culture in general, the book The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen (Random House) is riveting reading most of the way through. Keen tackles how the democratization of the Net is producing tons of crap on a daily basis and slowly killing off the production of meaningful art.
Watch “Puwang” at the Katorse Shorts Film Fest
It’s a 30-minute short film about a family coming together to take care of their dying father in a hospital. And I was asked to make music that was minimalist and not overly gushy. I think I did a pretty good job at it, and the story is, in itself, a touching tale of family forgiveness.
Art Now: Do Something With What You Have
While it’s good to ask around and find out what others use, don’t get so hung up about gear and brands and tools and materials that you forget that dynamic energy that wans to burst out of you because you have something you need to say through your art.
The point I always try to stress to those starting out in any creative endeavor, whether in visual art or music, sculpture or writing, is that you already do possess tools right under your nose that you can utilize in order to create your art.
Track: Appy Polly Logies
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.”
Collaboration with Cocolulu on the “Panda Extravaganza” Remix
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.