(2) Queen of Glome [5:06]
Desecration of the Twins [total: 7:45]
(6) Holiday in Purgatory [14:34]
(7) Sings Daphne from the Dead Room [4:37]
(8) Open Corridor [20:29]
Illumination (a.k.a. Cathedral Scanner)
I have a visual association for this: A vast cathedral in darkness. The single source of light is a candelabrum which hangs from the ceiling on a long cord, forming an illuminated pendulum that swings slowly. As I look around me, tiny spots of light move across the floor, across the pews. And as the finger of light scans the iregularly shaped objects, the apparent movement speeds up und slows down, always following the periodic motion of its source.The OB-8 is used as a sound source which is split up into 8 bands with a clone of the EMS 8 Octave Filter Bank. The filterbank's individual outputs are fed into the Interpolating Scanner (with some random cross-patching, i.e. the order of the channels is changed). A triangle LFO is used to scan - to move across the individual channels. The modulation depth is so high that at either extremes of the LFO wave the scan is "outside" the input channel range. This creates moments of silence, and the scanning in between gets a character of "articulation". Another LFO is used to move the position in the stereo panorama.
The Quantec sets the reverberating ambience: Room size is 100.000 cubic meters; the scan is reflected back and forth in space.
OB-8 chords that are arpeggiated at the beginning and the end of the piece, to enhance the "articulation" effect. In the middle part, the chords are held, causing a more serene sound.Instruments:
Audio Sample (936k)
- Oberheim OB-8
- JH-3 Modular (using 8 Octave Filter Bank, Interpolating Scanner, VCA/VC-Pan, LFO Bank)
- Quantec QRS
Queen of Glome
Instruments:Audio Sample (506k)
- JH Midi Mini - lead
- JH-5 - bass
- MOTM - processing
- Frostwave FAT Controller
- Korg Electribe ES-1
- JH. Phase 12 (resonant stereo S&H effect on ES-1)
- TC Electronic D-Two
- JH Dimension Clone (softening the echoes from the D_Two)
- JH FET Compressor
- Quantec QRS
Desecration of the Twins
"And as Mekare and I knelt opposite each other, [...] we saw our lives - with hope, long and happy - to be lived here among our own. [...] And then the evil came down upon us; came so suddenly with the tramp of feet and loud shrill war cries of the Egyptian soldiers, that we scarce knew what was happening."
(Anne Rice, The Queen Of The Damned)Instruments:
Audio Sample (1.04M)
- Yamaha CS-50 ("first voice" in Part 1)
- Yamaha VL 7 ("second voice" in Part 1)
- EMS HiFli Clone (processing the VL 7)
- Quadra Phaser (processing the CS-50)
- Korg ES-1
- JH. Phase 12 (resonant stereo S&H effect on ES-1)
- Fostex R8 8-track recorder (certainly used as an "instrument" in Part 2 (;->) )
- MOTM
- Korg ES-50 Lambda
- Wasp Filter
- Quantec QRS
- various others - especiall in Part 2 it's hard to recall which instrument played which part ...
Knitters of Black Wool
"I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes."
(Joseph Conrad, Heart Of Darkness)Instruments:
Holiday in Purgatory
Instruments:Audio Sample (1.14M)Korg CX-3 Dynacord CLS-222 JH Storm Tide Flanger CS-50 JH-5 MOTM modules Yamaha VL 7 EMS HiFli Clone Quantec QRS
I'm not entirely sure about all the instruments on this track.
It was one of those "magic" moments when you just grab out for the next keyboard in reach to add another note or another effect.
The strings in the closing section come from a different recording session (Desecration of the Twins), so they are mainly VL 7 thru HiFli - backwards, because I had flipped the reels several times for that one.
The CX-3 organ was processed with the Storm Tide Flanger, with envelope follower modulation. Thus the beating between the different notes, and the modulation from the Dynacord lesley simulator, would also excite a flanger modulation, resulting in a very "liquid" sound.If you have never liked early stuff of the electronic pioneers (like Tangerine Dream's "Zeit"), I am pretty sure you will hate this as well. Otherwise, there's a chance you might enjoy the "holiday in purgatory".
Sings Daphne from the Dead Room
"So that time of the picnic they feased without tea, which made the nurse and attendant and bus driver and Sister Dulling very irritable; but the patients did not care, drinking sun and brown ice, even if it did taste of sheep and old logs."
(Janet Frame, Owls Do Cry)The Frostwave sequencer plays a theme on the JH-5, which is kept rather mellow until the very end of this piece, when the filter is opened. I am playing a melody with an oboe sound from the VL7. But the (monophonic) VL7 is also controlled by the second track of the Frostwave. As long as I play, I'm "overriding" the sequencer. When I make rests in my playing, the sequencer takes over. This is accomplished not by switching anything - just by lifting my fingers for a moment. The result is almost like a woodwind duet at times.
Instruments:
Audio Sample (403k)Yamaha VL 7 - oboe EMS HiFli Clone - processing the VL 7 JH-5 - sequencer voice 2 Korg ES-1 - drums JH. Phase 12 - resonant stereo S&H effect on ES-1 Frostwave FAT Controller TC Electronic D-Two JH Dimension Clone - softening the echoes from the D-Two Quantec QRS
Open Corridor
A "live in the studio" recording. There's a rather long introduction of various instruments playing phrases that seem directionless, "searching". Then the the second part kicks in with thick pulsewidth-modulated OB-8 sounds and a resonating drone that is caught in two echo loops (Amdek Delay and Delatalab Effectron). The drone is always changing its colour - that's the work of the MOTM M-410 resonator prototype - and the OB-8 contributes a melody which is so slow that you will perceive it as part of the texture rather than something separate.Instruments:
Audio Sample (1.14M)
- Korg CX-3
- Yamaha CS-50
- Oberheim OB-8
- Amdek Delay Machine
- Quadra Phaser
- JH. Frequency Shifter
- JH-3100 Resonator
- Deltalab Effectron
- Dynacord SRS-56
- Alesis Midiverb 2