CSM aka Calling Sister Midnight

Art music is in a class by itself. Not really adhering to regular genre sorting, art music is how I entered this form of communication. 

If we thought the 2016 election was a bad thing, we really had a little taste of how things were going to roll out with the results of the 2004 election. Hanging chads and all. This composition was an actual dream I had the night of the election. The audio samples that make up this composition are me singing the old Staples Singers tune "I Had a Dream," the Taos Gospel Choir rehearsing the same tune, played in fast forward mode, and played backward, and a sample oracle toy from Walmart.

Back in 2010 I attended a show of noisy sculptures by Christina Sporrong and Christian Ristow and sampled the sound the sculpture “Nine Beating Hearts” made. I added Pitx’s “Fun Key (ft. Kirkoid)” and this is a remix of a slightly different take on the same piece. “Power Transmission - The Art of Ristow and Sporrong” Encore Gallery, Taos Community Auditorium. ("Cool" was how they responded :\ when I sent them a link), 

I used to belong to a writers' online community called everything2.com. One of the users there had a project where he asked contributors to put together music for a little story he wrote that was described as sort of a reverse-Pinocchio story – a real boy that wishes to become a robot. This third song in the CSM trio is called "OnOffRobot"

In this episode, we have time for a bonus track, one we played earlier in the season, but it seems like an appropriate time to play it again. This is an audio "Rendition" of what social media sounds like sometimes.

Cover photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

The three songs I am playing this time around are all instrumental. Some songs are simple, and some are a little more complicated, but in each example, I am going for a texture, more than a strict song-like melody.

Whaa -- One of my first electronica composition with the N-Track software. I think I may have done the initial work in N-track, but I think I finished up in Reason 4 because I recognize the "introduce" electronica beat from that suit of sounds and Dr. Rex's sampler.

Chiba -- I discovered a drummer, Manu Katche, and also how to use the re-groove mixer in Reason, so I set out to get a similar sound to the drums in Robby Robertson’s “Somewhere Down that Crazy River.”  I was re-reading William Gibson’s Count Zero, so it seemed, after the addition of the oft-used chemma chi voices, like I had landed in a strange metropolis that stretches to the horizon in every direction.

Piano Waltz, Var. 1 -- This later became the song "ever, Forever," one of my initial offerings in the creative commons with colab of ccmixter.org. I'll post the song in a later episode.

Podcast cover art by Levi Midnight from unsplash.com

Three minimal techno tunes singled out for rough treatment. “Four Lights,” is an homage to Star Trek Generations; “Get Up, Spinmiester’s Mix” is Ethel Merman at the Disco; and lastly, “No Excuses (J.P.T.S)” a cheese dip layered with poppers. And I am not talking about jalapeños, esse.

"Four Lights" is a techno dancefloor number that references Star Trek Generations Captain Picard's imprisonment by the Kardashian Lord played by cheese master David Warner.

Spinmeister's "Get Up ft. CSM" is a wave at "surf techno" with everything ultimately sounding like Ethel Merman at the disco. This is actually the second remix version by Spinmeister of this song. The first one had this dynamite submarine "ping" sound that I kind of miss in this one. I'll find the track and play it here one day.

"No Excuses (JPTS) is a collaboration with my daughter, Ella, who was making music under the handle, Reilla, at the time. It was very very fun, and I still fap to this on my big speakers from time to time. The track features samples from ccmixter's mindmapthat at texasradiofish.

CSM plays and talks about some of her favorite collaborations over the past few years — from found audio files to collaborations with global producers via my favorite musical creative resource, ccmixter.org