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Dean 
Special Collaborator 
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
 Topic: the cacophony of light - bits (2005)Posted: August 19 2008 at 15:08 |
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 Since 2002 I have been making self-indulgent music under the moniker The Cacophony Of Light. There is nothing spectacular about this, it's just a hobby that consumed my time for 3 years then sort of died away. Over that period I recorded 51 CDs full of electronic/experimental/neo-classical music of varying and questionably quality. Most of my friends (bless'em) were very supportive and said nice things, though some did say things like "Oh, I thought it would sound weirder" or would stroke their beards in a knowing way and say"Hmm, you should have spent more time on that" but on the whole most liked what I did and the musicians among them would encourage me and suggest things I hadn't considered trying, like tone-poems and unusual modes and scales. Several times I set out to purposely make a full-blown Prog album, but failed on each occasion, though there is a Prog influence in everything I did.
Anyway, it was kind of fun to do and rather than let this music fester on my hard-drive I thought I'd share some of it with everyone here and "release" a CD into the wild from time to time. Don't expect great music, just some over-ambitious noodlings put together in some semblance of coherence.
Edited by Dean - January 08 2016 at 04:11 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 19 2008 at 15:09 |
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Moments - 2002
Moments was the 5th CD of music I ever produced. Written in 2002 as the antithesis of those pseudo-new-age relaxation disc, I deliberately set out to make music that sounded relaxing, yet was dissonant and full of "wrong-notes" (so many in fact you would wonder if I ever knew any right notes). On a flight of vanity, this was the only CD to get a "proper" release, all be it through mp3.com.
here is the download link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TYRKQRBF Edited by Dean - February 08 2010 at 18:57 |
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ewblank
Forum Newbie 
Joined: August 30 2007 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 5 |
Posted: August 29 2008 at 08:49 |
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Hi there Dean,
Thanks for posting your work. I listened to about half of this last night and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm not sure I would call this work dissonant as much as moody and/or dark. It reminded me of the soundtrack work of Eduard Artemyev from the films he did with Andrei Tarkovsky. Ether way - I thought it was very well done, with some very nice depth to the mix and the variations of synth tones that caught my attention. May I ask what synths you used on these pieces? cheers, ew |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: August 29 2008 at 11:37 |
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The synths on that album was 100% Reason, I didn't get a real synth until a little later (Oberheim OB-12 - a great Analogue Modelling version of the classic OB-1). All the Reason patches were tweeked - I never use vanila sounds as Reason is more geared to dance music and I didn't like the synth patches that came with it (too close to Ibiza floor-fillers for my liking
 ). Thanks for the soundtrack comment - a number of people have likened my "music" to film-scores and I like that - Solaris is one of my top-five favourite films and I love the music. 
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ewblank
Forum Newbie
Joined: August 30 2007 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 5 |
Posted: August 29 2008 at 13:03 |
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Hey,
I'm amazed that you did all of that in Reason. I guess it just goes to show that when used properly, a completely digital recording can sound amazingly full and natural. Well, as natural as any electronic music can sound, that is. I'm going to go back and listen to the rest of the release. Keep up the great work! cheers, ew |
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cobb2
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: November 25 2007 Location: Australia Status: Offline Points: 415 |
Posted: August 30 2008 at 23:41 |
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Love to listen to it, but failing on the proxy (NAT)- showing my ISP's IP, not mine. Ain't technology grand!
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: December 26 2008 at 08:30 |
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Indulge - 2005  Indulge was the 47th CD of music I ever produced. The indulgence implied by the title refers not so much to the music itself (which is indeed a folly of whim), but to the means of production, which I allowed myself to indulge in a fair amount of post-production mucking about. Indulge consists of a single piece of music, called Dream Off, that lasts 75 minutes. I created/composed a 75 minute piece of music (titled Dream Over) using Reason 2.5 which was then played through the Long Thin Wire and re-recorded on three separate days, including one where it rained persistently. These 3 recorded tracks (Dream Away, Dream Away Too and Dream Away Rainy Day ) were then overlaid on top of each other and mixed with the original Dream Over. The phrases from the original score were then played repeatedly several times over at a faster tempo (8x) and mixed with the LTW tracks, then more loose phrases of the same sequence and random odd notes were added using an Oberheim OB-12 synth. Finally 75 minutes of free-form Aeolian Harp sounds (tuned to D) were recorded and added to the final track to produce Dream Off.
If forced to pigeonhole Dream Off, I'd call it Epic Ambient
 .Edited by Dean - February 08 2010 at 18:58 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: March 22 2009 at 10:01 |
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The Gaia Cacophony - 2003  The Gaia Cacophony is a monster - it is a suite of three one hour pieces that meander from avant garde to symphonic and all ports in between - at the time of writing it I called it a a neo-symphony of electronica, but that sounded pretentious so I called it a cacophony instead, and that sounded even more pretentious, but this isn't commercial Pop, it's supposed to be like that.
 The three tracks went through several changes and developments as the ideas that formed the concept and the musical themes slowly jelled into a semi-coherent whole, The original intention was to depict The Gaia Hypothesis as a garden (eg Eden or Elysium) where the symbiosis of all five of the biological kingdoms with the primeval elements (air, soil, water and wind) forms a self-contained bio-system, this was then expanded to include the development and evolution of life on Earth as part of that system. Contrary to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, this system becomes more ordered and less chaotic as time progresses, although ultimately, as fuel (ie the Sun) is consumed it will succumb to the 2nd Law, so the "music" becomes more complex and at the same time more ordered.
CD1 - Dawn
 Dawn is primordial soup, it is the Gaia's creation, a statue gazing over a shapeless void. It is a musical image of a sunrise, the rays breaking out of the horizon and spreading across the Earth, warming and nurturing as it grows.
CD2 - Evolve
 Evolve is growing, it is Gaia's development, growth and blossoming, and it is the evolution of life from primative forms into more comlex organisms, still reliant on those simpler forms for existance.
 CD3 - Forever
 Forever is infinity- it is Gaia continuation, and abundance of noise and colour where cycles of simple to complex are interleaved within themselves.
 The Gaia Cacophony was composed and recorded in the spring of 2003 in my conservatory, (a glass room bolted onto the side of my house - not a place of acedemic musical learning), and in my garden using a combination of Reason, live instruments and found-sounds. The bird-song you can hear in the music was recorded "live" as it were as were other natural sounds. Piano and guitar feature heavily in the pieces, however the prime instrument is a replica of Alvin Lucier's Long Thin Wire which was was used through-out the recording process as a instrument, as a means of recording the sounds of nature and as an effects unit (like a 30m long spring-line reverb).
Equipment:
Oberheim OB12 Synth
Kramer Striker 244 guitar
'The Long Thin Wire' Hewlett-Packard 3325A function generatorReason 2.5 & Magix Audio Studio 7 TASCAM 788 DAW portastudio Downloads:
Disc 1 - Dawn : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=M8TQF8E1
Disc 2 - Evolve : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X5S051MH
Disc 3 - Forever : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EJLIMI87
Edited by Dean - March 02 2011 at 10:50 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: April 01 2009 at 07:11 |
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Antiquarian - 2003
 During the summer of 2003 we took our family vacation on the Penwith peninsula of Cornwall (UK) to find that the area was littered with neolithic monuments, so between days at the seaside and trips to the usual tourist attractions, we drove around the countryside searching out these stone landmarks and photographing them.
Unlike the more popular and famous neolithic sites like Stonehenge, Avebury and Carnac, these where surprisingly small - yet for all that they were equally as impressive - for they where on a human scale, which made them more personal and "real" - somehow, the fact that they were something that you could imagine farmers of 6000 years ago erecting them in a day or so and still have them standing in the landscape today bridged that distance, making a connection from those ancient times to the present day.
On returning from our holiday, I sat at the PC and composed some music that tried to capture what I felt there, not as some pseudo-spiritual new-age noodling, but as distinct tunes representative of the physical nature of the stones and the landscape they were placed in.
 (more pictures here)
Tracks:
1. Mên-an-tol
2. Lanyon Quoit 3. Mên Scryfa 3. The Merry Maidens 4. The Pipers 5. Tregiffian (A Moment Ago part 2) Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EY9DQD7O Edited by Dean - March 02 2011 at 10:57 |
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xneon
Forum Newbie
Joined: February 01 2009 Location: Poland Status: Offline Points: 20 |
Posted: May 18 2009 at 07:09 |
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Can you re-upload "Indulge"? Rapidshare don't have it anymore.
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progkidjoel
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: March 02 2009 Location: Australia Status: Offline Points: 19643 |
Posted: June 04 2009 at 01:36 |
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Hey hey
I'm just downloading the album now, looking forward to it... Thanks -Joel |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: June 27 2009 at 07:10 |
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Benign - 2004
total time: 76:20
Not much to say about this - I wrote and recorded it in 2004 and it's 100% electronic with a mild Vangelis influence (I think I may have chanced upon a Vangelis-like synth patch and just played around with it). That's about it really - I'd forgotten I made it and by chance I was listening to it last week and quite enjoyed it (in as much as you can enjoy your own music). I haven't a clue what the artwork is about - it was just a rendered 3D iamge I made using PovRay.
download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=URPAR9HB
Edited by Dean - February 08 2010 at 19:09 |
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The Truth
Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 19 2009 Location: Kansas Status: Offline Points: 21795 |
Posted: June 29 2009 at 15:15 |
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Great stuff man, I was just wandering around the website and thought I'd check your stuff out. I'm impressed!
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progkidjoel
Prog Reviewer
Joined: March 02 2009 Location: Australia Status: Offline Points: 19643 |
Posted: June 30 2009 at 05:25 |
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Hey
I downloaded moments about a month ago... Awesome stuff! I really enjoyed the ambience of it, but the thing is, unlike alot of ambient music, it actually went somewhere! Thanks for allowing it for free download, -Joel |
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Alberto Muñoz
Forum Senior Member
Joined: July 26 2006 Location: Mexico Status: Offline Points: 3577 |
Posted: July 16 2009 at 18:06 |
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Dean, i will download your music on friday night
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Tuzvihar
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: May 18 2005 Location: C. Schinesghe Status: Offline Points: 13536 |
Posted: July 27 2009 at 16:04 |
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Hey, Dean! Maybe you should ask Rico to add you to the database?
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"Music is much like f**king, but some composers can't climax and others climax too often, leaving themselves and the listener jaded and spent."
Charles Bukowski |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: July 28 2009 at 04:16 |
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^
Oh oh oh - no.
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Tuzvihar
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: May 18 2005 Location: C. Schinesghe Status: Offline Points: 13536 |
Posted: July 28 2009 at 13:07 |
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Don't laugh at me, please. I didn't listen to your music (
 ). I asked you on the basis of what you had written in your initial post ("electronic/experimental/neo-classical music").Or do you feel you're not worthy? |
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"Music is much like f**king, but some composers can't climax and others climax too often, leaving themselves and the listener jaded and spent."
Charles Bukowski |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: July 28 2009 at 18:06 |
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(not laughing at you, just at the idea of me being added
)But it's a good question, that prompts a thousand answers...
I don't think my music is particularly "Prog" - whenever I've tried to write anything "Prog" I've always failed -everything is a little bit Prog because I use odd time signatures, strange key changes, exotic scales, funny chord progressions, layering and counter-point and non-standard song structures (I've never written an AABA song in my life) ... and because Progressive Rock is a big influence on me, but having some of the component parts don't make it Prog, lots of non-Prog music also uses these techniques (Jazz, New Age, Neo-Classical etc...). I think I am too close to the material to judge - perhaps someone else can hear it as Prog - one of the reasons artists don't like being pigeon-holed is because they think they are being original and non-generic.
My only aim when setting out to record all these albums was to make weird/avant garde/exotic/experimental music that sounded "normal" and accessible - I don't think that is Prog in itself. Certainly not all avant garde music is Progressive AG, not all Electronic music is Progressive Electronic and not all Psyche Rock is Progressive Psyche Rock.
Whether "worthy" or not I cannot judge - I think my music is naive, amateurish and simplistic, and while I don't think "quality" has anything to do with being added to the PA, I think we must draw a line somewhere
. (of course there is a modicum of fear involved - it's one thing having your friends saying nice things about your music (regardless of how bad it is) - it's something else when a total stranger rips it to pieces over the internet)
When we were discussing "unsigned" bands back in 2007 we noticed that with modern home-recording equipment and software it was possible to produce a "professional" product without the expense of a studio and record label and self-release over the internet as a download only album, in principle the status of "unsigned" does not exist once a band has recorded something. For a very modest sum of money it is even possible to produce a saleable CD complete with booklet and jewel-case - I did this for my Moments album using mp3.com, and there are a number of vanity-press businesses out there who will do this for you for very low production runs. So we decided on a set of "rules" that determined whether an unsigned band who had self-released an album could be admitted to the PA and since then we have added a number of bands and artists who meet that criteria.
The problem as I see it is people like me - I have met all the rules for being a signed artist (all of my CDs are "for sale") - yet I do not consider my self a "serious" artist - I am still an amateur playing around with some recording gear at home making - whichever way you look at it I am unsigned, and I don't think we should be adding "artists" like me. (My personal opinion)
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JLocke
Prog Reviewer
Joined: November 18 2007 Status: Offline Points: 4900 |
Posted: July 28 2009 at 19:17 |
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^ Well, just for the record, Dean, I think you be quite a welcome and loved addition to the site!
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the cacophony of light - bits (2005)
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Tuzvihar wrote: