Electronic Music, Writing, and Reviews

It has been forty years since I last worked with electronic music. I took it up again in early 2007 when I started using the Macintosh software synthesizer "GarageBand." When I got a Zoom H2 digital microphone I started creating pieces which eventually would comprise this album, "Household Apocalypse." December 7 was the release day for my first new album using modern software and digital devices. I was active as an electronic music maker 40 years ago, and now after all those years I'm back at it with a modern digital microphone and software synthesizers. "Household Apocalypse" is eight pieces of sound-collage. I hope that each one evokes a mood and a non-verbal story, whether apocalyptic or scary or eerie or even humorous, or a combination of all of it.

This is in the realm of what the Europeans used to call "musique concrete" or "found sound music." I record sounds in the environment or sounds made by striking, dropping, or scraping household objects like pot lids and glass jars. I also use sounds recorded through my windows or on my terrace as background. Then I add more sounds from my software synthesizer, the excellent Macintosh "GarageBand," and I modify the recorded sounds electronically. Smoosh 'em all together and you've got sound pictures, some noisy and some quieter. The noisy pieces are the apocalypse; the less noisy ones are evocations of a mood of quiet terror.

The picture here is the "cover" of the album. It's a photo of a jumble of my kitchen things, many of which I used as sources for the sounds in the pieces. "Household Apocalypse" is FREE to download on the "Just Not Normal" Net-label, based in the Netherlands and presided over by the excellent Mark "Mystahr" Stolk. Many thanks to Mark and to my friends at Stillstream.com who encouraged me to make noise again after so many years.

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