This is the single for my forthcoming album, Allusions and homages to Ms. Regera Dowdy, on the anniversary of her first published correspondence with Colonel Gouraud. On it you will find a remix and some stand-alone tracks for individual play. (The full-length will be a continuous mix.)
[Edit: Allusions & Homages is now available!]
Folder includes
- The dreadful occasion forced Mr. Edison to reconsider his well-established and probably prudent policy.
- The dreadful occasion forced Mr. Edison to reconsider his well-established and probably prudent policy. (Two victrolas and a microphone.)
- The automatic toastmaster contraption failed to impress little Billy "ne'er do well" Buckswallow the day before he was brained by a falling harpsichord.
- The supernatural effects of Harry Houdini's demonstration have caused Mrs. Gravesbottom to lose consciousness.
This is an experimental / ambient release with a strong emphasis on the macabre. The samples are all old phonographs and wax cylinders from about 1888 to 1922 (credits below), and all music and atmospherics are done with my voice and some minor effects. I recorded my voice on the iPhone 4 Voice Memos app and processed the audio files on TwistedWave v 1.10.1 (Snow Leopard). All of the effects were limited to pitch, reverb, delay, and EQ, with the exception of a few distortion pedals on the remix. Some of my vocal effects wound up sounding quite otherworldly, and may not be immediately recognizable as the human voice; I assure you they are. If you can tell it's an old phonograph, it's not my voice.
The inspiration for both the single and the album stems from my love of old haunted things. Ghosts are widely depicted in cinema and literature as Victorian, causing some to wonder why spectral visitors with mall bangs from the 80's never appear. It's because nobody would be scared by them, that's why. But a 130 year-old photograph of a well-to-do woman who appears to rot into a zombie as the night descends? THAT shit is scary.
The focus on Edison naturally emerged the deeper I dug into the archives for inspiration and source material. (Thank you archive.org!) It was nigh impossible to escape references to him the further back in time I went, and eventually I stumbled upon a recording of his voice for public consumption made just at the close of World War I. So the song on the album most directly linked to Edison felt like a natural choice for the pre-release single. (That's him on the cover.)
I decided to go with lengthy titles. This was a logistical challenge, as most media players will only display a certain number of characters before cruelly truncating the title. I made shorter title versions for the song file names, and put the full titles here and in the ID3 tags. The titles are a homage to Edward Gorey, who sometimes went by the name of Mrs. Regera Dowdy, an anagram. (I leave it to you to figure out who Colonel Gouraud is.)
The album is slated for a late September release. There will be nine tracks continuing the same theme of black ambient soundscapes enfolding turn-of-the-century audio. It will be available here, of course, for free.
Happy early Halloween, you frightfully dreary street urchins, you.
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Media sources (a special thanks to Paul Kondig for the background on Edison's Message To The American People):
- The dreadful occasion forced Mr. Edison to reconsider his well-established and probably prudent policy. (5:03) Sample: Let us not forget - A message to the American people (December 30, 1918); Source; Notes
- The dreadful occasion forced Mr. Edison to reconsider his well-established and probably prudent policy. (Two victrolas and a microphone.) (6:54) Sample: Let us not forget - A message to the American people (December 30, 1918); Source; Notes
- The automatic toastmaster contraption failed to impress little Billy "ne'er do well" Buckswallow the day before he was brained by a falling harpsichord. (6:04) Sample: A. M. Broadley's speech (1888); Source; Notes
- The supernatural effects of Harry Houdini's demonstration have caused Mrs. Gravesbottom to lose consciousness. (6:20)
Boo!
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