Of all my older albums, 2 Smargaid Maerd remains as one I don’t feel disappointed about, and if I’m in a good enough mood I’m actually very proud of it! Now many years after the fact it is easy to look back at earlier work like this and frown upon certain technical shortcomings and artistic immaturity employed in the making of this music. In 2003, when most of this work was done, I only had very limited and lofi means of music production, and I was far from being in a stable emotional state to be producing pieces of high sophistication. Mind you, I’ll probably look back upon myself now in 10 years time and think the same thing, hence the problem of looking backwards. Nevertheless, these songs seem to strike an emotional chord with people, and with the limited audience it has reached it has spawned a life of its own beyond my own consideration. Well, despite the blemishes, I still love it – so I am keen to get it out there to a wider audience if possible. So if you’re in the mood for some highly individualistic composition; that is ‘pop’ yet ‘experimental’; lush but edgy; and highly emotional homebrew electronica – this album is for you.
Hence, here we are on Bandcamp! The original CD-quality FLAC files have been uploaded: so if you’re feeling so inclined to spend $10AUD, then a copy of the whole thing is yours. But that’s not all (as he puts on his Tim Shaw Voice), you get a re-organised PDF package of all the original artwork and lyrics; plus, there are three hidden bonus remix tracks as well! These are not available anywhere else. Because Bandcamp is so neat, all the files come in whatever format of your choice, all tagged and ready to go for your portable playing pleasure.
The three remix tracks are Absolutely Doomed, My Heart Only Beats For You, and There Are No Answers – Only Dub. They have been remixed and mastered only in the last few weeks. The originals were very lofi and harsh sounding, so it was a good opportunity to put my new skills and equipment to the test. I figured if I could make these old sonic disasters sound good, then I’m doing ok. They were upgraded to 96khz mixing, and in the final stages of the mastering were run through my new 12AU7 ECC82 Telefunken NOS ribbed plate tubes (read on in earlier posts about the technical details). There’s a lot of lofi-intensity still inside these mixes, but at the same time they should be smooth and sparkle with clarity. The remixes will give a new angle on the old songs, perhaps focusing their emotional impact. Beyond that, I’ll leave it to you to explore them.
yeh i didn’t think it was conscious, and it’s not a stylistic thing, just something about the tone or timbre of the voice. listen to some of the tracks on ‘before and after science’ and you might hear what i mean, although it may be one of those things where others can hear it more than the singer themselves… or it may just be meh own raggedy brain.
