Mmd_as

[laurencedavies]

Oh wow I didn’t hear that one. I was just listening to the rest of the record. Well anyway I like the direction you took, you’ve both done a bang up job.

[Foo (mr_mark_dollin)]

Head’s up people! The album has been remixed and remastered!! Get it now on Bandcamp.

I’m especially interested in getting your opinion on this if you’ve heard the original version. Most certainly will be a difference you can recognise

If you’re interested, here’s the blurb from my blog:

Continuing with the revision of my previous albums, it has come time to give the recent 2009 collaboration album mmd_as a much needed remix and remaster. Finishing off a few years of collaborative exploration with fellow Australian composer Alex Strain, I always felt I rushed the final mix and under-worked the mastering. I have no excuses other than I only just got my new monitors and were unfamiliar with how to achieve translation with them. Fast forward nearly two years and I am much more confident in using a range of refined techniques to achieve a mix and master that honors the source material. There’s no such thing as a perfect sonic result, but this now best represents what I can do right now. It’s now up and ready for you to hear on Bandcamp.

The new polish should be clearer, louder, brighter, warmer, smoother, and a million times more organic than before. None of the original composition was changed at all, although a few synth patches were tweaked to bring out a workable tone. All of Alex’s quirks and creative melodies shine through, and I resisted the urge to over-polish any aspect of the musical character. Think of it as a wonderful photograph, now with the dirt and dust cleaned off it. None of this would be possible without the analogue processing in the mastering stage, specifically the Telefunken tubes – they add so much organic sparkle and spirit. For the first time I actually hear these songs as music, rather than a collection of awkward digital sounds.

So what are you waiting for? Go get into The 4th’s progressive and dark rejection; get into Backdropped’s fluttering cycles of resistance; get into Dharawal’s sodden and misty urgency; get into Saint Santa’s groovy yet wacky regurgitation of Christmas; get into Uneasy’s gradual and tense reduction of the speed of time; get into Phoebe’s sprawling and loping paranoid escape through the desert; get into Rare Bird’s hypnotic and surreal fever with unwanted shared dreams; get into Jbhaxidi’s alien yet emotional landscape; and finally get into Effective’s cyclone of paradoxically uplifting but melancholy melody, breaks and bass. I’m excited to share this with you! And I’m sure Alex is as well, we hope you like it.

[weeble]

Didnt hear the previos versions, as i was not on this board yet then…Still wanted to say it sounds nice, a lot of creativity in this.

Sometimes it can sound like it’s not going anywhere(like its on a dead end somewhere…) but then some strange sound comes to make sense of it again, the different song take u places that are really different so to say(not sure how to explain)… that can be called a work of art…Enjoyed this.

[Foo (mr_mark_dollin)]

Thanks weeble, that’s a good review! These songs are certainly attempting to be a little different, sometimes denying the cliche rather than giving it to you on a platter. The supreme goal with all songs was to honour the “feeling” of the song, to make that feeling as mature and unique as possible. If that sometimes took us to strange places, then great. But never odd-ball for the sake of it.

Alex has got planned a remix of one the songs. If I’m right, it will be a much more conventional dance mix. Stay tuned.

[JBL]

Revisiting this album years later…

It’s really, really good! My initial review was shortsighted but even today it reminds me of porcupine tree.