Tuesday, September 3, 2013

COLONY / SINNER DC



SINNER DC - WHERE SHE GOES EP
 


Sometimes I wonder if another part of me managed to pull it through. If it has been able to clean up this mess, get a decent job, love you more than I did, become a better person and finally lead a normal life. Sometimes I wish things had been that way.

And maybe they did, in a future that never happened.

"Where She Goes" (Mental Groove Records) is the new EP from swiss electronic band SINNER DC and contains, among others, a remix by Colony. This beautifully haunting song has been de-constructed and re-constructed by Colony and mastered by Davide Saggioro at Wise Mastering Studio.




"Where She Goes" is taken from SINNER DC's 2012 album called "Future That Never Happened". You can get it here. Many thanks to Olivier, Manuel and Sinner DC.

Always be elusive.

S.


 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

COLONY / TOM COLBIE



Stillness is one of the elements of TOM COLBIE imaginary that resonate in me the most. In his panels, everything seems frozen in time and space. Or just moving at a rate so low that a human eye cannot even notice it.

I guess it's because of that space suit.

Wondering who's inside that suit, trapped by unknown - or forgotten - circumstances in a sort of P.K.Dick desolate crossroad between different realities, could be a rather intriguing exercise. While trying to put all the clues together in a meaningful scheme, we should also bear in mind that the old, good "show, don't tell" magic trick still exists to prevent us travellers from going uselessly too far with our investigations, because some mysteries are better left unsolved.

That said, I have a precise idea about who's hiding safely inside that space suit, but I obviously won't tell it to you.

Silence seems another element the worlds of Tom Colbie are drowned in. Silence is the most natural element we can quite naturally add to stillness. And I guess that this closes our Moebius loop. I wonder if in the strange places depicted by mister Colbie there is no sound at all, like in a giant-sized anechoic chamber, or if some distant, tiny noises are vaguely heard coming from somewhere.

Tom Colbie surely knows all that is peculiar in the surrealist practice. Ernst, Dalì and Jodorowsky might be key parts of the game. I will ask for some answers when I'll have the chance to meet him in person. If this will ever happen.

When elusive Tom asked COLONY to contribute a track for his PARADOX videoclip, I began toying with bizarre ideas about pink and white noise, with some odd sounds and loops and then - strangely - I ended messing around with Now We Are One, the 2010 opener from MEET, MERGE, DISSOLVE.

Needless to say, a few hours later the music had independently evolved in a complete different direction and therefore I felt it was right to allow it to go wherever it wanted to.

The video animations are brilliantly provided by Ag0 and his working unit called E-GAIN.
You can find more informations here.

Many years ago André Breton said that "The imaginary is what tends to become real". Ok, I'll buy that. Personally, when there seems to be no plausibility at all, I find out a lot about myself by sleeping.

Dreams, they are who I really am.


Dive in Tom Colbie's worlds here.


"Sir, this place has only three exits: Madness, and Death”
(René Daumal - A Night Of Serious Drinking, 1938).

Always be elusive.

S.










Creative Commons License
Colony is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Monday, March 4, 2013

CHARMING SEPULCHER



CHARMING SEPULCHER


Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.
You can find more informations about this license here. 


The year of the mayan armageddon has simply been a year of pauses. A lot of work and turmoil that - except a couple of nice things that I will not tell you - ultimately went nowhere. A pause after the other after another.

CHARMING SEPULCHER is a web compilation and also the first release from HAVE FAITH IN SOUND webzine, which is directed by Kevin Carnaille. Kevin has contacted 33 musicians (Saaad, Pleq, Tsone, Huron, Olkin Donder, John 3:16, Listening Mirror, Sàdon, uuuuuu, Akito Misaki among many, many others) and asked each one of them to contribute a track for this project. The compilation is divided in three parts and the music goes from drone to noise and concrète and from ambient to various kinds of experimental electronica.

Colony contributes a track called "Just A Little Blackout". This track will feature - albeit in a different form - in the forthcoming fourth album called MUSIC FOR EMPTY ROOMS, which is taking almost three years in the making but will be hopefully ready in a few months. You can listen to this track here.

Things have slowed down dangerously in the last period, but CHARMING SEPULCHER gave me the chance to break the rules that some contingencies and personal issues were imposing on me, to exit the aforementioned pause state and catch the last train just before everything passed the point of no return, that is the point where every taken decision is always too late and therefore is meaningless, futile and pathetic. For this reason, I have to thank Kevin Carnaille twice, because he asked Colony to contribute a track and also gave me the opportunity to work on the definitive shape of the whole compilation, namely the overall sound engineering and tracklisting. As always, Davide Saggioro crucially helped me in managing sound physics, odd frequencies, huge blasting audio spectrums and so on. You can find more information about him and his studio here.

It was a challenging task. It moved me deeply.
I hope you will like this compilation as much as I liked working on it.
 

In CHARMING SEPULCHER part II, there's also a track from an american musician called ELLIE ARROWAY, whose first album is being arranged and produced by Colony and should be fully completed in the next months too. You can listen to this track here.

Here are some additional information in this Q&A with Kevin.

Q: what criteria did you follow in choosing the 33 musicians? 
A: I didn't have followed "special criterias" in choosing all these musicians. I just wanted to share eclectic sounds! The experience of Have Faith In Sound (and Indie Rock Mag too) helped me to find easily who I wanted to see on Charming Sepulcher. I discovered many good musicians that we are not used to see, I hoped it was a good way helping them to be more " visible " and being mixed with other musicians that, maybe, they could never know. But, of course, I've chosen them because I thought they could correspond with the theme "Charming Sepulcher", in a certain way.
 
Q: what Charming Sepulcher should mean in its whole?  
A: My vision of this concept is quite simple. The name had been chosen to symbolise a fascination for dark/sad music. I wanted to propose an ambiguous topic without giving more details, just to see how musicians would translate it. Finally,  we (with you haha) had noticed that 3 visions of the concept emerged. That's why Charming Sepulcher has been cut into 3 parts, to keep some homogeneity into each ones. It was a way to show that the same feeling can be conveyed in many ways. Moreover, you will see that the last part is much less dark than the others. It was an assumed choice, which was to nuance the deep darkness previously developed, as a glimmer of hope.

Q: what plan do you have for the future of Have Faith In Sound?
 
A: First of all, I would like to extend the team. Finding some curious people attracted by this kind of universe. I can also say that the tastes of the blog will gradually evolve, because I must admit it's not very open-minded yet, even if I use to listen many different things everyday. And finally, I think it will not be the last compilation I plan to release. For now, that's all I can say!

CHARMING SEPULCHER is free for you to download and share.

"There are two kinds of pauses: the pause which comes before something happens and the pause which comes afterward. There is never a pause which means nothing. When you have a pause, you must always be conscious that something will be done or that something has been done. [...] The pause must always be the result of something, or it should be just before something. Without the feeling of the whole, pause has no significance" (Michael Chekhov, 1936).
 

Merci Kevin pour la précieuse opportunité que vous m'avez donnée. 

Always be elusive.

S.




Creative Commons License
Charming Sepulcher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

COLONY / AKITO MISAKI - CITIES APART



CITIES APART

IIIHIII 03/2012

Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.
You can find more informations about this license here.


Strange is the way things go sometimes. I'm not telling you anything new. Akito Misaki and I never met. Maybe we will, one day. Who knows. We just had brief conversations on a social network about music, idioms, movies, earthquakes, loss and things like these. I've never even seen his face.

The idea of making a three tracks collaborative EP lasted a month or so and then quickly snowballed into a nine tracks full-fledged album, now available for you to download and listen to. Once again, mighty Davide Saggioro is in the control room, keeping all the things together: you can find more information about him and his studio here.

CITIES APART has been conceived and composed totally via web. Akito and I have been sending each other ideas and sounds using email. A very challenging thing to do, but we are really satisfied with the result. Maybe we have been too careful of each other's privacy to use other protocols to comunicate. Who knows. I think this elusive attitude has filtered somehow into the music we have made. Well, maybe. Maybe not.

Too many clues. Too many questions. The answers seem all wrong because some questions are better left unsolved. Also, I've never been a good detective and I guess I never will. Even though I own a cool raincoat.

As usual, I'm not going to tell you what this music is really about.
Go and check for yourself.
We all have different answers. Maybe yours is better than mine.
Maybe it is the right one. Maybe not.

We all have some time to spend, before the world spins out of control.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away"
(Philip K. Dick, 1978).

Always be elusive.

S.




Licenza Creative Commons
Cities Apart by Colony / Akito Misaki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

COLONY - THIS MACHINE NEVER SLEEPS



THIS MACHINE NEVER SLEEPS

IIIHIII 01/2007

Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.
You can find more informations about this license here.


The new Colony album was a lost album. Until now.

THIS MACHINE NEVER SLEEPS is dated back to 2007 and it represent my first conscious move toward electronic music. I still like the way the tracks sound together as a whole and I'm still proud of all of them, therefore I thought there was no reason for this record to remain unpublished.

I'm sure the most careful of you will notice some of the aspects THIS MACHINE NEVER SLEEPS and MEET, MERGE, DISSOLVE have in common here and there.

Endless thanks to Davide Saggioro for mixing things up, widening the stereo images a lot and mastering all the stuff into something beautifully cohesive and somewhat more enjoyable for all of you. You can find more informations about Davide Saggioro here.

Finalizing THIS MACHINE NEVER SLEEPS was such a hell of a ride, but it's nothing when compared to the towering mole of MUSIC FOR EMPTY ROOMS, which is still in the mixing phase of the production and should be ready sometimes in 2012. Well...hopefully.

But the forthcoming release will be CITIES APART, a split album with a very talented and polyhedric japanese musician called AKITO MISAKI. Check out his first EP here and listen/download other tracks here.

So stay tuned for more music.

My deepest appreciation goes also to MaxFarnea who wrote the track Singularity Ahead with me. MaxFarnea is an electronic musician and a DIY builder: he conceives and plays his music with custom-built instruments he assembles with recycled electric/electronic material. Amazing. Go and check his music here and here.

Back in 2007, THIS MACHINE NEVER SLEEPS was a foundamental experience for me. It changed my life deeply.
It changed the way I relate to music and people in general.

That's all, for now. As usual, thank you for your attention.

Always be elusive.

S.




Licenza Creative Commons
This Machine Never Sleeps by Colony is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Friday, May 20, 2011

HELPING HAND



Check out A COMPILATION FOR JAPAN.

"JAPAN STILL NEEDS HELP. Massive earthquakes, a devastating tsunami, and critical nuclear accidents. 15,000 people died, 11,000 are missing, 190,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The cost to rebuild Japan will exceed $309 billion.
But it's not too late to help.

We called musicians for help. The result: A COMPILATION FOR JAPAN. 100% of its proceeds will be donated to CIVIC FORCE JAPAN, the country's leading NGO in disaster response & relief, currently working hard to make things better in the country.

This compilation is PAY AS YOU WISH with a 7,99euros minimum for the whole album and 0.99euros per track. You can directly donate on the CIVIC FORCE JAPAN website too. Any kind of help matters!

While Western media isn't covering it as much anymore, the situation in Japan is still critical. People are still without shelters and jobs, business is slow, the agricultural industry is suffering due to rumors of contmination of products, tourists have vanished, many artists are refusing to come perform, and even Japanese people have deserted bars and clubs. It's definitely a bad situation.
But don't forget that YOU CAN STILL HELP!

A big thanx to all the artists who participated by donating songs".

...well, you know what to do.

Many, many thanks to Oliver of MENTAL GROOVE RECORDS for asking Colony to contribute with a new track, called "We Carry The Fire With Us".

You can find the preview here.

Don't be elusive, this time.

S.



Tuesday, January 25, 2011

COLONY - MEET, MERGE, DISSOLVE



MEET, MERGE, DISSOLVE

IIIHIII 02/2010
Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.
You can find more informations about this license here.


So, here it is.

If you like this music, please leave a comment.
If you don't like this music, please leave a comment anyway.
Both will be very much appreciated.
Many thanks to Davide Saggioro for his patience behind the mixing desk and for his priceless, wise guidance inside the fascinating labyrinth of sound engineering. You can find more informations about him here.

If you think that this album is about personality disorders, you're almost right. Almost. Nevertheless, anyone can listen to this music and relate to it having in mind whatever else, without necessarily being a schizoid or a psychopath.

The next album will be called MUSIC FOR EMPTY ROOMS.

Endless thanks to you all for your patience, attention, understanding and support.

"Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary"
(William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch, 1959).

Always be elusive.

S.




Licenza Creative Commons
Meet, Merge, Dissolve by Colony is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Friday, August 6, 2010

COLONY - WELCOME



Welcome.

COLONY is a sound project based on electronic and experimental music.

I know that this might sounds a bit generic, but I think that picturesque definitions are almost always purely meant to help the listeners label what they are going to put in their portable mp3 reader.

In the case of Colony, they are totally meaningless during the act of conceiving and composition.

The music of Colony will be FREE because it's good to share and comunicate in these desolate times. Also, it's almost unlikely that this pretty sound unit will get a record deal or whatsoever in the near of far future.

Check this page on a regular basis for news, upgrades from the mixing desk and links to other free goodies.

If you'd like to work with - or be remixed by - Colony, feel free to contact.

A technical note: Colony is against the loudness war syndrome.
If you want strong listening emotions, then crank up the volume of your stereo.
Your ears and your brain will do the rest.

Thank you for your attention.

Always be elusive.

S.