Bound in Oblivion music blog

For a long time I have been a fan of industrial music. One of the things that I’ve enjoyed about it the most has been the uniqueness of the sounds.

That deep kick drum, wide spacey keyboards, the screaming distortions, layer upon layer upon layer of sounds that could have come from anywhere. Sounds that keep you guessing, and a whole bunch of unexpected elements. A good song helps a lot to, good production can help tie it all together, but uniqueness of sound is essential.

So you could say (for me) overall “Sound design” is one of the most important and defining parts of Industrial music.

Recently I have noticed a lot of Industrial Acts over the years downgrading into rock bands with a keyboardist, or even worse, with all keyboards on tape. They start off with high ambitions and over the years something happens. You go to see them and all the elements you loved have become generic toned down versions of yesterday. On top of that, the more money spent on “Professional” releases, the worse they seem to get.

Now as an artist once you have explored one area of music, its natural to move on to explore something different. And really, who wants to buy new music that sounds like it has for the last ten years? Not me. I like to think I welcome new ideas that are pursued with passion and commitment to the art.

But come on people…

A drum track sitting in the mix just being a drum track does not make it cool. A chunky guitar track sitting on top of it is just boring unless played with passion and sounds truly unique. A Keyboard from some boring soft synth in the mix…I’m falling asleep.  And if your screaming with underwater distorted vocals you’d better be good looking or cutting of your fingers off with a knife while on stage cause I’ve seen and heard it all before. All I ask for is something interesting to listen to.

So, when writing music I ask myself what does this sound add to the song? How is that kick drum unique, special, or at least interesting? Does that guitar produce emotion and sound thick and rich with harmonics? I ask myself this with every element I put into the music. I suppose thats why writing takes a little longer.

Recently I came up with an idea, and I’ve wrote a little about this in the past. Wouldn’t it be fun to take tracking and recording music out of the box. I’ve been building devices for post production, and for the next Bound in Oblivion release a majority of tracks will be processed by these devices. Distortion circuits built with vintage parts, Pre-amps, summing mixers, tube circuit and old tape machines. I want to bring back a little life into the recording and mixing process. Most of all I want that raw element. Violent and aggressive, Uncontrolled and incredible sounding.

The way I see it, anyone can put down a drum track and press the Bounce button. Recording music in a digital world has become almost to easy. When its moved through the production process it loses the life and emotion behind it.

We want to approach recording a little different this time around. I’m not going to say Bound in Oblivion is deep and original, but I promise the music wont fall short due to uninspired laziness. I am bored to death with generic music production, and I think you are to.

As you can see we have been busy. This is Dead Animal Assembly Plant. We kicked off Z. Wagers brain child with a live show this last week.

See Eric Bergen on the far right. He is also the latest contributor to Bound in Oblivion. Johnathan Case in the center (BiO), Dusty on far left. Upfront is the man himself Z. Wager.

Gotta say it was a blast performing live after such a long time of  just studio work. While as Daap (Short for Dead Animal Assembly Plant) wont be playing shows every weekend. We will be playing some special, more assembled shows in time. So Keep your eyes open.

Why? Well we wanna do things right. We also have a full studio album in the works for Daap. Written by Z.Wager, produced by yours truly (Johnathan Case) Seems like there hasn’t been a day we haven’t been doing something music related.

These photos were provided by Roger TwentyThree (Circle TwentyThree)

Now back to work on the album. More on that later.

Recently we recently appeared on a Comp put out by Aphotic Audio down in Australia. The project was put together as a relief effort to help the victims of the massive flooding they have been hit with this year. Its a great value for the money. 40 tracks total! We are honored to be on a release with all these great bands. We hope you will pick up a copy and support the cause.

From the website:

“All proceeds from this compilation will be sent to the flood victims in Queensland, Australia.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by the floods including our friend
Ken Evans of the band Tycho Brahe, whose home was severely damaged.”

Visit the official website: http://surgesubside.com/

In reference to the last post about being “in the box” I should clarify that we still use a ton of outboard gear. I was actually referring to mixing and recording.

Right now we are working on a number of “devices” to re-amp through. Most of today will be spent soldering one of those devices. Its a mix of old transistor distortion and new modern op-amps. Going to throw in some diode clipping as well.

The prototype sounds great. I can’t wait to start working with it!

Its amazing having control over sound on such a micro level. These sounds and tones really inspire.

The DAAP project is being mixed. Z.’s solo project mainly keyboards and samples, very beat driven is at times beautifully chaotic. I think the end collection of songs will be a refreshing departure from what everyone has come to expect from so called “Industrial Music”.

The new BiO we are working on is with a slightly different perspective. Its no secret that much of the music is created, recorded, and mixed almost totally “In the box” via soft synths, midi, and plug-ins etc. This format is becoming the norm these days. I’ve been trying to find ways to get it OTB (Outta the box) so we can put back some of that randomness that comes from playing live instruments.

Musically I’m not sure where this is going. With about half the album written I am pleased with the tracks the way they are. I am also content with the knowledge that I will probably go back and really destroy them. Fingers crossed it will come out ok.

The box below used to be a 1934 tube tester. I say used to be because its been gutted. New insides are being prepared. When its finished and restored it will be a WSG, or “Wacky Tone Generator” The god awful sounds its going to make will be on the new BiO Album in the works.

How do you get a sound that nobody else has when everyone uses the same gear?

Try building it yourself. I’ve spent a the better month and a half building this custom distortion box. I call it the “Current Source 465″ after what it originally was. Its two different types of distortion and a feedback loop that creates a weird synth type oscillation.

When you build your own gear, you can make things that would never see the light of day. You can design it from the ground up to fit your liking. Normally for a product to make it into commercial production it has to appeal to the masses so that it can sell a lot of units. Features have to be cut to maintain cost effectiveness. Building things yourself gives you freedom and control. A chance to break away from the norm. I’ve never felt like I have conventional taste in anything. In fact I am board to death with mainstream consumer culture. This is my way of balancing things out.

Lately I have been buying up a lot of old 1940s & 50s test equipment. Some of it old military, some of it random surplus.

Over the next several months while writing the next Bound in Oblivion release, the boxes will be gutted, rebuilt and given a new life.

I’ve noticed that newer machines you see these days seem to lack a certain soul that the older units had. Many of them hand built with pride and skill. Its a little sad to see that fade into the past. Mass production factories make to much sense. A machine built with soul costs to much and takes to much time.

Old crappy tape machines

Just because I’m silent doesn’t mean I’m not plotting.

We have a number of new tracks being worked on and still more to be written. This is about the time when we start thinking about post production. Actually in a weird way most songs start off in post production. Yea, I know that doesn’t make sense. Just go with me on that one for now.

I recently acquired some old mini tape machines.  Beaten and abused as they are they seem to work. So I figure it might be fun to bust them open and do some circuit bending. I heard there is a way to wire in the tape head and use it as a distortion. This has not yet been confirmed, but I’ll try anything once. Aside from that I will pop them open and hard wire/solder some jacks onto the PCB. The plan is to record audio tracks to the mini tapes and bounce the tracks back into the computer. So the mini machines become a sort of fx processing unit designed to F#$K up the clean pristine clarity of the digital world.

Old but usefull

I’m not sure how good or bad this will sound, but it seems like fun to give it a shot. By wiring in the jacks right to the PCB I should be able to bypass the built in mic. One of the machines has a line in already, but the jack is a lot smaller than a 1/8th jack.

This is not a new idea in any way. Sound Engineers and Gearslutz around the world have been doing this will the big professional reel to reel tape machines for years. The difference here is we don’t have that kind of budget. If I had a reel to real of any size I would uses the hell out of it.

The fun thing with recording in digital is you can pick and choose how you want to color the music. I choose to color it dirty.  Case-

We took a week off to work out a remix for a French Industrial Band called “Sub-Division”. They are a well polished with a lot of determination. Their song writing and recordings are to be admired. Not to mention English is their second language. So with that in mind its cool that they managed to put together a complete album. I know if I tried singing in French not only would it be a song about counting to 10, but I would feel insanely silly and embarrassed that I may have said everything wrong and with a really bad accent.

The track we remixed is called “love Assassin” You can download the Bound in Oblivion remix here! Please feel free to check out their MySpace site. They have many songs and teasers up on the MySpace player. They are currently promoting their new Album called “Ten years before the dream”

Case…

Its hard writing lyrics. First of all everything that can be said has already been said. Second, anything you write runs the risk of sounding incredibly cliche. You have to be willing to walk the line absurd while maintaining your honesty as an artist. Lyrics in my opinion have never been my strong point.

So lately I’ve been sitting in the studio writing a new song…
and I try to write without worrying how ridicules the verses might sound…
just so long as they are honest…

This song I am starting with the lyrics and writing the music as I go. Most of the time I’ll do the music first and add the lyrics as an after thought. I think its important to break your habits if your going to keep things fresh. Put yourself outside your comfort zone. Try different approaches.

Over analyzing things, I ask myself what makes a good song good? For me I would have to say the emotion behind it and the over all performance. If you sing about things you don’t feel or believe, then its not going to transfer in the print. Nobody else is going to feel them ether.

And the tech side of all this:

That’s Logic Pro 9 on an old G5 Mac. (not supported by Apple) I started using Logic back in the mid 90s before Apple bought Emagic. It works well for me. Personally I think you can make great music with almost any of the DAWs out now. For me its a personal choice, I am quick and comfortable with it, so that’s what I use. I encourage you to do the same.

I don’t normally spend that much time in the dark. Studio photos just look cooler when the lights are turned out. Really not a good idea to try and work in that sorta condition. Case-