Valdez Leel Is No Longer Here . . .
If you want to find him its best to check out his site – http://www.teaandinsects.co.uk
or add him on twitter or something - http://twitter.com/valdezleel
EP Release: Synthetic Textures
Like Two Pianos, Synthetic Textures is an EP I’ve been sitting on for a while. The songs where pretty much completed sometime late last year but, in keeping with my rough and tumble bohemian way of life (read: incredible laziness), it has sat unloved for the past few months.
UNTIL NOW!!! *Epic Drum Roll*
This isn't a circuit board, but a map to my house.
Tracklisting
1. The Tortoise & The Hare
2. The Bees
3. Workshop
Synthetic Textures has perhaps the most self-explanatory title of any of my releases. I put it together mostly during my “Gee-willy-winkers! Gosh darnit analog synths are cool!” phase.
I was also listening to a lot of Squarepusher – take from that what you will. I have no idea what you would call this kind of music. Any electronica fans care to offer any suggestions?
You can download and listen to it here
ALSO: Linkara fans may recognise a certain sample in The Bees. All other samples were filched from The Internet Movie Archive.
EP Release: Two Pianos
Well it’s that time of the…uh…unspecified larger period of time…where I release another E.P.
To the adulation of literally tens of people.
Yeah…
The Piano's Are Deeply Concerned About Global Warming...
Two Pianos all started with the opening composition, Polar Bear, which I put together as a Christmas present for my mother about a year ago because making Christmas gifts is a lot more fun than buying them…also cheaper.
Also love and stuff.
I decided that the track had to be kinda special so I set about learning classical structures through the power of the INTERNET eventually amalgamating everything I learned into a musical structure I call bastard-sonata-form because it’s based around the sonata form only its dirty and simple and inelegant and a serious classical musician would probably laugh himself to death if he heard it. None the less it works as a basic outline for a little peasant like myself and since then it’s really helped me when it comes to composing instrumentals.
Using this structure I composed, along with Polar Bear, two other songs – mainly as an experiment to see A) What I could achieve with this structure and B) What I could achieve if I stuck to a limit set of instruments. The results were…interesting. I don’t know if this is the best stuff I’ve ever produced but it’s certainly the most melodically complex and varied.
Then I put it a folder in my computer and totally forgot about it.
Yeah…that tends to happen a lot with me.
So about a week ago I rediscovered it, flinched at the terrible production values, and set about tweaking the mix, adding some strings and other instrumentation to bolster the piano and just giving it a got scrub up. And now it’s here! On my page looking at your face! ETC
A brief while ago a good friend mine, Rhian, asked me to come down a play a few tunes as part of her upcoming birthday celebrations.
Ever being the one for bold promises I decided to up the ante – I would perform a cover of Nick Cave’s Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow a song of which both Rhian and I are colossal fans.
The resulting preparation required me to pretty much record my own version of the song which is today’s release.
The Blue House Doesn't Like The Red House. 'Look at him,' he says, 'hogging all the snow. Uppity bastard.'
Tracklisting
1. 15 feet Of Pure White Snow
2. Fort Alan
Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow was probably the hardest song I’ve had to record in a while. The only tab I could find online was vague and not really fit for my purposes so I had to work a lot of it out myself. On top of which the stress of tinkering with what is, to me, a classic song was a little much at times. If I screw up a vocal line on my own song it’s no biggy but if I do the same on with a Nick Cave song I’m shitting on his grave…and he isn’t even dead. So In fact I’m shitting on his head, like right before he goes to the studio or something…which is even worse I guess. The only way I could get around that really was to go off on a complete tangent and do my own thing with – the result is this mumbley-mellotron-heavy-kind-of-trying-to-be-like-Joy-Division-esque kinda cover.
Overall I’m quite satisfied with it. It’s not perfect but then again Nick Cave already did the perfect version so trying to do that again would be pretty redundant.
So yeah…enjoy.
Coupled with Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow is also one of my own ditties, Fort Alan, which I put together on the side in so I had something to take my mind off the cover. It’s got a similar vibe – mellotron heavy, murky, echoic, etc. I had a lot of fun writing it. I literally haven’t written a song as simple and straight forward as this one since I was seventeen.
ALSO: Last.fm, for reasons which are quite sensible, has ceased streaming of full tracks. As such you will have to download the track in order to hear the whole thing. Because of this I will be looking into alternative streaming options for the songs. Perhaps Spotify or something.
In the mean time don’t worry – the download button won’t bite.
EP Release: Sea Life
Despite it being the first (and only) instrument I’ve ever properly learned to play, for a long while I kind of fell out of love with the guitar – primarily as my passion for rock music waned and I became more interested in electronic styles. Synths, samplers, the studio and digital effects offered me a way to create the kind of full sound I had always wanted to create with a rock band but couldn’t because I could never find enough likeminded musicians.
Electronics allowed me, and my then band – White Noise Astronauts, to finally get off our arses and start putting out some material. The sad victim in all this was my guitar. As I became more entreached in electronic music my playing fell by the way side and I almost stopped playing all together.
Poor guitar.
Sitting in the corner of the studio.
Hardly ever being used – except for the occasional half-arsed solo or here’s-an-afterthought rhythms.
…Luckily the story has a happy ending…
Recently I picked up my guitar and brushed off the dust.
And I’m not just back to playing the guitar. I’m actually using it to write songs again – something I haven’t done in ages. The result of this reunion is the following E.P.
Man eating sharks removed for marketing purposes.
Track Listing –
1. Albatross
2. Orca
3. Gone Fishing\The Marlin
Sea Life is, without a doubt, the best thing I have released on this blog so far. It’s, in many ways, the kind of rock EP I’ve wanted to write since I first picked up guitar.
Ha! Only took me six years, but hey – progress is progress.
You Can Download The EP For Free here.
ALSO: An album which was hugely influential on the feel of this EP was Idle Jack & The Big Sleep’s, similarly ocean themed, Stone Tape Theory Volume 2.
I cannot emphasise enough how a good a band they are. They manage to entwine just about everything that is good in rock music. From the atmospheric post-rock soundscapes of Isis and Mogwai, to the jazzy and layered instrumentalism of King Crimson; From the lyrical prowess of Nick Cave and Tom Waits to the soaring vocal delivery of Zeppelin. This band encompasses and, in many cases, surpasses the whole spectrum.
EP Release: Automatons
Look out! Here comes another EP…
A nuclear family with a nuclear daddy about to hug his nuclear kids with his nuclear arms...nuclear.
Track-listing
- Automatic People
- Automation 1
- Automation 2
- Automation 3
This one, as you may have guessed, is called Automatons. The opening track, Automatic People, is the first to feature vocals from me. Notice how I didn’t use the word ‘singing’? Let’s just say if you like droney-post-punk-kinda songs with dark synths in the place of guitars then this should appeal to your tastes.
The other three songs (Automations 1 through 3) are the culmination of various experiments I’ve been doing in randomly generated melodies and beats. The results are primarily ambient in nature and continue the pathetic grovelling Eno worship which is slowly becoming my trademark.
You can listen to and download the whole EP for free here.
That’s all for now…BUT BEWARE!!! For at any moment I could strike again. So keep your ears to the ground…remain vigilant…
EP Release: Tourism
Hello Internet. Long time no see. How’s the wife? Oh yes, now I remember. You’re an ambiguously gendered hive mind–super structure constructed of millions of people acting independently: you are your wife.
I have some more free music for your delectation. It’s an EP called Tourism.
This is an island. It looks like breakfast.
It consists of two very different songs that are both rather long. One is called Cuba and it’s my attempt to mix Jazz and Electronica together in a cohesive way. I’ve tried this kind of thing before but this is the first time I think it’s really worked out the way I wanted it to – so I’m super special happy with it. It clocks in at a meaty ten minutes so be sure to pack a bag – you’re going on a journey.
The second song is no short hall either. It’s called Three Islands and clocks in at around eight minutes. It’s my most overtly Eno worshipping piece to date with slowly evolving atmospherics and undulating textures taking the place of conventional song structure – beat junkies need not apply but If you’re a soundscape fetishist like myself you should get a kick out of it.
ALSO: Be prepared – Latin percussion may occur.
