Superflat Single #62 / Chez Jonesy

I'd like to introduce a new track by a new Blips and Ifs artist: Separation Anxiety by Chez Jonesy. Once a member of seminal Vancity smash-rock band The Impossible Machine, Jonesy has since begun his own side project, and apparently his own restaurant too. We hope to get more tracks by Mr. Jonesy up here soon, but if you just can't wait, and you have a hankering for Britney covers, you can check out his homepage. His sound, well, it's a little hard for me to describe, because I'm more used to listening to music that was created by heliotropic plants hooked up to trigger general midi synths. But I guess I could call it a mix of blips-like beats and virtual synths with a healthy, digestible serving of granola political activism. Better you just listen for yourself. Please welcome, all the way from the other side of the internet .... Chez Jonesy!

Listen to blipsandifs062.mp3 - 3.6 MB

Superflat Single #61 / Tachikoma vs. Slogic

The real collaboration efforts of Blips and Ifs are only really starting to take shape now.

This track, for example, is based on some analog synth loops created and emailed to me by slogic, from the UK. I added some crusty Casio drum samples and other pads and echoes and dubbed it down a bit. I imagine that this track is kinda what it would be like if slogic and I ever met in person ... especially the last minute ... it dissolves in a kind of haze. Heh.

The cover art for this single is another example of extensive collaboration. It's from a comic book, Outnumbered, released by our buddies at Critical Hit Comics. The book features graphical data input from [710W3] and the Boats too.

Little of this is obvious if I don't tell you. I could have made the track and cover by myself, but I didn't. Just wanna peel back the veneer and show all the strange gears and conveyor belts that are behind the blipping, iffing machine.




Listen to blipsandifs061.mp3 - 4.2 MB

Superflat Single #60 / [710W3]

The central catalysts for this track was the vocal sample from a local choir (from over 30 years ago), the plucked instrument and the glitches. All of these sounds I chose because they were recorded here in Vancouver.

The untimely interruption about a minute into the song is an audio photo of 1000 semi-trucks on strike from a few years back. They backed up Clark Street for hours wailing on their horns driving at 2 km per hour. The original audio sample is quite beautiful. Each of the horns produced different notes and some even had melodic custom horns. The cacophony went on and on while all I wanted to do was record music. Inadvertently, I was.

Listen to blipsandifs060.mp3 - 3.0 MB

Superflat Single #59 / [710W3]

"I offered you the world, but you only want America."

You understand that, right? 'Granola' is the name of this genre. I don't know if anyone other than [710W3] uses this name for this. But it says a lot. Granola music is hard to chew but great for the digestion, I find. It's also enviromentally friendly. It's the kind of music you'd take with you if you were gonna climb a tree and live there so that the loggers couldn't cut it down. Or, if you were, say, teaching at a film school on Galiano and you spent all your money on smokes and had no food but you were stuck on the island for the weekend recording your album, you'd live offa granola. [710W3] can't offer you America, but all the Galiano he can afford is yours.

Listen to blipsandifs059.mp3 - 1.7 MB

Reactable - Tablesynth

I'm really amazed by the coolness of this concept. To find that much of the technology is opensource made me even more excited. A table top musical interface! It's more then I can describe. I'm still stunned by the YouTube footage I just watched. This is really neat, something I could easially imagine it being the only thing in Tachikoma's living room.

This is the official website.

You Tube:
Reactable Demo 1
Reactable Demo 2
Improvisation with Reactable
People explaining it in Documentary Form.

Superflat Single #58 / Dub Bear

There's not much to say about this ultra-long rusty old dub from Dub Bear. The cover goes a long way. And the riddim goes a long way.

This one is a good one for riding on a bus. Or performing a repetitive activity. It's not exactly a video game soundtrack, but it's got some low-grade loops in there.

The game never over. Sometimes you think the game over but actually you incorrect.




Listen to blipsandifs058.mp3 - 10 MB