NZO

15:14

Some current favourite video game soundtracks

14:56

Thank you for the lovely comments and messages!

14:50

Ontsnappen / Vinden and future projects!

20:48

Weekly Listening #01

I've been a bit unwell recently and feeling exhausted from work so haven't been able to make huge progress on any music making in the past week.

Fortunately I can still do a lot of listening when I feel under the weather, according to my LastFM I've done a lot of listening over the last 7 days, considering I've been at work/out/sleeping.

For myself personally, I find music listening not just therapeutic and comforting but also productive, I get inspired and listen to different effects and methods of production which I think can help in my own development when attempting to make music.

I think I'll make this a weekly thing to post my top listened artists on LastFM, if nothing else it's just a cool thing to share I guess and might give you guys a better insight to my inspiration. (On that note feel free to add me on LastFM: HOGGSofWAR )

DEFTONES - 312 PLAYS

Yeah so, I don't know how I missed the Deftones, I only started listening to them in the past week or two after being introduced to them. I found myself hooked to the White Pony album, it has some nostalgic element to it which reminds me of my teenage years, trying to zone out of my situations at school whilst listening to music. It has that angsty mood to it, yet gives you really positive vibes when listening. It feels like a great album for when you're feeling down but don't want to have those feelings exaggerated in your mind by the music, if that makes sense?

My favourite track so far has been:

65DAYSOFSTATIC - 152 PLAYS

I discovered 65Daysofstatic back in 2010 I believe. I didn't really listen to them much during 2014 or 2015, so I've been revisiting to remind myself why I love them so much. It's going to take me a while to work my way through their discography again, but I'm excited about it. I've been playing Prisms a lot, it's a style I'd be keen to experiment with once I've finished my current projects.

MOGWAI - 117 PLAYS

Mogwai, again I began listening to around 6 years ago. I was out the other night and a track from Mogwai's 'Rave Tapes' album played in the bar (One perk of Bristol bars, you quite often get to enjoy your favourite music.) and I listened to the album again as soon as I could. I then revisited 'Come on die young' which I have found really inspiring listening. It's really encouraging me to experiment more with guitars in my music, even though I can't yet play the guitar. I really hope I get some time to learn at least basic chords on my guitar soon. This has been a Mogwai track I've been enjoying a lot recently.

UNKLE - 76 PLAYS

One of my favourites. I discovered Unkle back in 2007, so I was around 15 or 16. The first album I actually heard from Unkle was their 2007 release, 'War Stories' which I was just overwhelmed by, in particular with tracks like 'Restless' featuring Josh Homme and 'Burn My Shadow' with Ian Astbury, also 'Broken' & 'Keys To The Kingdom' with Gavin Clark who sadly passed away in February 2015.

I had been so obsessed with War Stories for years that I hadn't given as much attention to other wonderful albums such as 'Never Never Land' and of course, 'Psyence Fiction' which I've invested a lot of listening time in recently. I really love 'Inside' from Unkle's 'Never Never Land' because of the quote it samples from the film, 'Jacob's Ladder'.

Unkle tracks I've been listening to repetitively the past week are:

In the Lonely Soul track, I am completely hooked on the style transition at 4:59, in which the strings completely change the emotion of the track. I find this incredibly inspiring for my attempts at making music which can hopefully communicate any of my inner sad feelings. I do find the construction of this entire track pretty hypnotic for the journey it takes you on.

Finally Unkle ft Moby has been another piece I have felt immersed by. I'm really interested in the idea of sampling film or radio quotes to a piece of music to see what emotions I can trigger in my listeners.

I'm only going to share these tracks for now, otherwise I'll be writing a very long (and probably quite meaningless) post. Hope this is a cool way for you to make some new discoveries maybe, or connect with my taste? If anyone is even reading this at all... Enjoy!

19:42

Christian Löffler Inspiration

One of my discoveries of 2015 was Christian Löffler who has become one of my favourite electronic musicians. He creates wonderful layering of dark melodies and captures my love of dark techno/house music. I quite often find myself listening to his music on repeat late at night, like right now, at 3:30am... ha!

In my last post I shared a sad piano piece I'd been working on. I am still pursuing that project along with a few others but recently I've been going out with my music loving friends to various techno/dance gigs and I've been feeling inspired to try working on a style of music I haven't attempted yet.

I thought Christian Löffler would be an ideal person to take inspiration from for my attempt at dark ambient techno music. When I listen to Löffler I feel like he creates simple melodies and places more emphasis on the creation of the sound/sample to produce the melody with and from there just adds layers.

At this stage I haven't made any drum patterns/sequences and have just focussed on attempt to create haunting sounds and looping a melody whilst adding layers for emphasis. I have also used the same melody and simply adjusted a few effects, for example adding a 'Dynamic Tube' audio effect to make the core melody sound deeper at 22 seconds into this piece. I'm finding it pretty fun to focus on adjusting sound. I'll hopefully get a chance to use Ableton Push to work on a drum sequence over the next few days and shall post my progress.

Here is my attempt at taking inspiration from Löffler so far:

As I'm taking inspiration, I'll share what a few of my favourite Löffler tracks have been:

I find all of these to have a somewhat haunting and sad sound, which I feel really connected to and hope to eventually reflect in my own music one day. Another thing I notice with a lot of his music is the use of crackles and ambient noise, which adds a grainy texture to the tracks, so I'll experiment with recording sounds, turning them into samples and adding various effects.