this ravine where i loved you...: Archive

a little more than 11 years ago, i began a journey that continues to this day; into the world of digital music recording. in 2001, i got my very own computer (previously in my life it had always been the family computer or a friend’s computer), and began recording albums and releasing them for free on the internet.

i’ve been recording music in one way or another since around 1996, but 2001 was a paradigm shift; i was suddenly able to produce layered, multi-tracked, complex compositions, with multiple instruments and samples, all by myself without leaving my bedroom. i think at the time, that was basically my idea of heaven.

the first thing that was borne of this new found heaven was this collection of heady, fuzzy, off-kilter, shoegaze-y tracks that i appropriately titled slumber (download the whole album now).

at the time, i was listening to a lot of shoegaze, lo-fi, wall-of-noise, and garage-glitch stuff like Hood, Four Tet, The For Carnation, Yo La Tengo, MBV, SIANspheric, early Treble Charger, and Rose Chronicles, and i definitely think that influenced my early sound.

the teaser track streaming in this post, “moebius” is probably pretty representative of slumber on a whole, though the album does jump around a lot between lo-fi guitar tracks and breakbeat glitch. the songs of slumber are mostly what i consider to be “outtakes” from the tigers album, which i actually released as a CD in 2002.

slumber contains alternate versions (and/or remixes) of tracks that appeared on tigers, such as “24 views of mount fuji” (which i later re-recorded again in 2007) and “athoos”. i think at one point i also intended to include an overdriven acoustic version of “gills” on slumber, but i think that recording is lost somewhere in the digital aether.

altogether, this album represents my earliest musical fumblings. it even includes “midnite on the lake”, a reworking of a track that i originally recorded in 1999 on a tascam porta-studio 4-track. i haven’t gone back and remastered the tracks, and i’m not overly proud of them, but i still find them entertaining, with one or two moments of genuine inspiration coming through the noisy fog.

enjoy.

tracklist:

1. good morning

2. athoos (remix)

3. afternoon

4. concorde

5. rising shine

6. moebius

7. midnite on the lake

8. all our problems

9. blushing

10. trembull