#signal (bloopy)

[dailyenglishvoca]

Today's song is SIGNAL by Bloopy featuring the Chipspeech voicebank Dee Klatt

Content warning: mild flickering/TV static effects

[thatbassistbitch]

   12D-3 pulled the blanket tighter around himself, burying his face in Murdoc’s pillow as he tried to slow his breathing. The now familiar smell of smoke and rum did nothing to calm his nerves.

   “He’s coming back, he’s just going to talk to his friend,” he whispered to no one in particular. A faint hissing sound echoed from the busted up radio sitting just a few feet away on the coffee table. The bent antenna made it nearly impossible to pick up any proper signal, but the silence had been too deafening to bear, so the alien left it alone.

    “He’s coming back, he wouldn’t just leave me here.” 12D-3 closed his eyes, trying to ignore the painful absence of the man he’d so quickly become attached to. They’d only known each other for a few days, so why did he feel this way? “I know I always got scared when the scientists left me alone, but never like this...why is this any different? I knew them my whole life, but I haven’t even known Murdoc for a week...”

  Hours had passed, and Murdoc still had not returned. 12D-3 kept his gaze fixated on the clock before him, watching every second tick by. The incessant ticking was making his skin crawl. Why did time have to pass so damn slowly?! 

   “He’s coming back, he wouldn’t just leave his home here. Surely he’d have packed his things if he planned to leave.” It was starting to get late. He needed something...ANYTHING to distract him from the growing dread that threatened to fully overtake him. Looking around, his gaze settled on an odd rectangular object with black and white markings. “A synth, he called it? Hm.” Finally getting out of bed, 12D-3 skittered over to the object and inspected it. It was absolutely covered in buttons. He began pressing them at random until it finally lit up. 12D-3 sucked in a deep breath before pressing one of the keys. An odd bloopy noise rang out, startling him for a moment. His tendrils perked up in interest as he tilted his head and leaned forward. He pressed another key. Bloop.

   “He’s coming back. He wouldn’t leave something like this behind.” 12D-3 smiled and began playing the keys at random. A few sounds didn’t seem to go together very well, but others did. His anxiety persisted, but slowly began to fade. Pressing a few different buttons made the sound change. Some he liked, others he didn’t. But it was fun to experiment. The noise was a nice change of pace. 12D-3 hadn’t been fiddling with the keyboard for more than 20 minutes when a low rumbling sound caught his attention. His feelers stiffened as he pulled his hood over his head, ducking under a table away from the windows. The rumbling noise got louder and louder before finally sputtering to a halt. 12D-3 sucked in a deep breath as footsteps crunched through gravel, approaching the door to the Winnebago. Eyes widened in fear, he shrank back against the wall, clamping a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound of his own breathing. A few indecipherable curses and the jangling of keys gave him pause. Click. 

     “Ah, there we go.” A familiar low grumble brought a big smile to 12D-3’s face as the front door swung open. He scrambled out from under the table just as the lights flipped on. “Yeah, so uh, don’t scream or anything.” 12D-3’s gaze fixated on mismatched eyes and he leapt up to his feet.

    “MURDOC!” 12D-3 yelled gleefully as he ran across the RV and flung his arms around the human’s neck. Murdoc let out an oof and stumbled back, bracing himself with a hand against the doorframe and wrapping his other arm around the alien. “Whoa there, mate. Don’t knock me out the fuckin’ Winnie, yeah?” Murdoc chuckled as he patted 2D on the back. The alien chirped happily as he squeezed the man even tighter. “Don’t choke me, either.” 12D-3 froze and let go, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.

    “Sorry, got a bit excited there.” He offered an apologetic smile before glancing behind Murdoc quizzically. “Who’s that?” A broad man with dark skin and gleaming white eyes stood in the doorway, completely shellshocked as their eyes met. Murdoc grinned toothily. “This is the friend I told you about.” Murdoc clapped his hands together and spun around. “Russ, meet Specimen 12D-3. A legitimate extraterrestrial being. Marvelous, isn’t he?” 12D-3 peeked from around Murdoc, waving shyly at the new human with a gentle hello. Russel apparently didn’t take the greeting too well, as he proceeded to pass the fuck out. 12D-3 lowered his hand apprehensively as the human hit the ground.

     “...I didn’t kill him, did I?” 12D-3 fretted as he stepped around Murdoc and nudged the pudgy man with his foot. Murdoc snorted. “Nah, he’s just sleeping. Americans do that sometimes. Just leave him, we won’t be able to drag him in. Probably need a forklift for that,” he chuckled darkly as he shook his head and headed for the kitchen area. Rather than asking what an american or a forklift was, 12D-3 followed his human and sat down at the table towards the back of the Winnebago. Murdoc plopped down across from him with two beers, offering one with a smirk. 12D-3 shook his head politely, to which Murdoc just shrugged and popped one open. “So, uh...you were rather excited to see me.” 

    “You were gone a long time. I thought you weren’t gonna come back, that you just left me here or something,” 12D-3 stated matter-of-factly. Murdoc froze. “B-but you did! You did come back. So it’s all okay now!” The alien smiled nervously, his tendrils twitching erratically. The man before him narrowed his eyes before taking a deep breath and setting the can down.

    “Mate, I...” Murdoc sighed as he lowered his head. A moment of silence passed before Murdoc raised his head again, eyes burning with intensity as he reached for 12D-3’s hand. “I told you I’m gonna protect you, keep you safe. I’m not gonna just leave you somewhere, alright? I’m Murdoc fucking Niccals. I may be a bastard, but I don’t break my promises.” He squeezed the alien’s hand gently. “And I promise I’ll always come back.” 12D-3’s vision blurred as tears welled up in his eyes.

     “I...th-thank you.” 12D-3 squeezed back with a tearful smile. “N-nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before.” Murdoc raised an eyebrow. “Not gonna lie, mate. That’s kinda fucking sad.” Murdoc barked a laugh. “You’re not used to people saying nice stuff to you, eh? Guess that makes two of us. Let’s change that, yeah?” 12D-3 nodded fervently, leaning forward with a soft smile as he gazed deeply into Murdoc’s crimson eye. A loud creak startled them, and they turned to see Russel looming in the doorway.

     “That’s sweet and all, really pure and touching. But for the love of God, will you properly explain to me what the hell is going on?” The man squinted at Murdoc as he stepped into the Winnebago and let the door slam shut behind him. Murdoc nodded and took a gulp of his beer.

    “Gladly. Now sit the fuck down and listen carefully.”

[gleeandshame]

Supergirl 5x01 Semi-liveblogging

I’m not sure if I like this show tbh, so fair warning of that, content below the cut for spoilers

[[MORE]]

Sorry, not sorry for absolutely howling when Lena decks Kara and she just blows up???

Imagine taking contacts out that easily?

Hope is a bloopy dna blob, and scarier than Alexa... maybe

Hmmm, how will she make her hurt but not be a villain about it?

Imagine playing Pokemon GO with these

Alex that was just corny not cute, but I’m trying to give you all a shot

Yeah Kara, the contacts are making politics ignorable

How hard is it to get a Pulitzer?

Oh Kara........

I don’t blame her though, I’m Miss Avoidant

I’m still not over hee having new bangs and Supergirl presumably having new bangs/fringe

Haha, oh I love Brainy and Nia

Girlfriends don’t always have to be right, but yay, they cute

That handshake thing, I throat laughed

Did she just like sell the company? Petty petty

That’s why they are mentioning villains...

Kate Mucci, she’s such a babysitter and teacher vibe.

Okay little alien girl

Yeah right Lena, you loaded

She’s a good actress though

Lena... diabolical, guilt trips

Was that not just on speaker? She’s just so obviously Supergirl

I wish this dino had feathers

Wtf, looked like that dino turned into the pod

But i guess it cut away, so it stole the pod. Imagination making things turn to life?

Wouldn’t it have just been a model or ... replica

I mean they mentioned it probably, but if it was real there should have been security, oh well

VR / AR wing next to the medical one? I get it, you just need to be in one space for the show

“CatCo isn’t the end all of what we can off each other” 👀👀👀

Lena / Katie is literally shippable with any woman

A portal just like that huh?

Everything is about clicks

Catco clickbait reboot

How are they all on a new three year contract?

I just keep hearing “we found Superman’s pie”

Who’s midnight? Seems hot, lol

“It’s great fun to watch you do that”

Hmmm, Kara standing up for her writing, I wonder how it’s gonna go tho

U can’t do it because you love her, in whatever way that is

Her glasses are gonna get knocked off or something...

Baby, did it

I’m glad they didn’t drag it out

She gonna ruin her makeup

That was genuinely good. The care the kids and specifically the women have each other is usually on point

Ambiguous.... i don’t think she would. Drop something else at 9pm, because it was very much her like admitting love for you for majority of it???!

Huh........ anyone in the audience would be like wtf

Uuuuuh J’onn

That didn’t make sense but alright, just laser eyes it?

James is free but what will he do

I don’t know who Hans Gruber is

Consent talk? Nice

Aw. Love already huh

Nerd

No that wasn’t you Brainy

They gonna kiss

Good

How would fighting prove it?

J’onn keeps not being the last martian

Supergirl signal

Gaaaaaaay

I don’t know what they’re doing, slowburn I guess

Not a villain in the sense of being decietful to save the world...

Mmmmm fine ep I guess

[lemonfrontier]

Full Interview for (split) EP with Matt Ackerman of moduS ponY & Eamon Hamill of VLK

Ash: Can you both speak a bit about what it was like to create a collaborative project, and about exchanging samples? Eamon: I think this split started with Matt's suggestion that we exchange some audio files, I think each sending the other person a field sample, a vocal sample and some tracks from a work-in-progress or something like that. I ended up sending him a bunch of bleepy-bloopy synth drones and a recording of a crowd in Sicily. He sent me some very nice guitar and bass tracks, a recording of some stage banter, radio signals being picked up on an amp and and a really cool, high-energy audio file called "Yogurt bottle". Matt: Well, this was a sort of an asynchronous collaboration I guess you could say. I think normally when I collab with someone online there’s a little more back and forth. The creative decision making is more shared. I thought it would be a fun experiment to just exchange some random samples and be surprised by what the other person did with them, giving them full license, like giving a painter a few colors of paint to work with and saying “here, do what you will.” Eamon: We also decided early on that we would use a picture of the Croatian port city, Split, on the cover, carrying on the tradition of bad visual puns from the last split on STR, which was a gymnast performing a split. I kind of had Croatia in mind when putting things together (I was there once and have some weird memories of trying to sleep on the floor of ferries, strange concrete architecture and the beautiful, sunny coastline) and Matt went in something of an Italian direction with some of the names (and of course the Sicilian field sample I'd sent), so I feel that we can get away with claiming that there is at least some kind of Adriatic vibe to the release. Maybe? Ash: To me, a lot of it sounds almost improvisational in the way that the samples are layered in, did exchanging samples change the way you looked at writing the songs? Matt: In some cases: yes. In others: no. In the last track on my side for example, “Infrequency,” I actually used the entirety of some synth improv that Eamon sent me. I just sort of improvised on guitar over what he had done, so it was sort of like an electroacoustic duet. I usually think in loops and rhythms and my pieces usually have some road map, so to do something in free time, no tonality, not really knowing if it would work or not was very different for me. Other pieces, like “En Route to the Business Plant” are more loopy, which I’m accustomed to. And in others, like “Black Lasagna” the samples were more of an after thought. It was a challenge to say “ok, where can I fit this field recording of Italians talking into this piece I’m working on?” I ended up slowing it down and playing it quietly during the break and the outro. It’s not the crux of the track but I’d like to think it added a certain creepy ambiance to a song about lasagna. Eamon: Production-wise, I mostly messed around with his audio using software, especially some self-modulating samplers in reaktor to get long unpredictable transformed variations of the sounds, that I'd then chop up and arrange in Logic into some kind of semi-structured song narrative, with a few of my own synth parts added in. In some places, though, I just basically used his music pitched around a little bit. I then ended up running a lot of those tracks out through chains of external analog filters and delays, which hopefully added some grittiness and depth (and definitely plenty of noise). Ash: Is this something that you've done before, or would like to do again? Eamon: I've done in-person collaborations before, but never a sample exchange like this. It definitely lead me in a different direction and Matt is a great musician, so working with his audio was a lot of fun. Matt: I guess the closest thing to this that I’ve done, aside from normal file sharing collabs, is an assignment for the Disquiet Junto (an open experimental group that has weekly prompts). In that assignment, all the artists created a minimal track (panned hard left). The next week someone else added something (panned hard right). And finally a third person added the last bit (centered). I’ve also done a few “exquisite corpse” collabs with some other artists on soundcloud. I would definitely do it again. I think working within open limitations (as dumb as that phrase is) is great for creativity. The page is just blank enough for you to express yourself but not so blank as to give you existential dread. Ash: I'm just getting into analog production myself, so I was wondering what you use, and whether it's all recorded analog? I'd love to hear how the way you recorded the album affected the final songs, if and when it did. Matt: I’m more of an in-the-box person but my first recording device when I was 16 was a Tascam 4 track recorder. I have some fond memories of that, but once I got into computer production it just made sense to me. It seems more accommodating to the types of experimental ideas I want to explore. I think knowing it’s going to end up on tape in this case though, makes me a little less fussy about production because I know that hiss will be there. One of the tracks, “Italian Suede” for example, is pretty noisy and I just embraced that. Ash: And how does this EP compare to other releases either of your bands have had in the past? Eamon: [Previous] releases are sample based, with all of the sounds being limited to a certain, themed set of samples - e.g. ... made using sounds from Shaquille O'Neal's second album. This split with Matt (moduS ponY) was a bit different in that I ended up not being totally strict and adding a few other sounds of my own - mostly synth stuff. Matt: I’ve always liked playing with samples. A previous album of mine, Phonogetic Ouch explored the rhythm of certain speech samples. Most songs on there are based on some speech loop, the rhythm of which served as the basis for the song. I was interested in where on the rhythmic scale the samples landed, from toe-tappable to spastic. I also did an advertising themed album, which used a lot of advertising samples. And random songs here and there on other albums feature samples and cut-ups. Find the EP here: https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/split-2 Find previous releases from moduS ponY: https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/phonogetic-ouch Find previous releases from VLK: https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/avril-and-sean-in-camden