Hello one and all and Happy post-April Fool’s Day. In honor of that, I will try to convince you that I’ve actually made substantial in-roads towards creative expression with a straight face…
….shouldn’t be that hard- I really have. In each of the past two months, I’ve had vacation time to burn that’s allowed me week-long sabbaticals from work, giving me the opportunity to relax, refocus, re-examine, and explore some musical ideas I’ve been looking to do. To be fair, the first one only yielded work on my short film “Unwinnable Hand: A Thriller in Two Movements” on the creative front- not a bad thing, though; I did get a lot done, as could be seen in my latest Production Blog here.
This time around, the time off was much-needed. An emotional reboot was in dire need after I found myself struggling with personal issues the last two days of work last week. However, by then my musical juices were already going after finally completing work on “Searching for the Mysteries”, the 17 1/2 minute piece previously known as “The Ultimate Trip,” renamed after I gave a CD of what I currently had for my forthcoming fourth album, “Beyond the Infinite: A Musical Odyssey”, to a friend of mine at work. I didn’t include titles, so she came up with her own- “Searching for the Mysteries” was her choice for “Trip.” As I listened more to the track the past few days, I chose to go with her name instead- it’s more evocative, which is just what the track needs. “Searching for the Mysteries”- which utilizes a great number of sound design techniques- can be heard in excerpts at Sonic Cinema, although the Csound elements of the piece can be heard on my Csound podcast here, along with four of the tracks from my 2000 album “Dark Experiments”, all available for download if you’d like.
When my five-day vacation from work started Saturday, my original intent was to get another day of filming in, but the weather didn’t cooperate. All in good time, and the day was not a total bust artistically. I got together with newly-broken in “Unwinnable Hand” actor Mathew Timms to discuss another artistic collaboration on our plates. Mat has done his own short film- tentatively-titled “Walpurgis Nacht”, after the Pagan holiday (the same day Hitler killed himself)- that I’m going to begin working on the music for in the coming week or so. From what he’s shown me of the film- a silent, black-and-white effort- already has ideas flowing for what to do. And it’s been invigorating being able to really discuss- in musical terms- what he’s looking for. While it was great having the type of freedom to do what I wanted on “The Case” series, this is another beast entirely, and Mat and I are on basically the same page as to what to do with the film- always a good sign.
Sunday was just as engaging and invigorating creatively. In the morning I completed- with brisk efficiency- the final electronics-based composition for “Beyond the Infinite”. Entitled “Angels Watching (Finale to ‘Beyond the Infinite’)”, the composition was created as sort of an “end credits” suite for the album, bringing everything heard before to a thematic and emotional conclusion. Developed in brief time- going more off of feel than traditional composition- I think the piece (whose title was another one of those my friend came up with, albeit for another piece) brings together things well.
The rest of Sunday afternoon was spent on a new avenue for my creativity. A few weeks ago I found myself drawn towards listening to some new Nine Inch Nails- “The Downward Spiral” has always been one of my favorite albums, and I hadn’t heard a new NIN album since “The Fragile.” Looking into one of their new albums led me to their official site, which also has a section devoted to remixes of their music; I’ve got a couple of CDs of NIN remixes myself, so I was intrigued. Checking out that particular page led to a discovery- to promote a new way of thinking about remixes, NIN made raw tracks of several of their recent songs available freely for download, allowing individuals to create their own remixes to submit for the site. After listening to their last two albums- “Ghosts I-IV” and “The Slip”- I had a couple of tracks I wanted to put my own stamp on.
Well, to make a long story shorter, by the time I met Ron to go see “Monsters vs. Aliens” on IMAX that night, I had my own remix of an NIN song ready. The original song is “Lights in the Sky” off of “The Slip.” My version- which can be heard on my profile @ remix.nin.com/member/bslemurgeek– is entitled “Alone Again (‘Lights in the Sky’ Remix)”. It may not be quite on the level of some of the other remixes on there, but I do think I put my own stamp on the song, and made it my own. There are a couple more I’m looking to do in the near future. More on that later.
The past few days have been less productive on a creative front, but have been good for my mind. I did finally take the opportunity to type up a couple of scores in Finale so I can get a couple of “Beyond the Infinite” tracks recorded in the coming months. I also took on another, shall we say, unorthodox musical project. On Tuesday I recorded “Cage Against the Machine”. It’s an adaptation of John Cage’s infamous “silent piece” “4’33″” (with a title suggested by my friend and fellow musician Jeffrey Bützer) utilizing the instruments in my personal studio. Each movement of the piece is designated by a particular sound, whether it’s snapping fingers into a microphone or doing something with one of my instruments. It’s available at Sonic Cinema at the link above- take a listen if you dare. 🙂
Well, alas I believe that is it for me. I’ve got a lot of good stuff going on in the creative front, as well as the personal one heading back to work this week. I hope you enjoy what you hear/read, ’cause there’s gonna be more where that came from as the year goes on.
Thanks for listening,
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
www.myspace.com/brianskutle
www.reverbnation.com/brianskutle
www.myspace.com/cinemanouveau
www.youtube.com/bskutle
Brian’s Current CDs Available
“Creative Beginnings” (1999)
“Dark Experiments” (2000)
“Sonic Visions of a New Old West” (2007)
