Joyless Pleasure – The Horrorist by thingstocome

As I slept last night my new album Joyless Pleasure was moved from the iTunes staging area where new MP3s get prepared for their lives on people harddrives and marked available. Each song took more inspiration and effort than I care to share. You my dear listener are supposed to think it was effortless and that I possess some magic music making power. Truthfully I picked the times when I was feeling the most crazy, upset or happy and forced myself into the corner studio.

I love to talk about songwriting and music tech so it was difficult not to post each one of these songs here as I finished them and tell you the story behind the lyrics and what production techniques I used. In the following couple of weeks if you don’t mind I will go into detail on some of the songs. Of course this is part promotion but it’s also to keep the “I released an new album” feeling going a little longer. So as younger folk say plz leave comments and plz retweet! Buy it or steal it but whatever you do please help me spread it around.

“The Horrorist new album “Joyless pleasure” is out today on Things to Come records. Softer and surprisingly romantic but still full of energy and extremely tortured. You can’t put one style tag on the album. In the 1st track “Modern” the voice will make you think of Ian Curtis, Joy Division. “Joyless pleasure” has a high Depeche Mode feel with ultra pure and detailed synths sounds and effects. “Darkling Lullaby”, “Love sick” and “Lovely Sweet” are islands in The Horrorist universe as they are not dance tracks. “Hostage” takes us on an electroclash direction and “I stand with you” in pure EBM style with a Nitzer Ebb impression. An album more mature than ever, more melancholic. Even if we can compare some songs to other people’s sounds, there is one thing that will always belong to The Horrorist and be unique like this album: it’s his strange stories. Joyless Pleasure is like a jewelry piece but in electronic music.” – morganistik.com

Available now: iTunes Amazon MP3 Amazon CD

I’m off to perform two live shows in East Germany this weekend. One of the events is in an underground cave. I’ve played a underground cave before in Germany but I’m not sure this is the same one. Last time we drove miles (kilometers!) into the middle of nowhere to find thousands of cars in a field. Then at one spot people were just walking into a hole. It was pretty crazy, cold and the acoustics were much better than you would think. I’m not sure vibrating tons of rock above your head is a good idea but hey nothing ever goes wrong at these things right?

By the way I’ve recommended MadMimi before (article: here) for letting your fans know your doing something via email and here’s the latest promotion I sent out last night regarding these live shows: http://mim.io/570f2

If you want to get on that email list: click here

K1 Clip – Demo by thingstocome

Here’s some music I recorded for a German female producer. It’s in her court to add vocals for this and send it back to me. You’re hearing two slightly detuned Yamaha CS5 lines. Both are going through D16 Devator’s. You also hear white noise from the CS5 modulated through Ableton’s Auto-Pan. Assorted booms are my own recordings and swing is up.

Alles klar?

There are so many little gems from the 80s. If you could live a ten decades you could just about hear every underground electronic song from 1980-1989. That makes living ten decades worth it.

“Italo disco is a very broad term, encompassing much of the dance music output in Europe during the 1980s. It is one of the world’s first forms of completely electronic dance music and evolved during the late 1970s and early 1980s in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. Italo disco music has a distinct, futuristic and spacey sound, which was created using synthesizers, drum machines and vocoders.” – WIkipedia

Track: Plastic Love
Artist: Zed
Release Date: 1983
Label: Fuzz Dance Records

Today is my birthday but today I have a gift for you. It’s one of my new songs that will appear on my next album. Feel free to copy and share it. In fact, I hope you help me spread it around. The song is called “Born this Way”. Here’s the official stuff:

Born this Way – The Horrorist  Download Mirror Mirror 2

Download audio file (Born_This_Way-The_Horrorist.mp3)

Written & Produced by Oliver Chesler. Published by Things to Come Records/Basart Music Publishing B.V./Strengholt Music Group. Out of Line Music, www.outofline.de, Masterhit Recordings, www.masterhit.com, Things to Come Records, www.thingstocome.com

Photography: Silent-View, www.silent-view.com, Hair: René Hilbert, Graphic Design: Maurice Roy. Location: Tresor, Berlin. www.tresorberlin.de Special thanks to Peter Entjes.

The song was recorded in Berlin, Germany. Sequenced using Ableton Live. Synthesizers: Electrocomp-101, Roland SH3, Yamaha CS5 and many software synthesizers. Vocals: Shure KSM-32, TC Electronic Voice Modeler and many software effects.

Today I found more obscure electronic music from the 80s I didn’t know about. Interestingly the artist “Frank O’ The Mountain” lived in Rockland County, NY where I grew up. He has a large amount of music on his website but what really has my interest are his two albums “The Ramapo College Sessions 1984-1985” and the “Casio Cassette Sesssions 1985-1987“. This is exactly the kind of music a hunt out and cherish. Something about the pure analog toys mixed to 4-tracks with vocals just has me, tape his and all!

“I took an electronic music class at Ramapo College in NJ. They had a Moog 12 modular synth, and two four track tape machines in a little room. This is where I started song writing and multi-track recording. I spent many hours there by myself experimenting with sound. All songs were monitored through headphones since the speakers were blown. Mastered to cassette tape, usually adding another live track and vocal during that stage. About 150 songs. 1984-1985.” – frankothemountain.com

One has to wonder if his name kept him from the big time. Besides his MySpace and website he also has a YouTube channel: click here. So my question is has anyone heard of him before? I like it… now where did I put my Stiff Stuff?

Visit Frank O’ The Mountain online:
www.frankothemountain.com
www.myspace.com/frankothemountainmusic

Related post: Apparently I can live in the 80s forever. Jeff and Jane.

One of the best ways to promote a band on your record label is to create a video interview with them. It really doesn’t take much skill, time or money. In fact, the video above was shot using the video mode on a single point and shoot cheapo camera. I used iMovie08 which uses Core Video so any image adjustments, transitions and titles all happen in real time, no rendering! This makes the entire process actually a lot of fun. Sure the video would be better if I was using a better camera, external mic and some lights but you know what? If I had to lug all that stuff to the club I probably would not have bothered. Showing up and creating something is the most important thing. I actually own quite a lot of video equipment including Final Cut Pro but workflow always wins in my book so I went for the fastest way to the finish line. I mentioned before on this blog I love Creative Commons and here’s why: See the images I cut during the interview? They are all CC licensed so I’m not stealing anyone’s art to create my own.

The style was characterized by hard and often sparse danceable electronic beats, clear undistorted vocals, shouts or growls with reverberation and echo effects, and repetitive sequencer lines. At this time important synthesizers were Korg MS-20, Emulator II, Oberheim Matrix or the Yamaha DX7. Typical EBM rhythms are based on 4/4 beats, mainly with some minor syncopation to suggest a rock music rhythm structure. – wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_body_music

Sven Lauwers and Andy de Decker are great live which is extremely important for an EBM band. Be sure to check out Ionic Vision’s release on Things to Come Records: Beatport, Junodownload, Things to Come Records

For more info about the event they played:
www.myspace.com/crossingtheparallel