After much personal drama, both in my own head and with my partner R – we have decided strongly to give up on this whole Brisbane idea and move back to Armidale. More on why we came to this realisation later; but already R has an excellent job secured in her interest-area and I have been chasing work back at UNE. And, it looks like we have a rental lined up as well – a cat friendly RSPCA friend has offered an old house close to town. R’s job starts very, very soon and the rental may be available in much the same time – which means we could be negotiating a move back up that hill to New England quick smart! To sum up without the rambling, we’re both really happy about this and I’m looking forward to getting back to that lifestyle, and I am looking forward to getting back to a stable headspace to pick up my artistic projects again.

Even before the move to Brisbane I was becoming aware of a lost feeling between R and I, and a growing amount of undefined agitation. This sensation became even worse when we got here. I felt really confused and kept telling myself to ‘think positive of the situation’ and keep on with the Brisbane idea. I couldn’t easily get work as an audio technician and my free lance work was never going to pay for much. So I tried to get more training to broaden my professional options. I got the Certificate IV Workplace and Training Certificate successfully – but I needed more qualifications to actually be able to teaching something in the adult education sector. I had a real hard time getting some straight answers out of South Bank Institute of Technology about whether or not their Vocational Graduate Certificate in Adult Literacy and Numeracy Teaching course was the ‘right fit’ for me. A little bit frustrated and confused I though “bugger it” and enrolled in the course anyway, at an expense of $3000 upfront. Well, it turns out the expected study load and level of difficulty was a little beyond me at the moment, given that I’ve not studied at a formal academic level since 2003. But there were other things going wrong that added to my struggle…

I just couldn’t concentrate. I could feel myself gradually slipping into a bit of an emotional hole, fed by these factors- loosing confidence due to not being able to find a job, still confused why there was all this strain between R and I, and being in an odd lifestyle of city living that is still all rather new to me as a person who has always lived in modest regional towns. Out of this fragile zone came all the nasty black thoughts that had been sitting there in the background all along. Self doubt. Sadness. Weirdness. Emotional agony. Second guessing. And above all else in epic proportions: GUILT. I name this fucking mental disease for what it is: a latent pattern of thinking that has been so ingrained in me that it was only a matter of time before a vulnerable moment would appear and I would fall prey to it’s maddening illogical cycle. I’ve broken down to wailing tears and destructive anguish in the last few month more times than I have ever before. I would feel so guilty that I couldn’t even bare to think of working on music, let alone making the attempt and being filled with doom and uneasy terror.

There came a point somehow that I realised that, yes, I have a very real problem.

In fact, I had started realise that I was putting pressure on R to somehow fix this problem for me, or somehow help me escape to some fantasy where the problem didn’t appear to exist. It became plain as day that this was a poisonous way to think! I had started to make my happiness contingent on external things, when really my happiness is my own responsibility and my own to sort out by myself. All this made me think that really I’ve had this problem for a very long time, maybe even since I was a teenager. Periods of calm like the last 5 years in Armidale in a stable job and environment had only protected and coveted the problem from raising it’s ugly head. But it has been deeply driving me all along. Fuck it, I became so over breaking down and being an absolute muddle that it was time to do something about it. So I went to a GP, here at the local mall. Pretty quickly after assessment I was recommended to see a Mental Health Psychologist and receive formal assessment and a short program of therapy. The doctor also gave me a written certificate which I’ve used to add evidence to an application to South Bank Institute of Technology for a partial refund of the $3000 I paid to do this course. I’d like to get part of that money back and I’m withdrawing my enrollment. I’m not risking failure and wasting that money just because I’m not up for it in this time of my life. I’ve got bigger more important problems to work through.

I realise now that for at least the last 12 months I have been pushing, pushing R into joining me on this idea of living in Brisbane. And that pushing has come from me as a faulty way of me trying to avoid dealing with my own problems, without even knowing that I was doing that. I seriously thought, mistakenly thought, that moving here would make me happy, would sort out whatever vague tensions I had about my career or relationship, and would be delivered unto some sub-tropical bliss in a parade of cultural opportunity. How wrong was I! Brisbane is a crazy place! Sure there are some good things about this lifestyle, but it’s certainly not for us. I had a day of casual work up at Redcliffe TAFE and the hour long car commute through traffic completely set it in stone for me: people crawl like this every working day for years and happily call it ‘life’. Well, no thanks. I’d rather be back in a quite room in a quiet street working on my music. Ride my bike to work. No traffic stress. The feeling of community in Armidale is a very real thing, and traveling back there for visits has made me realise that I took it all for granted. I really regret pushing R so selfishly for so long, when all along she knew she didn’t want to be here. She grew up in Brisbane and is so totally over it. It’s crazy, I had to come here myself to get it out of my system, dive into the deep end and really appreciate what it’s like to get wet. Lesson learned I guess! I will never ever again put that much pressure on someone I love in the name of something so vague as a feeling that “I want to go there and I don’t know why”. Never again!

I’ve seen Porcupine Tree live and felt ‘not there’ even though I appreciated it as a great live gig. I saw Devin Townsend live and felt so absolutely terrible within myself that I hardly know whether or not it was a great gig or not. Time and drama passed. Then I saw Massive Attack at the Brisbane Riverstage and had an amazingly good time! Best gig I’ve been to in ages! Read the reviews. Brisbane can be such a cool city to visit for gigs. Just to visit. Not to live in.

I can hear some people saying “what about your music, won’t being in a city help you with a musical career?”. I now say, not so. Even if I were the most amazing creative album producer in Australia I think Brisbane isn’t really the right city to be doing this in – maybe Melbourne would be the place. But even then I don’t think city living is for me. And the reality of the situation is that I’m not ready for beginning that process proper. I don’t have an album ready, my performance skills aren’t sharp enough, and I haven’t worked up the confidence and tenacity for taking on the impossible task of gaining some tiny slice of success in the dwindling music industry. No. I’d rather be back in Armidale, working slowly on my projects, practicing and developing things, than being in any city slaving away pushing music that isn’t fully formed in an unconfident way to an audience that’s probably only mildly interested at best. I’d rather chip away steadily on my music and get it out there via the web to people all around the world who are truly interested. I can always play live at the Armidale Club if i want to develop my confidence. I can always take that show to a city if it ever gets that serious, just like other touring bands do. Having a wholesome lifestyle is much more important than ‘suffering for your art’ in some place you don’t want to be. Each to their own.

Hopefully I can get a job back at UNE in some sort of area that uses a cross between my technology skills and my desire to help educators in an ethical way. And hopefully I can eventually get something part time again so I can have ample spare time to work on music. I need a job. I need that regularity, otherwise I flounder around. I think it’s only a matter of time until something good turns up. I’ll even work casual in new areas just to get me from A-B. I’m really looking forward to being back in that humble, low key environment. Yeah, I moaned about some things about Armidale, the cold and gloom in particular; but really no place is perfect. I used to love all those aspects of Armidale! If you’re happy with who you are and what your lifestyle is, then I think you can live anywhere. Knowing what you want, specifically, is half the problem. I’ll be working hard on actively challenging my negative thoughts, these counterproductive ways of thinking. It’ll be a long slow process.

I’m winding up my mixing and mastering freelance work for good. I’m just not interested in it anymore and I’d rather be using that time on other things. However, I’m finishing off some cool work, including an awesome album project by Distaudio. I also finished mastering the latest Helvetikone EP Numerical Exercises, which has been released here. I may be helping local Australian acts in the future, and maybe some overseas friends. But no more open-door commercial work.

Which leads to another development: I’m in negotiating with taktik of the Renoise team about taking up a paid role to write an ongoing series of blog articles about audio and song production using Renoise. Some of you might remember Renoise In:Depth – this is where I’ll be writing from. I feel writing about production techniques in an open/public manner is a much more efficient way of helping people, rather than working with a select few who want me to do most the work for them. Writing is less time consuming than mastering, less monotonous than going over endless audio material doing very fiddly detailed work. This knowledge can be taught, people can adapt these ideas for their own – all that needs to be done is to put the knowledge into words within the Renoise context. Production advice is common on the internet, but there still isn’t a lot of quality material on how to use Renoise to do all this. Our little community will hopefully benefit from this. So, if you have any ideas about articles and things you’d like to see me write about, then please let me know. I’m aiming to start publishing by the end of April, after the move is all done.

There’s probably much more to say, but that’ll do for now. Thanks so much for your interest and support.

A little seasonal gift for you all: a new song! I’ve been recently inspired by the new beta version of Renoise, with stacks of new features that are showcased in this song. In particular a new featured called the ‘Pattern Matrix’ spurned inspiration about the Matrix Movie and Neo’s choice of the red or blue pill – red to face reality and exit from The Matrix, or blue to continue the illusion and remain inside. This is a fairly crazy high energy song and I suppose could be the soundtrack to anyone taking the red pill. The song was written entirely on headphones on my laptop, just after moving to Brisbane. Lucky for some of you that are beta testing the new 2.5 version of Renoise, I’m offering the XRNS file so you can load it in Renoise and see how I did it all:

Take The Red Pill XRNS File (for editing in Renoise)

We’ve been in Mitchelton, Brisbane, for over two weeks. I’m enjoying a little break from the hectic madness of moving house, sorting belongings at a storage facility and finding a new system of living in about a quarter of the space we were previously in. R has already secured a wonderfully promising new job starting next month, whereas I’ve not spotted anything obvious yet to chase in terms of work. Scoring a part time job of a certain quality might be a project for the new year once the silly season is over.

In the meantime I had the itch to do audio production again so I decided to open up my audio production business again. I’ve already locked in one client for mastering and talking to a few other potentials. Even though I have some reservations about the type of work that it is, it is attractive as a form of supplementary income. And, if I keep at it I may build enough reputation with it do align myself with more major name productions, possible in more creative and influential ways as well. To get the ball rolling I’ve had set up a small room here that’s doubling as a storage space! I bought new monitor stands and spent some time orienting the room and acoustically treating the walls with hanging sheets. I’ve got a workable sound and Take The Red Pill is the first finished ‘test’ production I’ve done in this space. I’ll take a picture of it soon and show you what I’ve done.

More to tell soon, but I might stop here and enjoy the evening. Cheers! …And stay safe.

This was composed in seven swaps between Mick and myself over the last few weeks. The style of music is a strange mix of chiptune, breakcore, and a weird dark angry Arabic scale meshed into a pop drama with sung vocals and lead guitar. While on the surface it may appear as another one of my epic dark pop songs, it has got its lion share of Mick’s classic composing styles, with ‘tracker’ style strings, structure and lead synth melodies. The mix work was also 50/50, and Mick played a big part in bringing out the dynamics of the piece.

The song had a bit of an unusual birth: I was mind numbingly bored at work and decided to open up Renoise and have a play with making hand drawn waveform instruments. After tracking a simple drone I added a little Arabic chiptune melody. Feeling it was pretty one dimensional I posted the file on the #renoise IRC channel and see if anyone wanted to co-op on it. Mick went for it and before long we had some seriously accelerated song development happening. And it was turning out surprisingly dark and angular, especially in contrast to some of Mick’s upbeat music.

The Arabic feel inspired me to think about Dubai and some of the horror stories I’ve heard about that place. I remember once seeing that they had so much money they could afford to build this massive indoor ski field, right in the middle of this desert country. It’s the kind of decadence that seems to have little to do with reality. It made me think of this bizarre love hate relationship the west has Arabic oil power – both a reverence of decadence, but a grudging dependence on this economic and cultural lubricant that is oil. So the lyrics came from that tension, a kind of corrupt fatalism that could really apply to any sort of trade based drama.

The song was mastered in Reaper digitally, and then recorded to my tape setup (the Tascam BR20T calibrated with Ampex 456 tape). We both chose to have a very clear and dynamic sounding mix and master, which during the loud sections are at around K-12 leveling. If it seems a touch quiet to begin with, please turn it up nice and loud and enjoy the dynamics!

I’ve spent a little time doing a ‘proper mastering’ of the song, which you can now download:

Ghost Debts

You can also load up the XRNS version into Renoise 2.0 beta 4 or above to see how it’s all done.

Estonian Renoiser Suva has started a wonderful little podcast of tunes from the Renoise community. The first one is top stuff and is well sequenced. It also features a little except from my 3 Smrgaid Maerd album, Happy Pain. It’s fairly possible I’ll feature in future podcasts of Remixta, so I’ll keep you updated if that happens.