terremoto (AFR01) by Earwicker

A dual collaboration between myself and the brilliant Chris Cones (aka Skullcaster, at this junction in time), this studio project involved a wide array of unconventional electroacoustic instrumentation and techniques, including post alteration and editing in the computer environment - Nurse With Wound fans take note!

The goal was to create "alien" psychoacoustic environments, ranging from pleasantly hypnotic to busily indifferent to frantically brutal - and we found them all in arrays of feedback-processed microphones, hand-built electroacoustic instruments, treated CD player cut-up loops, malfunctioning effects processor, treated sound programs from a brain-stimulating "mind machine", mechanically altered turntable, and EMF pickups on TV remotes and toys, among other non-synthesizer-based electronic sound methods. After recording, some of the tracks (or parts of them) were further altered using a suite of processing tools that had just become available to home studios like mine.

Even though I was just beginning to "cut my digital recording and production teeth" on this, I'm still in awe of the intricacy and efficacy of our experiments; of course it helps that Mr. Cones was already performing at "mystery genius" level, a quality I was lucky to find and learn from in a number of collaborators in the following years. Headphone listening recommended - PLAY LOUD!

-zerø K 2020

Backstory:
I had just built my first digital home studio using an Apple Powermac 7100 (80 mhz!) running Digidesign's Sound Designer II software with the Audiomedia II card (16 bit/44.1 kHz)... seems weak by today's standards but it was extremely powerful at the time, taking high resolution home recording to hard drive (instead of tape) for easier production. The card alone was very expensive, but I had received it, more or less, as a donation from a fellow artist - see the story below.

From a Facebook post in 2017:
"So I just went down an interesting internet wormhole that brings me to write a little story about a pivotal event in my life.
I've been catching up with Sense8 (fantastic show!), and noticed that they'd woven a familiar musical theme into most of the episodes. Couldn't recall what song it was, so I did some googling to find it is "Mad World" by Tears for Fears, which was later more popularly covered by Gary Jules in the influential cult movie Donnie Darko (2002); I think it's pretty badass of Sense8 to use that song as a thematic reference!
Delving further, I found out that the original score of the film was produced and almost fully performed by Michael Andrews, including the popular cover of Mad World. He is also mentioned as a member of the Greyboy Allstars. When I saw those names I was stunned, because I recognized that I had a connection...
Back in 1997 or '98 in San Francisco, I was just beginning to build my first home digital music studio and was regularly scanning online sources for used components. At that time, pro digital music recording gear was just becoming accessible to the public, but still cost thousands of dollars, way more than I had a budget for. I found a curious craigslist ad for a Mac IIci with Digidesign Audiomedia card for a ridiculously cheap price - $50? for a Protools recording system worth more than $1000. I responded immediately with a phone call to set up a meeting. After chatting for a while and answering a few questions about why I was interested in the gear, I rode my bike from my place in the Divisadero to an apartment in the Lower Haight to meet a guy named Mike, a cheery but unassuming chap of slight stature with a hip-hop, herbally infused accent, the stereotype of the NorCal stoner bedroom musician.
I asked why he was selling so cheap and he said he had just upgraded to the latest Protools system and wanted to set someone up with a creative tool who might not otherwise be able to afford it. He said he interviewed others interested (many just wanted to resell) but my answers were what he was looking for; someone who was going to use the system to record, produce, and collaborate with others in a "bedroom studio" - the term was just becoming hot. I thanked him for his generosity and paid the man.
When I got the computer home and booted it up, I noticed he had left a few recordings on the hard drive, one of which was titled "Mike A fuckin around.AIFF" and several other files with "Greyboy" in the name. Mike had mentioned that he was in a hip-hop flavored jazz group that played weekly at the Elbo Room, and invited me to check it out. At that time, the "70's Funk and Soul DJ combo with some live musicians" was pretty common in SF, and I was more focused on psychedelia, electronica, and experimental music, so I never checked it out.
In any case, that's how I was able to begin to learn digital music production and start my own home label, Accidente Feliz Recordings. Though I never reached the level of success that Mr. Andrews did (I wasn't interested in making lots of money or influencing popular culture anyway), his gift inspired much creativity in my life and many other talented people around me. Here's to Mike A and the creative spirit!"

Personal Favorites: Kindly Fruits; Chupanalgas; Subturr; Is It Persisting?

Often simply referred to as "NBC", this group of outsiders in San Francisco created unique avant-garde and experimental noise/music on the fly, with no rules whatsoever as to genre or instrumentation- the stranger the better. Often what resulted was a hybrid noise camouflaged as various forms of electroacoustic and electronic music.