Studio Diary: The Night Loves You!!

(The night loves you!)

Well, I got done what needed to get done today, the process was still fun... and I'm very productive. I will say though, today I was feeling anxious for some reason, not sure why. Like normally, when I pour my morning coffee... and have the first sip, I feel good and relaxed, but today for some reason, before I poured my coffee, I felt anxious today... not sure why... I couldn't really place my finger on it. I'm thinking maybe I feel a little time starved... (there's a reason for that, and I'll let you know why in the future... right now is not the time)... However, even though I felt time starved... I was still productive, and got everything done that needed to get done today!

Once again, I'm really enjoying the process right now, and it truly reminds me of the early days of Twitch, maybe not sound-wise, but definitely in the sequencing and programming kind of way. There was a part of me that felt, for at least part of the creative process today, that I needed to change things up a little bit today, so I cut up and fucked with a drum loop that I was playing with... it definitely payed off! I will say again, I'm really loving the process... and it's forcing me to think about music differently, and really get my ideas out, as they come out! In the future it is very likely that I'll work in this kind of fashion moving forward... sooo inspired!!

I hope you folks are staying safe and doing well!! I know they are starting to open up things where we live, and I know some of you are worried what this is gonna look like... are we gonna be able to remain safe, or is this whole situation gonna get worse... I'm remaining hopeful and positive... but the numbers, ultimately will tell us the tale.

Whatever the situation, love you!

Assemblage 23 and Their Influence on Twitch

Here we are listening to Assemblage 23, and I thought why not write something about how they influenced us in the early days of Twitch. So, back sometime in 2002 I started to write Twitch's 3rd album "TCP/IP", and it was heavily inspired and influenced by Futurepop and EBM... it was definitely a departure from what Twitch normally does (quite frankly after releasing it in 2003, I thought it was a mistake), but while writing the album, I had been listening to Assemblage 23 around the time, and I really loved Tom Shear's lyrical and vocal style, and the rhyming schemes... I loved the way the lyrics rolled out of his mouth in the songs 'Anthem' and 'Sun' off the album "Contempt", I would almost say they were hypnotic.

(Anthem)

(Sun)

(If you don't know who Assemblage 23 is, here is the wiki)

So, I started to write my lyrics a little differently, with similar rhyming structures. I would also say, some of Tom's programming is excellent, and some of that has influenced us a little tiny bit as well... especially some of the drum patterns and such, how they are sequenced and such. Granted, not all of our songs are influenced by Assemblage 23, but I will say, they definitely have had their influence on us!

Here's a couple of songs off of the album "TCP/IP" by Twitch:






After I released this album, it wasn't truly the direction that I wanted to go, and I kinda felt like I was wandering off the beaten path at least for Twitch, but... Assemblage 23 has continued to influence us over the years... and I won't be surprised if they continue to influence us!

Atari Teenage Riot: Why I like them!

Yeah, if you've been in the scene for a while, you may know of a band called Atari Teenage Riot. Granted they aren't exactly industrial, they call the genre of music they create Digital Hardcore... which funnily sounds like a mixture of hardcore punk, and hardcore techno mixed together. I would say they step into the industrial realm slightly though, there are definitely industrial elements in the music. I first came across them in 1997 when a former band member introduced them to me... as his own music was inspired by ATR. I eventually found their album "Burn, Berlin, Burn!" in a record store in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan here in Canada. Atari Teenage Riot started in 1992 in Berlin, Germany. They took their name from a Portuguese Joe song called "Teenage Riot" and added 'Atari' to it, as they used an Atari ST computer to compose songs. Their tracks are highly political, with a very anarchist and anti-facist view. They were and still are quite chaotic and noisey, their songs at least in the beginning, mixed hardcore techno with breaks screamed vocals, and sampled guitars and shit... funnily enough, if I'm not mistaken they sampled Slayer, The Sex Pistols, Nirvana, and all sorts of other bands!

I think the one thing that stood out for me was the screamed vocals, and general chaos with the songs... there is song structure, but I feel like the way things were written and sampled it came out really chaotic... which I really liked! Also, their shit has become more and more pertinent with what's going on in the world politically. They have started riots with their performances! Years and years later, seeing their performances (on Youtube), and how they put together their live show, I find really inspiring! When I was writing the first Twitch album one of the songs I wrote on that album I exclusively sampled one of their songs... not gonna tell you which song, not sure you would recognize the sample I used anyway, as I pitch-shifted it and distorted the fuck out of it!! If you are curious, here's the album:


(And hey, this album is free... so fuckin download it!)

Over the years, Atari Teenage Riot, has remained relevant, and still very politically charged! They came to our city (Calgary) at one point, I could of gone to that show... and now I kind of regret not going, I would love it if they came back... as it would be amazing to see them live!
Are you folks into ATR? If so, why do you like them?

Movie - Beats

Have been on vacation this last week and a bit; spent some downtime watching movies and such, one of them was "Beats", it was such an excellent movie! The movie is basically about this kid out of Chicago, who his sister and him get shot, he survives, but she doesn't... as a result, he ends up with severe PTSD... and spends a large portion of his time making beats in his bedroom, never leaving his house. Along comes a school cop/security guy, who used to be in the music business managing bands and rappers and such... and he is tasked with the job of getting kids who haven't been in school for awhile, to actually show up. In his journey to find these kids, he meets August (the beatmaker) and figures he can get back in the music business with this artist savant. Not gonna ruin the story for ya, but it is an excellent movie, and I would highly suggest you check it out! If you are into beatmaking or just music writing in general this movie is definitely inspiring, even though it is fictional! I will be honest, I couldn't tell if this was a promo for the beatmaking machines that appear in the movie, although, I don't think you see any logos or anything in it, but at first it did come across as a bit of a promo for these specific machines... I think they were trying to attract actual beatmakers that use these specific pieces of machinery to watch this movie, but... still a decent movie!!