Get that fresh clean feeling!

I got real lucky with this one. I was looking for another promo for my show, and none other than Sherwin Sleeves came available! I couldn’t pass that opportunity up, so I sent of my little email and my little project specs to see if I could get on the list  and have him do some VO for me.

Some time passed, and he eventually sent back the raw audio. I haven’t had the opportunity to edit together the promo yet, but… you just gotta listen to this.

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No idea where this came from, or when, but clearly it’s a granular reorganization of some midcentury brass pop. Have at.

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Ok, so there were only three items in this series, but I wanted you to listen to something. This is an ambient deconstruction of the Sparklehouse loop from yesterday. Sparklehouse is built from loops and samples itself — not a particularly unusual thing in and of itself, but unusual for me. I don’t normally work with pre-recorded sounds, with the exception of when I’m remixing finished pieces I myself have recorded (something I do quite frequently, but again, the original isn’t sample-based).

Sound is really interesting, and interesting sounds are full of more interesting sounds, if you know how to get at them. Well-made, high-fidelity sounds can be bent, folded, spindled and mutilated into all sorts of cool new configurations, and this is what I do.

This clip? Not interesting. I threw it through the Braindouche!alyzer, and there’s nothing new here to be had, nothing wonderful to discover. It’s just the little chunks of sound happening, more spread out, but it’s basically the same. Maybe more annoying.

There are lots of arguments about whether loop-based music has any artistic veracity, and I think that it does. It takes skill, practice, a good ear and some vision to make good music from loops and samples. But, as artifacts unto themselves, I find these recordings wanting.

Just… bleh.

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Next up on the Braindouche! Executive PowerPoint(tm) Loops Series, I present to you the absolute worst theme song any idiot sales guy can pick for their new product. I think the conversation goes like this…

Sales Guy: Man, our new product needs a theme song! I read about it in this book, you see.

Department Director: So what song did you have in mind?

Sales: Oh christ Bill, it doesn’t really matter, does it? We just gotta pick something and associate the song with the product, you know? So the customer hears that song and thinks of our thing. It’ll be great! Like psychological warfare!

Director: …

Sales: How about Bruce Springsteen?

Director: We can’t afford Bruce Springsteen.

Sales: The Beatles? Everyone loves them.

Director: You must be joking.

Sales: What, no? Ok, Garth Brooks?

Director: We couldn’t afford Billy Ray Cyrus.

Sales: Fuck! So what can we afford, then?

Director: To pick something from this DVD of royalty-free music and stuff we bought last year when we put together that promotional DVD.

And so he did.

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(I swear to god, that’s the title it had when I found it.)

Next up in the Braindouche! Executive PowerPoint(tm) Loops Series, the Driving Newage Thing.

This is more of a tech backgrounder for one of those really overproduced, overhyped production-number-type gadget release announcements. You can feel it building the tension, right? Alternately, this would make a great corporate DVD menu music bed, or possibly background for the CG portion of the presentation, to make it “edgy” and “modern”.

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Two things occur to me. First, it’s been a while since I’ve done a miniseries. I should change that.

Second, where the hell did I come up with this stuff?

Braindouche! present the Executive PowerPoint(tm) Loops Series: Loop 1, Inspirion

Imagine you’re at a pharmaceuticals conference, and Bob the Marketing Guy really wants to get your attention so you’ll hear about his company’s new antidepressant. He might, if he’s a lame marketing guy, slap this sound on his presentation. Listening to it once or twice is kind of interesting. 20 minutes of it should be banned by the Geneva Convention.

To get the full effect, put this track on repeat, then go look up a college algebra class on iTunes University, and listen to them at the same time.

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Jason Remy once asked me what it means when I said I learned how to make a synth play patty-cake. I decided this was the best way to explain it to him. I’m not sure what I was thinking at the time.

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It Does What It Says On The Tin. It sounds to me sort of like Ambienteer at his most acrimonious. There’s bells, there’s little plooping things, there’s a sense of foreboding, it’s dark and ambient and that’s it.

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You know I love promos, right? In kind of a slow-mo trainwreck sort of way, but I like having them around. It’s a thing. Stop judging me.

This new promo was conceived of by the always fantastic Cayenne Chris Conroy, who is the dominant personality over at the Teknikal Diffikulties podcast.

Remember TekDiff, that podcast I’m always telling people to listen to, because it’s one of the very few comedy podcasts out there that is actually funny? That one.

So, for those of you paying attention, this is officially named with Wash Out promo, and if it’s not up on the promo page right now, it will be very soon. Feel free to stick it wherever you like

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So I was neatening up around the Braindouche! abode, and found this little gem of a track in the folder where I keep all my published podcasts. I have no idea how it got in there, but I thought I’d share it with you.

The Monkey Song, by The Bernard Sisters.

The Bernard Sisters are Crystal and Robyn Bernard. Crystal Bernard might sound familiar — she was the bitchy blond from Wings, remember? Robyn also apparently did a lot of work with General Hospital, too. So, she and her sister spent their childhoods running around to tent revivals and gospel… things, singing cute little songs with their preacher father and none other than Jerry Falwell. Crystal still goes on the road to sing gospel music with her dad now and then to this day.

It’s just so cute, isn’t it? When evolution just gets to be too much for you, turn this puppy on and be reassured that you ain’t kin to no monkey.

And if you can’t get enough of this, I have a track somewhere of The Bernard Sisters decrying ecumenicalism, too, and it’s adorable.

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