Dialectical Observations (Remastered)

This has been a somewhat laborious project, three months in the making. It started with an album intended to bring my label (ex-label?), Rehegoo Music, up to speed on my discography: Legends of the Small collected eight tracks each from the albums Dialectical Observations and Pattern Recognition. To make it a little extra special, and to give Rehegoo some exclusive content, I remastered six of the songs from Dialectical. I was disappointed to find out that the label wanted only exclusive content, and would not be publishing Legends. I decided to make the album an exclusive Patreon patron reward. But I still wanted a way to share those six remastered songs.

I thought of inserting them in an upcoming album, where they would be piled on top of the eight new songs I already had at the time. There was also the possibility of releasing them on their own EP, which would be called The Dialectical Sessions; I made a cover and everything.

But then the most logical conclusion arrived: I thought, "Hey, I've already remastered six songs from a nine-track album. Why not just remaster the remaining three?" for a remastered edition of the whole album.

I'd thought of releasing an EP of new songs on the Winter Solstice, but in the end, I wanted to reserve them for a full-length album and keep them close to my vest. But I could still put out something on what to me is a special day to me: it's my winter holiday, one I should be celebrating at Short Mountain with the Radical Faeries. But I can't drive that far in my condition, and I lack the funds to travel anyway. Still, I can celebrate in my own way. With music! So I set that date to release the remastered edition of Dialectical Observations. In between writing new songs, I worked on remastering the remaining three songs. I'm very happy with all of them, but I'm especially fond of the new "Movement (Alternate Spin)".

For "Movement," I ended up returning to the original project file. I removed a whole synth track that wasn't really clearly defined and I thought just muddied up the song. Then I combed through each track and repositioned notes where I felt it was necessary, and I started over the remastering process from the beginning. With the other songs, I made adjustments according to the originals' final MP3 320s. For this, I went from project file to AIF on headphones, to AIF on external speakers, to MP3 on headphones, and finishing with MP3 on external speakers. It was tedious, but the result is that each instrument is clearly distinguishable and not muddied up by too much bass. Actually, with each song I turned down the bass in favor of treble, and often added more ringing reverb. I also turned down the drum tracks so they didn't take away the focus from the other instruments.

I won't review the inspiration and stories behind each song, as you can already read all about it in the article for the original version of the album. But I will say the original has done me proud. "Fleeting Fractals" ended up being kind of a "sleeper hit," but it eventually made its radio rounds and continues to be in rotation on some stations. It was used to represent the album in the review by Starlight Music Chronicles. And it's been Shazamed a number of times. Right now, "When Anchorage Became an Island," is my most-played song on Apple Music. On Bandcamp, it's my album with the most Facebook Likes, even more than albums by artists whom I consider superior and are inspirations for me. I can only hope that this remastered edition garners as much attention and that people agree with me that the remastered songs are an improvement.

Now, you may have noticed that the Snail Tunes edition of the album above is twelve tracks instead of the original nine. I'd thought of releasing an EP called Pulses Intertwined of four new songs, named for the song "Pulses Intertwined," which had made its radio rounds shortly after the release of Pattern Recognition. That was originally planned for the December 21st release date. Instead, I released "Pulses" as a single on another significant date, November 30th. I was trying to hold out on exposing the other songs planned for the Pulses EP, but here are three of them as bonus tracks on this exclusive version of the EP. Unfortunately, they are not available for individual download; you have to download the entire album.

When I had been writing mostly-acoustic soundtrack-like songs, "Pulses Intertwined" pulled me back into a more post-industrial mode of songwriting. That became a trend with "Pierced Heart," and "Dark Highways" to a lesser extent. These songs demanded more synths, but were relatively minimalist, and "Pulses" and "Pierced" called for electric guitars. This was a style of songwriting I hadn't really explored for over a year. Pattern Recognition and many of the following songs are in a more neoclassical ambient-acoustic style. Dialectical Observations was one of my first steps in the neoclassical direction, but was full of odd beats, abrasive synths, and electric guitars. "Pulses Intertwined," "Pierced Heart," and "Dark Highways" are somewhat in the same vein, and I thought they'd fit in well with Dialectical Observations, so I'm making them publicly available a little sooner than a full-length album. Still, they are exclusive to the Snail Tunes version of Dialectical Observations (Remastered).

I had a bit of difficulty in getting this album submitted to stores and streaming platforms. My distributor recommended the title format for the songs to have versions defined by parentheses, and any more specifications in brackets, so some of the titles looked like this: "Movement (Alternate Spin) [Remastered 2018]". I thought that looked a lot messier than "Movement (Alternate Spin) - Remastered 2018," but I went with their recommendation. It was rejected by stores, which I was informed of a week after first submitting the album. With only a week left before the release date, I decided to make it as simple as possible: I just went with simple song-titles-only with the album title defining it as "Remastered," and I hoped the album title would speak for the songs themselves. But you'll notice above that the Snail Tunes version has each song marked as "Remastered 2018," which I had wanted for the songs at each store and streaming platform. But when submitting it, it seemed simpler was better. And even though I submitted it to my distributor with only a week to go, it was still released at Amazon, Google Play, iTunes and Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL, Deezer, YouTube, iHeartRadio, and Napster at midnight on the Winter Solstice, as I had been hoping. So, yeah, I think simpler was better, when getting the album released on time.

Now I'll leave you with something extra special, as usual. My step-father challenged me to write a score for Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses," to see how well I could write a soundtrack for something. This is what I came up with, with building cymbals and twinkling acoustic guitar to reflect the mariner metaphors in the poem. It was a return to the piano for me, but there are string arrangements, that first come in swells and bursts as the ocean waves. I thought of having a voiceover of the poem in this, but instead I'm leaving it to the reader to listen to this simultaneously. Give it a try! Just Google the poem and play this tune.

This started the trend of more soundtrack-like pieces I started composing, before "Pulses Intertwined" interrupted and took me in a more post-industrial direction. That's a continuing trend right now, though my latest composition, "Elation," sounds almost as if it belongs on Pattern Recognition, except it has some very metal interludes.

I hope you enjoy this little bonus song, and the remastered edition of Dialectical Observations. Until later, may your inner snails remain resilient and determined.

Legends of the Small and Pulses Intertwined

It's been a long time since I've written, and this article has been delayed, especially on the subject of Legends of the Small. So close on the heels of Pattern Recognition, I decided to make a compilation album for my label, Rehegoo Music, that would catch them up on my repertoire, with the goal of publishing it on Halloween. It would collect songs from Dialectical Observations and Pattern Recognition. It turned out to have eight songs from each. To make it extra special, I even remastered six of the songs from Dialectical Observations. The track list turned out thusly:

01. When Anchorage Became an Island - Remastered 2018

02. Man Seeking Cocoon (for NSA LTR) - Remastered 2018

03. Familial Germs - Remastered 2018

04. Gravity Time Power Love

05. Android with a God Complex

06. Fleeting Fractals - 2018

07. Otaku

08. Revel

09. Less Sinister Cousins - Remastered 2018

10. Heart of Hearts

11. Signor Fancypants

12. Movement (Alternate Spin) - Remastered 2018

13. Why Can't We Have Nice Things?

14. Butterflies on Ganymede

15. Reciprocal

16. Probing

I was very proud of how the track ordering turned out. I was very proud of the remastered songs, hoping they demonstrated my growth as a sound technician, and I was especially proud of how "Movement" turned out - I started over from scratch with that song, whereas the others I just adjusted the levels of the individual instrument tracks: volume, bass, treble, echo, reverb - that sort of thing. With "Movement," I combed through each track and adjusted the positions of certain notes, took out a synth all together, and adjusted the levels in my composing program, then as an AIF, then as an MP3. It was tedious, but definitely worth it, in my opinion. These remastered tracks would be exclusive to Rehegoo Music, and I thought they'd bite.

However, Rehegoo didn't want to publish any songs that had been published before, such as they did with Nothing Left To Lose, Parts 1 and 2, and even went as far as asking me to take down all of my previous works. I felt they were backing me, a non-exclusive artist, into an exclusivity corner. I made my stance clear, that I had worked too hard on my prior EPs and albums, and they said they understood. But suffice to say, they did not publish Legends of the Small.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I emailed them the ZIP of Legends a couple of weeks before Halloween, and it wasn't downloaded. It turned out my contact was out of the office, and wouldn't be back until a couple of days before Halloween. When he returned, he told me there was no way they could publish it by then. But I had my heart set on Halloween, so I published it at my Patreon, hoping that Rehegoo would make it public later on - I really wanted those remastered tracks to be publicly available. Now, because Rehegoo has rejected it, it's exclusive to my Patreon. If you want to download a copy, you'll have to make the appropriate pledge. Remember that I don't collect pledges until I put out an EP or album, and you also get that release. I'm thinking the next one won't be until the Lunar New Year in February.

Now, I still really wanted to make those remastered tracks publicly available, so what to do? I toyed around with the idea of releasing them on an EP of their own, titled The Dialectical Sessions. I also thought of including them on the next album. Then I decided to go all-out and remaster the three remaining songs, and release a completely remastered edition of Dialectical Observations. So that's what I've been most recently working on. It'll be out on the Winter Solstice.

Since cementing the track list for Pattern Recognition, and amidst the remastering of songs for Legends of the Small, I'd been working on new songs, and now have a total of eight toward a new album. At a challenge from my step-dad to create a soundtrack to the Tennyson poem "Ulysses," I created something a bit different than before, and it's carried on in a lot of my recent work - neoclassical compositions more fitting for a soundtrack than a rock album. It's also carried over from the mostly strings arrangements of Pattern Recognition and the more neoclassical feel of both Dialectical and Pattern, except these songs have been largely acoustic. Then I wrote "Pulses Intertwined."

It was a definite switch from the material I'd been writing. Yes, I'd switched from the strings arrangements of Pattern back to the piano, but this brought me back to post-industrial territory, which I'd left for about a year. This felt in the same vein as "Fleeting Fractals," though it was more akin to "The Cloud Walkers." Actually, I felt it could be my next "Cloud Walkers," a piano-led post-industrial epic with metal and EDM elements. When I was promoting for Pattern, I felt I should send in "Android with a God Complex" to radio stations. Instead, on an impulse, I sent around "Pulses." They all played it, including stations that I had submitted to in the past and had never played my music before. I was uplifted, encouraged, and felt this could be my next popular song. After circulating for a while, I felt it should really be publicly accessible, and it seemed appropriate to release it as a single.

I chose November 30th for its release because it's a significant day for me: my brother shot and killed my father and step-mother twenty-three years ago. It still has quite an effect on me. This year, I was alone and isolated, out in the middle of nowhere while I was housesitting, and it felt like I cried for two days straight. I wanted to do something musically oriented to help me cope, though it didn't help much. Instead, I found myself trapped in my head, and dwelling on certain factors. My brother grew up fetishizing machines of death - guns and military equipment. He came to fantasize that he was a paramilitary soldier, and wanted me to be the same. He was abusive to "discipline" me. Meanwhile, he collected guns and ammo and military-oriented magazines. I'll admit, he was a disturbed individual - he was abusive in other ways. But I don't think his interests in guns and the military helped matters. And when he was sixteen, angry at my father for leaving our mother, and not getting along with my step-mother, he killed them. This event has informed my stance on gun control, especially when guns are so accessible to the mentally disturbed, which has resulted in so many mass shootings.

In my current environment, I've come to realize that not all individuals with such interests are mentally unhealthy. My step-father collects guns and keeps them in the house, and often watches documentaries on war and military machines. Hell, it seems almost as if everyone in Missouri has a gun. But the overproduction of guns - especially assault weapons whose entire purpose is to kill people - in this country disturbs me. We have more guns manufactured than children born in the United States every day. It makes me want to move to another country or, at the very least, another state. My goal is to move back to the Pacific Northwest, but for the meantime, because of certain factors, I'm stuck in Missouri, as an advocate of greater gun control, as much as it's opposed by those around me.

I have released the single Pulses Intertwined in dedication of victims and survivors of gun violence. It is now available at Amazon, Google Play, Apple Music and iTunes, Spotify, TIDAL, Deezer, YouTube and YouTube Music, iHeartRadio, and Napster. If you'd like to directly support me and my art, consider buying the single at my Snail Tunes store. Purchases include high-quality downloads in a format of your choosing - from standard MP3 to lossless audio - as well as unlimited streaming at Bandcamp and on the free-with-purchase Bandcamp app (both of which are great tools for discovering new or overlooked music). A three-track version, with two new songs in a similar vein, "Dark Highways" and "Pierced Heart," is also available to Patrons of my Patreon. Remember, pledges at my Patreon aren't collected until after I release a new EP or album, which I'm predicting won't be until February. And Dialectical Observations (Remastered) is now slated to be a reward for those pledging $10 USD or more.

I'd like to switch gears to discuss record labels, as mine just sent me two new contracts. When Legends of the Small was released, I was informed that Rehegoo Music would only be taking new songs, exclusively, and that non-exclusive artists, such as myself, would only be featured on the Rehegoo streaming platform. They've changed their policies drastically since I signed my initial contract. And the new contracts are designed to further diminish the advantages of being a non-exclusive artist and direct me toward exclusivity. I'm seeing no advantages to publishing through them under my current contract, and I'm wondering why I would send them any songs. My distributor that I currently publish independently through even offers more stores and streaming platforms. I'm thinking it's time I cut off my relationship with Rehegoo Music. This first experiment with a label, which I was reticent about in the first place, seems to be a failure. It doesn't mean I'm closed off to working with a label in the future, but right now I'm leaning toward the advice of Amanda Palmer: "Don't!" Anyway, I've promised to share with you my experiences as an independent artist, and this is looking to be a bad one.

Meanwhile, my inner snail must remain resilient and determined. I hope yours does the same.

Oh, I almost forgot to leave you with a little something special! Here's one my newest songs, "Pierced Heart," one of the two additional tracks on the extended Pulses Intertwined available at my Patreon. Enjoy! and good-bye for now.