Un bouquet de morceaux…

Just finished uploading a few audio morsels that you may enjoy. Do check out the link to the Bandcamp website and give a listen. Individual tracks are available as well as, of course, the album.

For the nerds who might want more context:

The tracks were recorded entirely in “software” using the Wotja Generative Music System with zero audio output, using only the MIDI output to drive either/or software synths or hardware. Currently, the hardware synths environment consists of a MODAL Argon8M, an Arturia MicroFreak, three Empress Effects Zoias, a norn shields, and a Behringer Crave are available for use. Due to my current geopolitical situation, no guitars were harmed in this recording session and only software synths were utilized.

On the software side of things, I used Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack to collect the audio output of Arturia Pigment 6 and ROLI Equator 2 softsynths. That output was recorded in WAV format, edited in Audacity to apply compression, fades, reverses, and panning before outputting to FLAC format for upload to Bandcamp.

If you are curious about the equal length of each track, this was a result of having set Audio Hijack to only record files of 254MB in size, creating roughly 5 minute long tracks. The actual timing worked out to 5 minutes, 49 seconds. Both Wotja and Audio Hijack can be set with timers and Audio Hijack has the ability to record to specific file sizes. It’s a handy aspect of both these tools and I use it from time to time.

Is this AI music? Well…

A simple answer is that “it’s complicated”. In effect I have used the software to generate a MIDI skeleton, that drives a software synth, which I am manipulating in real time and then doing a fair bit of post-processing, making decisions about panning, combining raw tracks (there are at least two tracks here that comprise multiple original WAV files), or applying reversals. So I hesitate to just call it “AI” music; rather, I have used the generative nature of Wotja to perform as an ensemble member wherein I am both fellow performer and conductor (as well as editor in the end).

Enjoy!

festive red and gold decorations hung across a pedestrian "passage", shot at night

Alternatives For EVERYONE

Heh, call it my anti-fascist response, the AfE! Here is a link to a Mastodon account that shares alternatives to the Meta/TwitX/Google nonsense we have been living with for too long. You will have to run a quick search on the names of the platforms, as it is just an image/screenshot of the platforms, but that’s the easy part.

Good luck and see you over there!

https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/113929735581212964

Walking with Janus…

This is more of an announcement than reflections on the beginning of a new year. Where once when I was young the “holidays” held excitement, I have grown less and less sanguine about them and my noting of their passing has become increasingly less celebratory. So this is more about the “how” of the passing of 2024 last night and the release of the fruits of the efforts thus spent.

I took part in the electro-music.com 2024-2025 New Year’s Eve live stream and here, in the link that follows is the result of my performance there. No guitars were harmed (my two favs are in Houston, Texas being cared for until my arrival there, sometime in the coming months), but a couple of synths were definitely involved!

As always, any day is a good day to support the efforts of living artists, especially those you may follow on social media such as here —

Walking with Janus, Ever Forwards, Ever Backwards

Enjoy and share!

They Thought They Were Safe

Lots of comparisons being made between the current situation and emerging oligarchy in the US and what happened to Germany in the 1930’s. Some people are claiming that the Germans didn’t know what was happening. Consider, though, that Adolf was LEGALLY appointed as Chancellor in 1933. It is hard to claim that some didn’t know. What is troubling is that there were so many who thought it wasn’t a problem, since it was legal.

I encourage you to take a look at the link below… it’s a very slippery slope we are on.

https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htm

Remember, those events didn’t happen in a vacuum: Mussolini as legally elected in 1923 and by 1925 had declared himself dictator in what he called a fascist government…

Enough With the Substack!

Seriously — you should know better. And yes, there are alternatives that will allow you to monetize your content without financially supporting a publication platform that supports racism and fascism. Don’t believe me or know how to do it? Start by reading the following linked article:

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/substack-announcement-bari-weiss-free-press

“I hadn’t planned to write about Substack again, but part of me knew there was a rake somewhere just waiting to be stepped on. Despite the United Nations-worth of red flags, respected journalists, historians, creative writers, and others remain on Substack, sharing 10% of every paid subscription with the company—and now with a share for Bari Weiss. Subscribers can be easily exported to another platform, and people who monetize their newsletters will get a larger share of the revenue elsewhere. But Substack has managed to convince some that there is no life for a newsletter beyond them. This is simply untrue.

Since I left Substack for beehiiv in January, I went from making a little bit of money to actually making a living as an independent journalist with my own publication. I didn’t need Substack’s Twitter-esque Notes feature or its recommendation network to grow; I used social networks—mostly Bluesky—to successfully promote my work. That personal engagement created, I believe, deeper relationships with my readers than passive subscriptions via an algorithm. Most importantly, I’ve remained committed to producing work that I’m proud of, and publishing it via a platform that doesn’t force me to compromise my values.”


In the immortal words of Bob: STOP IT!
https://youtu.be/aAhA7KfbJgg?si=J2iK31Ldhs3li-4

On the border

A report from Bloomberg , found on Chuck Darwin’s Mastodon account (@cdarwin@c.im), is pretty chilling.

MANY years ago (1972?), we were stopped somewhere between Eagle Pass and Austin, TX, for no apparent reason… this will be much worse.

https://c.im/@cdarwin/113541904712837850

Here’s what Chuck said:

In the “border zone,” different legal standards apply.
🆘Agents can enter private property, set up highway checkpoints,
have wide discretion to stop, question, and detain individuals they suspect to have committed immigration violations
—and can even use race and ethnicity as factors to do so.
That’s striking because
the border zone is home to 65.3 percent of the entire U.S. population,
and around 75 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population,
according to a CityLab analysis based on data from location intelligence company ESRI.
This zone, which hugs the entire edge of the United States and runs 100 air miles inside, includes some of the densest cities
—New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago.
It also includes all of Michigan and Florida, and half of Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a prior rough analysis by Will Lowe, a data scientist at MIT.
(Border Patrol considers the boundary of the Great Lakes to be the “functional equivalent” of the border, per government documents revealed in an ACLU lawsuit.
Elsewhere, too, the agency interprets the international boundary in a way that concerns the ACLU.)
🔥“It really is kind of a constitution-free zone,”
says Patrick Eddington, a policy analyst who has been compiling data on border patrol’s internal checkpoints at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank.
🆘 “I guess the best way to phrase it is that in this area, [border patrol agents] are being allowed to nullify people’s rights.”
According to critics, checkpoints and other internal operations in the 100-mile zone aren’t serving their intended purpose:
Just 2 percent of CBP’s total arrests of deportable non-citizens happened at checkpoints.
And since 2010, far more people who had legal status and weren’t eligible for deportation were arrested this way.
Meanwhile,
💥individuals in this zone
—citizen or otherwise
—are at risk of having their Fourth Amendment rights violated by border patrol, critics say.

Note well that last paragraph. We were a carload of four Anglos, and we got stopped.

#Persist
#Resist
#StopSayingMandate
#TrumpEtAliaDelendaEst

Donors Choose…

If you live in the USA, you’ve probably heard something about the situation that teachers there face every year when it comes to support in the classroom.

So here’s something you can do about it —

https://www.donorschoose.org/donors/map.html

There ya go.

#Persist
#Resist
#StopSayingMandate
#TrumpEtAliaDelendaEst