Thursday, July 27, 2006

It's 2 Damn Muggy (In Here)

Well, that was a fine break. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Now we are back and in honor of the truly unbearable weather outside Whimsey HQ, we have this buried gem from Summer, 1997, when we found ourselves chained-up in an apartment with no air conditioning for three weeks over the hottest period of the summer with only a copy of Jamiroquai's "Travelling Without Moving" CD to keep us company. Somehow, we pulled through and we suspect you will, too.

http://www.victorlams.com/audio/VLams_-_Its_2_Damn_Muggy.mp3

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

(My Brain's) Inside the Computer

It's song number 50!

This song I did a couple of weeks ago for the July, 2006, KVRAudio contest. The subject of the contest is "Genre Hybrid" and this song attempts to blend West African Highlife (okay, with some South African elements) with Synthpop. It's gotten some pretty good comments from the other participants, many of whom believe it sounds like David Byrne as envisioned by "Weird" Al Yankovic. Others have picked up on the apparent thematic resonance of the paranoia-infused lyric with many They Might Be Giants lyrics. I guess I'll take both of those as compliments.

This song also marks the half-way point of our musical journey through the Cacophonous World of Professor Whimsey. As summer is in full swing, I think we might take a break of a week or so and resume with more or less regular song postings throughout the rest of the summer as we travel ever onwards to our final goal of 100 songs.

http://www.victorlams.com/audio/VLams_-_My_Brains_Inside_The_Computer.mp3

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Midnight

Here's an evocative little tune I put together - judging from the file details - in September, 2003. Not much to say about this one, except that it's now track #49 in our one-hundred song journey.

NOTE: This song is now available on the new "Phreakbox v1.4: The Instrumentals" album, available for download from Amazon MP3, Lala.com, and available soon from iTunes and Rhapsody and on Audio CD.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Ionospheric Express

I recently uncovered a hidden trove of audio I did in Spring, 2003. Many of the tracks are unfinished (some tunes I look forward to getting back to someday -- provided I can track down where all the little audio bits wound up when our PC died that summer), but a few I actually managed to complete at the time. This is one of those tracks.

I said of this track, upon its completion back in April, 2003: "A nice groove to chill-out to. Physically modelled hammered-instruments and ethnic percussion are supported by a simple bass groove and ethereal melodies. Techie notes: this song was sequenced in Computer Music's free ComputerMuzys program and only free VSTi were used (dmiHammer, MS-404, and CM-101)."

Anyway, I like listening to this song because it helps keep alive the hope that space travel may one day become a reality.

NOTE: This song is now available on the new "Phreakbox v1.4: The Instrumentals" album, available for download from Amazon MP3, Lala.com, and available soon from iTunes and Rhapsody and on Audio CD.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Rain Dogs for Supper

Our second "Buried Folderol Week" concludes with a short tune from (I'm guessing) 1997. This is the result of another one of those situations where I was up too late during my college years and had half an idea for a song and so fired up the four-track and put some stuff down. In this case the results were not particularly... good. But maybe you'll find something endearing about this track, who knows.

http://www.victorlams.com/audio/VLams_-_Rain_Dogs_For_Supper.mp3