Experimental electronica blend of a number of styles - techno, jazz, and others.

12 MP3 Songs
ELECTRONIC: Experimental, ELECTRONIC: Techno



Details:
pointed little quill, fluffy porcupine's first album, derives its name and some of its music from Pointed Little Quill, the first (and only) musicdisk released by the demoscene artist formerly known as Quantum Porcupine.

All of the songs were done entirely using electronic .mod-type composing tools, known as 'trackers' within the demoscene. Many of the songs use a number of non-sample files for their instruments. Autoexec.bat, random cache files, and other stuff abused to hell for the purpose of making a new and enjoyable sound. The extreme examples of this are 'Return of the Files,' where every sample is a non-sample, and 'Electric Sheep,' where the drumbeat is an old .mod file where the samples somehow got corrupted, leaving its original beat to remain with only random noise for its sounds.

This album represents many years of experimentation and stylistic fusions - the earliest songs date back to being written in 1996. Many of the songs, such as 'Manic Swing,' 'General Humidity,' and 'Five/Five Time' have a decidedly jazz feeling to them, even though they are entirely electronic (although Five/Five Time is made to sound almost-natural-but-not-quite). Other songs, such as 'Return of the Files' and the otherwise-untitled 'intro,' explore different aspects of style and the mind, and a vast array of stylistic confusion and cross-pollination culminate in 'Hypnagogic,' which was written while in an actual waking-dream state.

Although nearly every song on the album is different, they are almost (but not quite) united with a common, central theme - the fusion of analog and digital, natural and synthetic, real and imaginary, complex and simple.

This album does not try to give a message, or a pretentiously-boosted image; even the liner art and disc top are simple (and yet not so simple). It exists simply for the sake of existing, in order for the music to simply be. In addition, every single disc is a handcrafted work; every track is lovingly individually-burned to disc, every disc and liner booklet is lovingly hand-assembled and placed axis-aligned into a diminuitive slimline jewelcase, which does nothing to draw attention to itself. Even the cutting of the liner notes is performed by hand, using a straightedge and knife rather than any automatic means.

It also comes with a message of sharing - in the fine print, there is no 'all rights reserved' or 'unauthorized duplication' clause, but instead it simply says, 'share and enjoy.' As if to facilitate the act of sharing, if the CD is placed into an ordinary computer, the user is presented with MP3s encoded at the highest quality possible, for easy Internet-based distribution to others, friends and strangers alike. It would seem that the artist cares more about the music getting out than being profitable, entrusting people to purchase the album if they feel so inclined, but simultaneously not making a major point of it.