Ambient/Hip/Trip/Dub/Hop/Psychedelic/Groove/Glitch

8 MP3 Songs in this album (53:27) !
Related styles: ELECTRONIC: Electronica, ELECTRONIC: Techno-Dub

People who are interested in Aphex Twin The Future Sound of London Scorn should consider this download.


Details:
Three and a half years to release a single CD is almost inexcusable. This newest CD is as much the reason for the delay of the Pressure Vessel disc as anything. Composition of Sugar Skull, parts 1-4 began in October 2004 and probably sat for something like 8 or 9 months waiting to be fleshed out into something resembling a complete work. The original ideas came easily enough but sometime around October 2005 the skeletal tracks were transformed from one software platform to another (one that I was just learning) and then the real fun began. I adopted what could only be described as the "kitchen sink approach". That is, I just kept layering and processing tracks until the computer could hardly run a single piece without my little Macintosh G4 Powerbook stuttering uncontrollably. THAT decided the completeness of each part. The downside of this approach was that it made it very difficult (impossible, really) to perform these songs live. Therefore, the Sugar Skull mix was abandoned in mid-stream to begin composition of something I could perform in a live context as I was being encouraged (pressured?) by friends and others to play around the Portland area in addition to Burning Man 2006, and San Francisco's Decompression 2006 events. It was probably for the best as I really needed a break from those tracks. There were many hours spent experimenting and trying new methods and a whole lot of system crashes along the way.

In April of 2007 I was fortunate enough to be invited to play a let set for Ricardo Wang's KPSU radio show: "What's this Called?" It was a miracle that the show even happened. I had my entire set on a hard drive that I had forgotten at home and had to make a mad scramble between the studio and my home and back, returning just in time to perform with all of 5 minutes to do a quick sound check. If you listen real close, you can almost hear the desperation and exhaustion! Ricardo and his engineer, Austin Rich were incredibly calm, patient and supportive every step of the way and have definitely earned my eternal respect and gratitude.

So there it is. The story behind both "halves" of the Sugar Skull project. This could possibly looked at as a "double ep". As a matter of fact I thought of doing that very thing but, personally....I have always hated CD ep's. This is probably due to an inherent laziness on my part. When I put a disc in the player I really just want to forget about it for the next 50 plus minutes while I drive, read, work, etc. Oddly enough, there is a coherency between both pieces that makes the disc work as a single entity. One would almost think it was planned.....Yeah, sure it was....planned....every step of the way.

Additionally, credit for the Sugar Skull concept must be given to my daughter Anne. In October of 2006, she brought home a Halloween craft project from school that just completely captivated my imagination as a concept for a disc. It just hit me in a real "Day of the Dead (the Mexican religious event, not the movie)"/psychedelia sort of way. I mean, think about young people licking sugar skulls for kicks!

Don Avera
08/04/2007