song by song details:

Terra Obscura: Loosely interpreted as "the hidden earth." I got the title from a comic book, "Tom Strong." Pretty geeky, huh?

we have negative:
This is the oldest song on the album. I originally wrote this using my MPC2000 sampler, using several samples of myself on guitar. When I moved to laptop composition, I resampled and rearranged the song using Ableton's Live. As the album neared completion, I actually rearranged the track once more for this final version.

chlos:
This short track is mainly chopped up guitar samples, manipulat ed and played using a sampling/loop mixing software called Girl. I used a couple of the same samples as on "we have negative". How's that for value?

l@dy n my life:
This track consists of nothing but samples from Michael Jackson's song "The Lady In My Life", from his album Thriller. This actually came to life as part of a concept project that was going to be called ASCII JACKSON, in which a handful of us were going to resample every song on that album, in its entirety. Sadly, the project never took off. This track then took on a life of it's own. Sampled and arranged using Live. In fact, all the long songs were done with Live, all the short songs were done with Girl.

dtsk:
More chopped up samples improvised in Girl. Some guitar, some field recordings...

long min (live):
This originally started as a J3 piece I played at the opening of the F Gallery in Milwaukee. We did a sound/art piece with local metal artist Gary Kandziora. We sampled him, his tools and his metal, then created 4 generative pieces to be played continuously through speakers embedded in a huge metal figure he created specifically for this show. At the opening, we also played live, again using only samples of him. Eventually I kept coming back to the arrangement I did and kept tweaking it. I played and recorded this live at the Cactus Club in Milwaukee on 10/05/02. I had a version recorded already, but I liked this live version more.

drpr:
Again, chopped up and improvised in Girl. I did all the short songs right around the same time, with the exception of "sol". This one is a bit goofy with pitch changes at the end. Almost like some glitchy alarm clock or something.

middle inlet:
Named after a very small trout fishing town in Northeastern Wisconsin, not too far from where my Dad grew up, and where we would go during the summer when I was little. Consists of various samples - some from my Micro Modular and a couple from my dog, Lucky. I think a couple of the percussive sounds are from him chewing a kong toy. I still need him to sign an artist release form.

sol:
Named after Sol Campbell, stellar defender for Arsenal. Done in Girl, mostly guitar but with some AshKroft samples as well.

wrong tack:
Last track and last one recorded for the album. Mostly new guitar samples, as I wanted something long and somber. The title is a phrase that basically means a bad direction, or a wrong strategy, which is where I believe this current administration is steering us. Our (un)elected leaders have us heading towards a new depression and endless war. The Bush junta must be defeated in '04 for us to have any hope of turning things around.