Humorless

Ok, I’m very excited about this.

I recorded Bestial Mouths last weekend in Los Angeles, and I’m super stoked that they’ve given me permission to broadcast/shoutcast it on my mixlr.com channel this coming Sunday.

http://mixlr.com/humorless-productions/ is my Mixlr page, and the time will be Sunday, 10 March at 4pm west coast time, which is 7pm east coast time, and I think midnight in London and 1am (Monday morning officially) in Berlin. As far as I know, it’ll be a one-time-only broadcast and won’t be available (download, stream or otherwise) once it’s aired.

This is my first time using Mixlr, but I’ve done some tests and everything has worked just fine. Basically, it’s a site where you can make a playlist (a la iTunes) of Soundcloud tracks and broadcast them to whomever wants to listen, and every broadcast has it’s own IM/chat capabilities. So I’ll just throw the recording in the playlist and let ‘er rip.

You don’t need to register an account with Mixlr to listen to the show, but you do if you want to join the chat room. Registration is free.

The audio is high quality, proper live album, not some crappy bootleg. If you’re not familiar with any of my other live recordings (industrial, breakcore, idm, more…), jump over to mixcloud.com/humorlessproductions and check some out.

Bestial Mouths will be playing SXSW the following weekend, so hopefully this broadcast will add to the giant hype snowball that’s been generating around them, and help push them through the Austin show and the release of their album and beyond.

I also grabbed a couple songs on video from this show, and have synced up my high quality audio to them. I may be able to convince the band to release them prior to the broadcast as a teaser, but we shall see.

Have I covered everything? I think so.

Please tune in, and spread the word. Thanks.

Brian. Humorless Productions.

Music by Not Breathing. Audio and video recorded/edited by me.

Zola Jesus live at The Casbah, San Diego, 3 March 2012. Full set, audio only.

Zola Jesus live in San Diego, 3 March 2012 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

Zola Jesus live in Los Angeles, 31 Oct 2011 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

Full set, audio only.

Tearist live in San Diego, 4 August 2012 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

Sounds like- techno, generally speaking, with a bit of a lo-fi, garage-y edge to it. Songs with a driving beat to them and some occasional squelching synths, but not all aggro. Songs that are not too long and not too short. Woman vocalist, adhering most of the time to a specific melody, but sometimes wandering off into a wailing yelp. She’s definitely a high energy presence who knows how to command a stage. If you need more info on them, check the links below.

Tearist live at Soda Bar, San Diego, 4 Aug 2012.

mono board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience 

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface 

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing 

Soundtrack Pro for mastering 

MacBook Pro

bandcamp myspace FB last.fm wiki twitter

Edit: Full set, audio only-

Tearist live in San Diego, 4 August 2012 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

Full set, audio only-

Daedelus live in Los Angeles, 29 March 2012 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

Rotterdam junglist FFF ended his first venture along the west coast of the US with a completely nuts house party in Santa Barbara at the end of March. Full set.

FFF live in Santa Barbara, 24 March 2012 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

stereo board mix 

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience 

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface 

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing 

Soundtrack Pro for mastering 

MacBook Pro

website

soundcloud

bandcamp

FB

myspace

It was quite an auspicious occasion as Zola Jesus wrapped up their month-long US tour with a show at San Diego’s legendary Casbah.

I wrote an exhaustive post the first time I’d recorded ZJ up in LA this past Halloween, so see that entry if you need any background. But I will say this about this show-

It was downright industrial. I suppose that’s more a reflection of the club’s sound system (massive), the dimensions of the room (on the small side), and the way the sound guy was mixing the band (throbbing low end synths, thumping kick drum sounds, kinda tribal sounding electronic drums). Much heavier than anything on cd from the band. There were many moments where I very much liked this sound, as in this excerpt of ‘Vessel’ from that night, but at some other times I thought the heaviness did the songs something of a disservice. But at the same time, I kept all of that propulsive, pounding low end in the final mix, because it definitely shines a new light on the songs as they are performed live.

If you’ve got a subwoofer hooked up to your system (and you really should), this’ll give it a decent workout.

Zola Jesus, 3 March 2012, live at The Casbah, San Diego.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

Edit: Full set, audio only-

Zola Jesus live in San Diego, 3 March 2012 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

Rephlex superstar Wisp crawled out of his studio in Niagra Falls (where he’s furiously working on his next album) and came out west to play a one-off show for RecordLabelRecords in Oakland in September of 2011. He played many unreleased tracks in the performance as well as some earlier tunes. His music is melodic electronic without being sleepy, danceable without getting too loopy, breaky without getting broken, playful without getting silly, bleepy but not too clinical, lush without getting dreamy, at times getting slightly aggressive but so much as to cause people to plug their ears and/or run away, and with occasional acoustic piano interludes.

Wisp live at Cremation of Care at Zool in Oakland, California, 23 Sept 2011.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

Ted Nava is an interesting fellow who makes some amazing music. This night found him in more of a noisy/ambient mood, although he also had plenty of beats for everybody. 

Ted Nava live at Darkmatter’s 10th anniversary show, Chinatown, Los Angeles, 9 July 2011.

I’m super excited that So Simple Records relocated to LA because now I’ll be able to catch not only WMX with hopefully some regularity, but also Ted Nava, who played a magnificent albeit brief set of mangled beats and ear-piercing electronics at Baseck’s birthday bash in August of 2011. There aren’t to many artists on my ‘it doesn’t matter when or where they’re playing, if they’re playing, I gotta go’ list, but both those guys are on it. 

Ted Nava live in Los Angeles, 13 Aug 2011.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

Edit: Full set from Aug 2011, audio only-

Ted Nava live in Los Angeles, 13 August 2011 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

OG Darkmatter scratchmaster Baseck generally likes to abuse his gameboys and turntables equally in live performance. But in this clip here, his gameboys dominate the mix as they spew out large doses of pounding noisy 8-bit bliss. 

Baseck live at Darkmatter’s 10th anniversary show, Los Angeles, 9 July 2011.

Baseck celebrated his becoming one year closer to being a grumpy old man by organizing a show in some warehouse in an industrial section of LA on the border between Chinatown and Alhambra. Of course, he whipped out the gameboys and played a set himself, and here’s a taste. 

Baseck live in Los Angeles, 13 August 2011.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

Like Baseck, her audio weapons of choice are gameboys modded for music programming and output. But make no mistake- these things aren’t toys, at least in capable hands. She continues to defy the boundaries of gameboy composition. Every song she plays is more devastating than the last. Monstrous. 

Wet Mango live at Darkmatter’s 10th anniversary show, Chinatown, Los Angeles, 9 July 2011.

stereo board mix

Shure SM-57s for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

Edit: full set, audio only-

Wet Mango live in Los Angeles, 9 July 2011 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

OK so here’s how it went- we were dished an hour’s worth of hardcore kicks and breaks from X&Trick, then were pulverized for an hour 15 by VSnares, and then Enduser reduced us to quivering piles of goo by playing over an hour and a half himself. So not only did Enduser play the tunes in his normal set, but he also threw in some unreleased stuff as well as some older tracks that rarely find their way into the live sets anymore.

Footnote #1: When I go out to these clubs to make these recordings, the vast majority of the time I am more or less left to my own devices and as long as I stay out of the way of the people who work there, everything proceeds swimmingly. Well, this was not one of those nights, and I would require about a day and a half to relay the story of everything that transpired this night, but suffice to say I simply would not have gotten this recording if not for the heroic efforts of Nicolas from Ad Noiseam, who was busy djing this show but still made time to help me out. That guy rules. A million thanks to him.

Footnote #2: Berghain is one of the best clubs on the planet. It’s in a renovated industrial building and has a super large performance area with sound system that could power a stadium. Go there and hear it for yourself.

Enduser live at Berghain, Berlin, 14 May 2010.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

I’m cynical. Whenever I go to these all-nighter electronic music events with a dozen people on the bill, I expect that the artists with which I’m not familiar are gonna suck. That’s just how it goes. Because that’s the way it’s always gone.

Well, this night was an exception, because even though this was my first exposure to Thee Source ov Fawnation, they knocked my socks off. I love it when that happens.

I’d say their music is similar to Scanner’s more beat-oriented stuff, with a little Quench thrown in, also some Disjecta and maybe Silk Saw. Generally slow, patient music which often times works its way to a big crescendo for the finale. Sometimes with softly sung vocals, quite melodic. Not aggressive, but kinda heavy in parts, but those parts don’t last too long before being cleared out by digitally processed bleeps and bloops and other musical bits.

Oh, I’ll continue being cynical, but it sure is nice to be caught off guard every once in a while.

Thee Source ov Fawnation live at Cremation of Care at Zool, Oakland, California, 24 Sept 2011.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

Edit: full set, audio only-

Thee Source ov Fawnation live in Oakland, 24 Sept 2011 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud

WMX is poised for world domination. Apocalyptic industrial with a healthy dose of glitchy techno and an overload of doom and gloom atmospherics. He’s a force of nature. He cannot be stopped. 

WMX live at Darkmatter’s 10th anniversary show, Chinatown, Los Angeles, 9 July 2011.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

News of an imminent album from WMX has my brain salivating. Shades of (early era) Gridlock and Skinny Puppy creep up now and again in his foreboding synth-beat-glitch compositions. 

WMX live in Los Angeles, 13 August 2011.

stereo board mix

Shure SM-57s for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

Edit: full set from July 2011, audio only-

WMX live in Los Angeles, 9 July 2011 by Humorlessproductions on Mixcloud