How did this album come about? Below are the relevant diary entries from Cloudland Blue : A Diary (crispycat-recordings.blogspot.com)


Saturday 6 March 2021

Up before 6 to record the second half of this week's podcast...

At 8, the podcast was released - all over for another week...

Meanwhile, last night, Edward Spark sent me a supposed ambient remix of "Emperor", the opening track on his just released yesterday EP...

I love the original track...

Parts of the remix were indeed ambient but parts weren't - a Whatsapp discussion followed and, by 10am, a CBQ ambient remix was in his inbox, my having excised the non-ambient elements and "treated" a combination of what was left, in order to, eventually, produce a 17 minute soundscape...

The original track is under 2 minutes...

In the late afternoon, a random Tweet led me to a presentation made a few years ago on Ableton Live...

Buried within the details of Generative Music, its history and how it works, was a programme which allows for random piano music to be created...

And so, along with the ambience created this morning via Edward Spark, the next CBQ LP started to take shape...

Rapid progress was made...

So much so that, what might be a new LP, was already "in the can" before tea time...

A 35 minute collection, the first half comprising one long and three short piano pieces, side two being my long ambient mix of "Emperor"...

Seemed to make sense...

In the evening, a listen back to "The Long Day Star Assembly" (as it was now called) entertained, before hitting the sack...

Highlight of the Day : Creating new music..


Sunday 7 March 2021

Up just after six with ideas in my head re yesterday's work...

On the presentation stumbled upon, another piano generator was located...

New piano music was created and combined with the ambience from yesterday plus field recordings from Berlin and Devon in 2018...

Later, I listened back to today's, as yet untitled, work..

It seems a second LP has been created within two days...

Weekend over...

Productive...

Highlight of the Day : More pianos...


Monday 8 March 2021

Up late...

It was still early enough, though, to do some work based on yet another idea and the second of the piano programmes discovered over the weekend...

I quickly produced eleven new short pieces - which were then slowed down to half speed - and edited together eleven slices of "Emperor ambience" to hover, almost imperceptibly, in the background...

As with Saturday and yesterday's work, titles were taken from random words/phrases for the respective entries in Eno's 1995 diary - as I used to do to name improvised works by the Edinburgh Electronic Improvisational Quartet, Creek...

Late on, I decided on a name for the new LP...

"Dissolution"...

It's based on the title of the final track recorded today, "Everything Will Dissolve", which, of the eleven new pieces, seems to be my favourite...

Fitting then, that it is the last...

The tracks/experiments recorded on Saturday and yesterday will make some excellent bonus material for downloaders...

And all of this because Edward Spark wanted my opinion on his ambient remix and a stray Tweet led me to look at a presentation on the net...

It's a game of chance indeed...

Highlight of the Day : New LP...