.[H-RA 010 CS] L7 [BGM]

The tenth title in a series of short-run "Hi-Res Audio" releases, this edition of "L7 (BGM)" was partially manufactured during July 2020 (the rest in December 2021) and comes as C-44 Music Grade Normal Bias Tape (Gold) with fantastic-looking silver-foil metallic labels (with detail of photographs of a chunk of Bismuth that had fallen inside of the "Voigt-Kampff Machine" orange Monorocket case and had just so subtly influenced the sound herein) each housed in its own Clear/Gold Norelco Case (with the apropos gold-foil-stamped sticker affixed to the lower-right of the cover) along with full-color printed labels & J-Cards, cello-taped shut inside a horizontal sleeve. These were dubbed (warm) to tape from the original 24/96 masters in batches of 4 via a Recordex Soundmaster IV here in the studio in Brooklyn, NY, and featured the entire "Final" take across the A-side, then the "SFX Mesh" & the "Rough Mix" on the B-side.

I had long wanted to make a proper edition of this commission/music & although it's still (technically) mired in contractual obligations, this humble, golden ticket edition shouldn't step on anyone's toes. A late, studio high-point in the life-span of the "Playthroughs" system, heard here in a one-off, post-Lisbon context with multiple layers of guitar, granular synthesis, and chiming, phased square-wave tonal-centers. Comes with a voucher which you can use to claim the appropriate "Digital Assets" over at Bandcamp.

The result of a commission to compose music & sound design for the final level of an interactive digital environment (read: video game) project; essentially a request to reconstruct the "(Recorded in) Lisbon" set in the style of Brian Eno's "An Ending (Ascent)" (how close to this goal the resultant music ended up being is up for debate). This extended late- "Playthroughs" piece, with its propulsive pulsing square-wave figure & floating layers of sine-wave "Shuffler" guitar & granularly frozen direct guitar playing, was a late peak in the piece's lifespan & was likely the closest the piece ever flew to the sun (in purely commercial terms).

Included here are a stereo mix-down of the music used on the seventh level, an earlier rough mix, then a montage of all of the SFX, stabs, and cues generated in the process.