Simstim Technologies - Neuromance

(Mr Phreek circa 1998/1999 - Photo by Ackronomicon)

It's oh-so-apt that I'm posting this after winning a five day battle with the swine flu of computer viruses...

Anyway, I'm really big into cyberpunk. Max Headroom, Shadow Run, Blade Runner, Tron, THX-1138, Akira, Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester, Cordwainer Smith and, of course, the novels of William Gibson all rank highly on my entertainment scale.

On a cyberpunk kick in 2005, I decided to create music that was truly "cyberpunk." I figured a good way to do this would be to record a digital instrument through an analog recorder, so I overdubbed my digital Korg Prophecy on my cassette-based Fostex XR-7 multitracker. I kept William Gibson's first novel, Neuromancer, in mind as I assembled the tracks to create this bit of lo-fi electronica.

If you're familiar with Neuromancer, the song titles should speak for themselves, so a track-by-track analysis is unnecessary. However, if you're unfamiliar...hell, download this album and listen to it while you go to the bookstore to buy it. Or, in true cyberpunk fashion, shop online for an ebook.

And, no, you can't dance to it.

Simstim Technologies
Neuromance CDR
(MPAE)
2005

Download Neuromance as a .zip file!

Sample tracks:

Television Sky
Sleeping Coffin

I Luv Luv Birds - I Know Why the Caged Bird Gun Slings

And here is what I believe to be the second ILLB release. Here, Holly Prindle's tortured/angelic vocals come to the forefront, delivering dreamy, psychedelic lyrics over Marc Mozga's trippy electronic dub. As to be expected, it's highly original and genuinely unique, and an interesting step forward from their previous tape, Mysteries of Magnetism.

Play loud and turn up the bass!

The images and music were uploaded with Marc Mozga's consent. Thank you, Marc!

I Luv Luv Birds
I Know Why the Caged Bird Gun Slings CDR
(ILLB)
2006

Download I Know Why the Caged Bird Gun Slings as a .zip file!

Sample tracks:

One Watt

Icicles (Of Gasoline)

Visit I Luv Luv Birds on MySpace!

I Luv Luv Birds - Mysteries of Magnetism

I met Marc Mozga in English class my first year at CSUN. Somehow it came out in our first class that we were both film majors and we both liked David Lynch movies, so we started talking. Turned out, Marc was from the Minnesota Twin Cities and was heavily involved in the music scene there with a band called The Swingtones. Like me, he had a really eclectic taste in music, so we started hanging out. I believe he came with Aidan and I to see Thee Headcoates at Jabberjaw. We saw The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion a couple of times, too, and probably some more bands.

He also really loved The Two Felipes.

After a year or two in LA, Marc had had enough of LA, though he managed to bring The Swingtones around on tour and I hooked him up with a show at The Whiskey-A-Go-Go. I was there with my friend Mark Lovretovich and we sat there really amused by the bands that played before them. There was some really pretentious art-punk band that was trying desperately to be The Fall (and failing miserably) and this ridiculous Motley Crue/Poison-type LA glam band called 88 Crash, who really perplexed us - especially the bald, body-waxed singer who looked like some guy from Century City letting loose onstage. It was completely ridiculous. Finally, The Swingtones took the stage and it was a great show, they were all great guys and we had a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, after Marc got sick of LA and moved back to the Midwest, we lost touch. He sent me a few really odd handmade tapes (to be posted here in the future), but I didn't hear much from him after that. Finally, he found me on MySpace a few years ago, but I'm not good at communicating on MySpace and we lost touch again. Oddly enough, he Googled "The Two Felipes" and found this blog a few months ago, and I haven't lost touch with him yet.

I Luv Luv Birds is his newest project with his girl, Holly Prindle. He plays stuff and she sings. It's indescribably great music. Although it's rooted in dub reggae a la The Mad Professor, there are elements of various modes of electronic music, including Cabaret Voltaire's early industrial, new styles 8-bit and glitch, and some sound collage aesthetics to keep it interesting. This is one bass-heavy, pulsing, psychedelic collection of music.

Ever read William Gibson's Neuromancer? This is the music that I imagine the Rasta space colony listened to.

Mysteries of Magnetism is ILLB's first release. It's mostly instrumental, but Holly comes in on the last track with a haunting vocal that would indicate where they'd go in the future.

I'm very happy to be posting this tape. It's an amazing collection of music.

The images and music were uploaded with Marc Mozga's consent. Thank you, Marc!

I Luv Luv Birds
Mysteries of Magnetism CS
(ILLB)
2005

Download Mysteries of Magnetism as a .zip file!

Sample tracks:

MoM 2

MoM 7

Visit I Luv Luv Birds on MySpace!

Mr Phreek - Solo Recordings 1998-2001

(Mr Phreek circa 2000 - Photo by Judy Jean Kwon)

Here's a chronological collection of random songs I recorded over a span of about 3 years. I put a lot of time and effort into some of the tracks; others were "of the moment."

The first three songs were recorded at my mom's town house in Northridge. 4 and 5 were done at my mom's house where the first five Books of Pope Goat VII were channeled. 5-9 were recorded in the apartment Ack and I shared in Granada Hills. Track 10 was one of the first songs I recorded when I moved to NY.

The "bonus track" mentioned on the cover art isn't included because I used it on my spacerock album along with two other songs from this CD and that would have put about half the album up here. I'll be posting that spacerock album in the future.

About the songs:
(note: songs that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. That Certain Feeling - This was an attempt to do something "industrial" sounding, but it just sounds like something Steve Albini would have done with Big Black. I wanted single note arpeggio, like you'd get from a Moog, as the bass. I didn't have a keyboard yet, so I used a real bass. It was hard keeping time. The guitar line turned out well considering that I played the whole thing through the song. I also incorporated some sampling elements that I had begun with The Goatfish Oratorio. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out. It ended up on my digital hardcore/industrial album, Luddite Surprise.

02. I Saw You (Crying) - My first stab at psychedelia and spacerock. I tuned my guitar to some strange tuning that went something like E B D A B F#, essentially making power chords out of the three pairs of strings. I spent a lot of time programming the drums, which wasn't easy considering I have a Yamaha RX-11. I actually mic'ed the bass and guitar, too. I think this is one of the best songs I've ever recorded. It opens my spacerock album, Songs About Girls Who Never Existed.

03. Can't Really Complain - I was big into digital hardcore, ie Atari Teenage Riot, and this LA band called Babyland, who were the closest thing to DH that I had heard locally. This was my tribute to both. I recorded the vocals in a friend's (John from The Gardeners) closet. I played an early version for my friend Mark Lovretovich and he said it needed some squeals, so I got our friend Phil, who would become Sir Oedipus Beer in Pope Goat VII, to play a noisy guitar solo over the whole song, which I edited. Many people love this song, which makes me very happy. This is the first track on Luddite Surprise.

04. Torn Apart - This is the original version of "Torn Apart," and to me, it's far superior to the one on the Anubis Rising demo. It's very Slip It In Black Flag with a heavy dose of Hammerhead.

05. Is It Worth It? - I wanted to do something like Flipper, but ended up with this teen angst anthem instead. Features the first extended guitar solo that I ever wrote.

06. Kicking Self - This was a less successful attempt at psychedelia. It's kind of a spacerock version of Flipper. My vocals sound very drugged-up - I probably was.

07. Lady Dragon - Hands down, this is my favorite spacerock song and one of my favorite songs that I've ever recorded, period. It's "Lady Dragon" as in "chasing the dragon," something I was doing heavily at the time until I switched to a much more sordid way of getting high. The song was recorded very Pope Goat-ish - mostly improvised. It came out perfectly. This is also on my spacerock album.

08. Freight Train Baby - I was really big into The Stooges' Funhouse and it shows here. I even programmed a pseudo-funk, Ron Asheton-style drum beat.

09. Highway Driving - I really shouldn't have used the same beat as "Freight Train Baby," but I think I was just trying to get some ideas down as quickly as possible. More Funhouse-infused Stooge-rock.

10. Liz Thinks I'm a Bore - A very trashy garage rocker that marks my transtition to NY. I was using a really shitty Radio Shack mic that was meant for portable tape recorders, which is where all the noise comes from in the middle of the song.

Mr Phreek
Solo Recordings 1998-2001 CDR
(n/a)
2001

Download Solo Recordings 1998-2001 as a .zip file!

Mr Phreek - Summer 99 Rhodes Electro Punk

(Mr Phreek circa '98/'99 - Photo by Ackronomicon)

It was the summer of 1999 and Ack and I were living in my mom's house in Van Nuys, CA while she was in NY. We had turned the living room into our permanent recording studio so we could walk in and hit record whenever the mood struck us. Most of the recordings centered on Pope Goat VII, but I got home from work a few hours earlier than Ack so I squeezed in some recordings here and there.

By this time, I was fully steeped in Iggy Pop's The Idiot, Throbbing Gristle, The Birthday Party and free jazz, especially Sun Ra. All those influences can be heard here, though I was really trying to do my version of The Idiot using Indian beats described by Don Cherry on Actions. I used my drum machine, Fender Rhodes electric piano and bass.

I ended up sending a copy of these songs to Michael Dean from Bomb. He said it reminded him of Suicide, certainly a high compliment.

About the songs:
(note: songs that are linked can be downloaded as samples)

01. Hibernation - I guess this was my attempt at doing something like "Mass Production" from The Idiot. You can hear that I'm trying to do my best Iggy Pop impression in the vocals. Haha.

02. Friday - I programmed one of those Don Cherry beats into my drum machine and jammed this one out. It ended up sounding kind of industrial. I like the way it turned out, especially when it changed 2/3 of the way through.

03. Drunken Battle - Another Don Cherry beat. This one has Iggy all over it, even stuff from his first two Arista albums.

04. Desert Song - Probably the darkest song from these sessions. I really like the way this turned out.

05. Crossing the Line - This song ended up being pretty prophetic, as I was sinking deeper and deeper into drug use. There's much more of a Birthday Party/Jesus Lizard/Stooges thing here than on the previous tracks. You can clearly hear me smoking pot at the end.

06. Factory Man - The Stooges/Birthday Party/Jesus Lizard sound comepletely took over here. Maybe it was a good thing that I stopped when I did.

Mr Phreek
Summer 99 Rhodes Electro Punk CS
(n/a)
1999

Download Summer 99 Rhodes Electro Punk as a .zip file!

SqueakQuencer - Aerobics for Dead People

The second release on MPAE, my cassette-only noise/experimental label, was this, my dad's first album. Yes, this is my dad's music. If I seem a little strange, now you know why.

While I was weened on The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, my dad also played a lot of '70s German electronic records, like early Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Kraftwerk. We were also big fans of John Carpenter's early soundtracks. Later, the Heldon albums got reissued and we blasted those along with the stuff I was listening to at the time, like The Jesus Lizard, Unsane and Neurosis, all of which my dad also liked.

I always remember my dad fiddling around with synthesizers, so when I started a noise/experimental label, it was logical that I ask him to do an album. This one got rave reviews in Flipside from Belalugo Z and even made her Top 10 list of the year! Just about everybody who heard this tape loved it and it's almost a shame that it had to come out on my piddly tape label with only 50 copies made. But it remains one of my proudest moments with MPAE and it means a lot to me.

Eventually, my dad went on to record several CDs, all of which he pressed himself. I plan to upload some of those in the future.

The images and music were uploaded with Robert Foster's full consent. Thank you, Dad!

SqueakQuencer
Aerobics for Dead People CS
(MPAE)
1997

Download Aerobics for Dead People as a .zip file!

Or try some sample tracks first:

Falling Elevator Music

Things Melt When You're Not Looking