 | | phnq005.iron lung | | Thu, 24 Nov 2005. Iron Lung was originally released in 1999 as WOOD1206 on Woodwork Recordings. Unfortunately Woodwork is now defunct, but in the late 90's and early 00's some great releases, especially from Peter Grove (aka Sunkissed), came from the Toronto label. The last track, Rubble, was not on the original Woodwork release, but I have included it here as a bonus. It was originally going to be on the release, but was eventually replaced by the Iron Lung remix by Peter.
I actually handed Richie Hawtin an Iron Lung white label at a party he was playing sometime is 1999. I emailed him a few weeks later to see what he thought and he said...
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Yep, thanks for the record.. got it in my crate.. like the 2nd track on one
of the sides.. don't know if both have 2 tracks on or what.. but know that
its the 2nd track in I'm playing.. minimal and trippy!
Rich
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The track to which he was referring is Neepawa, second track on the b-side.
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 | | phnq004.underbrown | | Wed, 16 Nov 2005. Underbrown is an example of how surroundings influence and inspire art. These four tracks were all recorded during 1996 while I resided in a basement apartment in a (then) seedy part of Toronto, Queen and Broadview, right by the Opera House. There were no windows in that apartment and everything was brown -- the shag rug, the wood paneling, my couch. There were very few external stimuli; I would often sleep until late in the afternoon because there was no natural light to wake me up. This music is slower, darker, weirder, less structured and more trippy than previous tracks.
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 | | phnq003.live at audio werks | | Wed, 09 Nov 2005. From late 1999 to mid 2000, I performed three live shows. This is the last one. It was recorded at a monthly techno event that was being held at a little Toronto club called Audio Werks. Incidentally, Paul the proprietor of Audio Werks was also the proprietor of the adjoining record store, The Pit. He was a friendly German fellow, but he was also notorious for throwing people out of The Pit for asking stupid questions like "do you have any hard, bangin' techno?".
Ignore the next paragraph if you are not interested in gear...
I loved my setup for this show. The actual sounds were coming from a TR-909 and a Nord Modular, with the TR-909 actually plugged directly into Nord's audio inputs, and the Nord outputs 1 and 2 going to a mixer (little Mackie). Multi-effects unit being fed right from outputs 3 and 4 on the Nord and then sent to the mixer. The mixer output was sent to both channels of a DJ mixer, the first dry and the second with a TC-Electronics D-Two delay unit inserted. The D-Two was sync'd up to the MIDI beat clock. All that plus my Peavey MIDI faders allowed me to easily create loops on the fly of any length and cross-fade between the loops and the mixer output. All this is very easy now with Ableton Live, but in 2000 it was pretty cool. | |
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 | | phnq002.very ill oil | | Wed, 02 Nov 2005. While the tracks on this release are more modern sounding than the ones on the previous release, they also represent an attempt to get back to the basics of techno. Less cliché, more formula. That mantra was applied to both the texture and the structure axes. Texture-wise, the trite acid lines of the 90's are nowhere to be found, and yet the 909 is wholy embraced in its raw, unadulterated glory. Structure-wise, there is very little tension building/release; instead a more uniform, ever-shifting excitement level is sought. The Nord Modular played a significant role in timbral experimentation throughout. The tracks on Very Ill Oil were concieved and recorded during 2001. | |
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 | | phnq001.renaissance | | Mon, 31 Oct 2005. The first phranq release is a time capsule. These tracks were recorded in the summer of 1995 in my apartment above the Future bakery on Bloor St in Toronto. I had just finished up with one school and was about to start another one in the fall. Life was good. I had just met future wife, my muse. Summer job working nights. All day to write tracks. The internet was around, but I was oblivious to it. Computers? Bah! It was all about hardware back then...especially Roland hardware. TR-808, TR-909, SH-101, MC-202 -- I had them all! I even used a hardware MIDI sequencer. Remember acid lines? Maybe what's old is new again!?!
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