I've decided the time is right to do a self-review of all 230 tracks I composed in The Final Selection. Seeing, or hearing how it wasn't so final final, in light of recent pianistic developments, I'm keeping music alive. My hearing hasn't gotten any better since '04, but I've grown more resilient to my hardships, and found an abundance of joy worth celebrating through the years. There are more stories behind the music to be told, and I'm not one to leave you with loss of context.

I'll start at the very top of the list and move down, doing a few tracks in each installment; notice the sort order has the pieces starting with lowercase letters at the bottom, so this won't be wholly alphabetical. I'll also provide inline streaming links so you can listen before you download, and give dates of when each track was composed along with its chronological #. The #s don't add up to 230 because in a number of cases, especially with shorter works, I included them in a single recording session after the production process.

And I've started a "My Music" category on my blog for my original works, distinct from the more general "Audios" category.

Please join me, willya?
 

» 1981 A.D.

#045 - recorded on 2004-01-14

The groove fittingly begins here. The year I was born. This minimal-maximal track isn't named so much for the actual state of techno at the time, but an alternate reality (long an interest of mine) where synth tech is several years ahead of our universe. I went wild with the toms, mindful of what a parallel XoX drum machine would be like, and I faded and panned this 1-bar piano loop under the hypnotic, very straightforward 4-on-the-floor beat. String stabs accentuate the syncopation, and the 909esque hi-hats are something I learned to do from the Spectre VR soundtrack. The bassline — almost always a fundamental part of dance music — goes from nonexistent, to hesitant, to machine-gunning it in 16th notes a la Moroder.

In some way, that sums up my hope: that the connections between disco, house, and later electronic music forms be more broadly recognized (instead of awful divisiveness), tracing the evolution from the beginning to the now, like how I've grown from a toddler into the person you know today.

This track was recorded in the same session with "the aspergian theme", "General", and "Sequence E". Took me a few hours to make them all, start to finish.
 

» 1,001 Dead Snobs

#071 - recorded on 2004-03-04

This was actually meant as a parody and sort-of pisstake of super-repetitive, arrogant techno where not a lot goes on. I ruined my own attempt tho, by introducing a variety of changes, edits, and melody. Arghhhh pesky hummables!

I did get to deploy several tried-and-true cliches like relentless marching band-style snare drums and how the beat drops out @ 1:44 then kicks back in with a fury. But again, I put too much variation into this. Nevertheless, it helped gel my style of having certain looped, familiar elements (like train tracks, as my metaphor goes) play relentlessly while other components dance around them.

I must say I really like the breakdown @ 3:00 where I increased the grainy reverb tail to give a cavernous sense of depth.

 
» 1,001 Speculums

#104 - recorded on 2004-04-16

I know, what a weird name for a track! That's 'cuz this is actually one part of a longer compilation disc I dubbed Songritt Symphony, dedicated to my Uncle Ritt, who happens to be a retired gynecologist. I look up to him so much, and it's true, one of my earliest career dreams was to be a gyno. Other parts of the Songritt Symphony are amongst The Final Selection; maybe someday I'll put up the entire DJ mix I did where all the tracks smoothly crossfade and beatmix into each other @ 136 BPM.

Anyway, I used actual samples of speculums to make the metallic rhythms you hear. This is considered to be in the "nu skool breakz" style, which is why the kick and snare are so heavy. The bassline that drops @ 0:57 is a suitably heavy stormer, and I must have detuned and chorused that puppy to have it so phat.

The breakdown section that comes in at about a minute and a half is of a woman from an educational obstetrics video going through labor. It sounded like the ideal thing to build suspense, and I was thrilled at how perfectly the most vocal bit (you'll know it when you hear it!) looped in-tempo. Careful attention paid to small details like that adds up to great listening on both quality headphones and a big room soundsystem.

The distorted guitar-ish riff @ 2:22 was influenced by Prodigy's "Voodoo People", but more sustained and echoed. I wanted to give a threatening (think of when giving birth was more hazardrous to the mother's life), but forward-moving vibe. I'm also really fond of how I got the bass to wobble @ 2:44, and the affirmative sigh of relief @ 3:04. Again, little details like that add up to a lot.

 
» 1 Number

#054 - recorded on 2004-02-02

Lots of finger-flailing and playful arpeggios in this solo piano piece! The name comes from the fact that it was actually "Number 1", chronologically-speaking, in a series of piano recordings I did at the time. The piano sound in this comes from an Alesis QS8 and sounds a little distant, like you, the listener, are a few feet away.

There's a hint, a dash of Rachmaninoff in the big-handed chords I wailed on. In hindsight, the stuff starting @ 1:34 is like Michael Nyman's soundtrack to The Piano, but I can't be sure. But to this day, I'm fond of those chord progressions. 1:57 has a foreseeable change of keys which I was thrilled with.

2:41 & 3:59 is the same melody as "falling in love for the last time (it takes 2)", which, by the looks of the name, I won't be reviewing until much later on. ;) I'm definitely a fan of being self-referential when the situation calls for it. I've written so many catchy melodies, so it makes sense to drop one into another every now and then — they're like well-loved characters making cameo appearances in a different movie.

This, by the way, is all improvised.