JH. Holiday in Purgatory 

Track List:

More details about the music:

Illumination (a.k.a. Cathedral Scanner)

I have a visual association for this: A vast cathedral in darkness. The single source of light is a candelabrum which hangs from the ceiling on a long cord, forming an illuminated pendulum that swings slowly. As I look around me, tiny spots of light move across the floor, across the pews. And as the finger of light scans the iregularly shaped objects, the apparent movement speeds up und slows down, always following the periodic motion of its source.

The OB-8 is used as a sound source which is split up into 8 bands with a clone of the EMS 8 Octave Filter Bank. The filterbank's individual outputs are fed into the Interpolating Scanner (with some random cross-patching, i.e. the order of the channels is changed). A triangle LFO is used to scan - to move across the individual channels. The modulation depth is so high that at either extremes of the LFO wave the scan is "outside" the input channel range. This creates moments of silence, and the scanning in between gets a character of "articulation".  Another LFO is used to move the position in the stereo panorama.
The Quantec sets the reverberating ambience: Room size is 100.000 cubic meters; the scan is reflected back and forth in space.
OB-8 chords that are arpeggiated at the beginning and the end of the piece, to enhance the "articulation" effect. In the middle part, the chords are held, causing a more serene sound.

Instruments:

Audio Sample (936k)
 
 

Queen of Glome

Instruments: Audio Sample (506k)
 
 

Desecration of the Twins

"And as Mekare and I knelt opposite each other, [...] we saw our lives - with hope, long and happy - to be lived here among our own. [...] And then the evil came down upon us; came so suddenly with the tramp of feet and loud shrill war cries of the Egyptian soldiers, that we scarce knew what was happening."
(Anne Rice, The Queen Of The Damned)

Instruments:

Audio Sample (1.04M)
 
 

Knitters of Black Wool

"I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes."
(Joseph Conrad, Heart Of Darkness)

Instruments:

Holiday in Purgatory

Instruments:
  • Korg CX-3
  • Dynacord CLS-222
  • JH Storm Tide Flanger
  • CS-50
  • JH-5
  • MOTM modules
  • Yamaha VL 7
  • EMS HiFli Clone
  • Quantec QRS

    •  

    I'm not entirely sure about all the instruments on this track.
    It was one of those "magic" moments when you just grab out for the next keyboard in reach to add another note or another effect.
    The strings in the closing section come from a different recording session (Desecration of the Twins), so they are mainly VL 7 thru HiFli - backwards, because I had flipped the reels several times for that one.
    The CX-3 organ was processed with the Storm Tide Flanger, with envelope follower modulation. Thus the beating between the different notes, and the modulation from the Dynacord lesley simulator, would also excite a flanger modulation, resulting in a very "liquid" sound.

    If you have never liked early stuff of the electronic pioneers (like Tangerine Dream's "Zeit"), I am pretty sure you will hate this as well. Otherwise, there's a chance you might enjoy the "holiday in purgatory".

    Audio Sample (1.14M)
     
     

    Sings Daphne from the Dead Room

    "So that time of the picnic they feased without tea, which made the nurse and attendant and bus driver and Sister Dulling very irritable; but the patients did not care, drinking sun and brown ice, even if it did taste of sheep and old logs."
    (Janet Frame, Owls Do Cry)

    The Frostwave sequencer plays a theme on the JH-5, which is kept rather mellow until the very end of this piece, when the filter is opened.  I am playing a melody with an oboe sound from the VL7. But the (monophonic) VL7 is also controlled by the second track of the Frostwave. As long as I play, I'm "overriding" the sequencer. When I make rests in my playing, the sequencer takes over. This is accomplished not by switching anything - just by lifting my fingers for a moment. The result is almost like a woodwind duet at times.

    Instruments:

  • Yamaha VL 7 - oboe
  • EMS HiFli Clone - processing the VL 7
  • JH-5 - sequencer voice 2
  • Korg ES-1 - drums
  • JH. Phase 12 - resonant stereo S&H effect on ES-1
  • Frostwave FAT Controller
  • TC Electronic D-Two
  • JH Dimension Clone - softening the echoes from the D-Two
  • Quantec QRS
    • Audio Sample (403k)
     
     

    Open Corridor

    A "live in the studio" recording. There's a rather long introduction of various instruments playing phrases that seem directionless, "searching". Then the the second part kicks in with thick pulsewidth-modulated OB-8 sounds and a resonating drone that is caught in two echo loops (Amdek Delay and Delatalab Effectron). The drone is always changing its colour - that's the work of the MOTM M-410 resonator prototype - and the OB-8 contributes a melody which is so slow that you will perceive it as part of the texture rather than something separate.

    Instruments:

    Audio Sample (1.14M)
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