Intent

Epictetus released 3 albums over 3 months (April - June 2019).

Liner Notes

TYOO Liner Notes

::reflection::

the year of output

TYOO is a learning experience. the guitars were recorded on a whim one summer afternoon in one take, all improvised. the treatments were done sparingly and with great care. there's a contrast there that i like. exploring sound. figuring out how my borrowed gear works. toss the bad experiments and cut down the good ones to tasty little caramel bites. it represents output, experimentation, doing.

::recording::

TYOO was recorded with a cheap guitar going through a Korg Tone Works into a PA then direct out into a Zoom H2N. The guitar tracks were then bit reduced, edited, and treated lightly with midi instruments to highlight melody and feeling.

The keyboard tracks were recorded with a borrowed Yammaha VSS-30. Most of the patches are just me singing into the sampler microphone. I love this keyboard.

‘Stars’ was processed through a cassette player.

The funny sound in ‘FCPulse’ is a tea kettle.

TYOO was edited on ABLETON LIVE LITE and AUDACITY.

I guess what I’m saying is USE WHAT YOU HAVE OR CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON.

If you want the whole album processed through a cassette let me know and I’ll send it to you. I love how it sounds.

This album sounds cozy, alien, and lonely for me. It means learning and experimenting for me.

I hope it means something to you.

::thanks to::

my parents for the guitar and the support, chris for korg toneworks, blake for vss-30, matt for novation launchkey 49, album art focus group, molly and colin for the housing, mixing, and mastering help, dad and nathan for helping me get the scarlet 2i2 which got me ableton live lite, and everyone else too, if i've not written you here i still love you lots.

DAMELA Liner Notes

DAMELA was an exploration of Ableton Live Lite’s capabilities and limitations. It was an attempt to squeeze all the sonic pleasantries that Lite had at its disposal. Almost all my gear is gifted or borrowed. if you have no money use garage band or lmms!

Made with a VSS-30, a korg toneworks, self-sampled guitars, free VSTs, samples from many places. 'two hands' contains audio i recorded at the big house 6 and at a cafe. many of the songs contain samples from andrew huang's school sample pack.

**Thanks** again to jonathan for mixing gotet requiem, my parents for the guitar and the support, chris for korg toneworks, blake for vss-30, matt for novation launchkey 49, the album art focus group, molly, jonathan, and colin for the housing, mixing, and mastering help, dad and nathan for helping me get the scarlet 2i2 which got me ableton live lite, and everyone else too, if i've not written you here i still love you lots.

UNDERCURRENTS Liner Notes

UNDERCURRENTS is a commission piece for The Art Center Of Highland Park. The artists are Michelle Stone and Susan Trees.

I had the pieces they send me on a slideshow while writing and recording the demos for the album. There had to be a balance between the viscerality of the art works and the audio. I didn’t want to compound on the dark energy, but I didn’t want to put bright against dark directly. I tried to have happy chord progressions, slowly and with undercurrents.

'Undercurrents' was composed in a basement on a VSS-30 going through a Korg multi-fx pedal and a DL4 into a PA system to a slideshow of the artwork in the 'Undercurrents' show.

Christopher Birnbaum, 2019

Thank You