Half Avian (Album)

Coming Soon

Good morning Winter

Good morning Winter

~

He took out a blue can and sprayed the contents onto the windscreen,

Dissapearing for a second into the glove compartement,

He returned with an expensive ice scraper and a cloth,

A few effortless scrapes,

And a few polishing wipes later,

The glass was clear,

Reflecting the clear blue sky,

He started his car and drove away,

Past me,

Hacking away with half a CD case,

And muttering.

mike

Poem/lyrics: Heights

Heights

~

Wild birds on mountain tops,

The air is brittle, cold,

Camped down where giants slept,

Now buried underground.

My retina still burned with the ghost of the sun,

Bare flesh reacts like a chameleons.

And it's a long way down,

When you're a afraid of heights,

Like me,

And the way down is steeper,

Than you thought it would be.

Mike

Delayed

We are still putting together a compilation called "Quality not geography". It's been delayed due to circumstances of our own creation. Currently, the artists to feature are...

Nitkowski (London)
Hyfrydol (Melbourne)
UV (Wrexham)
ten (Leeds/York)
Zenk (Manchester)
Eta Carinae (London)
Half Avian (Mold)
Olfar (London)


More tba.

Please email a track to: info@thebeardcollector.eu to be involved.

M

The Death of Dr. Sample (Holding on to hope and the danger of PSU mixups)

It still hurts, even after two years. Every day, I wake up, a dusty stream of light cuts through the gap in the curtains and the warm glow calmly cuddles me out of a childlike slumber. Then it hits me, Dr. Sample is dead. He is dead, but I can't let him rest in peace. I miss his built in microphone, chunky trigger pads and on-board effects (especially the one that holds the sample and you can pitch it up and down), how i miss the little light show he put on every time I hit the on button.
But two years ago that all came to an all too abrupt end in a play school nursery / band practice room. You see the thing about the PSU for my sound card, is it's black, and the thing about the PSU for my Roland SP404, is it's black. I'm only human, just like he WAS. I didn't notice his little light show that day consisted of every light, very brightly lit up and the number 8888 lit up in a frantic glow in his little window. The smell of burning sampler filled my nostrils, the smell collided with the memory centres of my brain... a few seconds passed... something wasn't right, I thought... a few seconds past... I should really look into this, I thought. I was right, and as I stood their my friend and companion from lonely solo shows above pubs in Northern cities, where his light show made me think of home, was being burned alive. I didn't shed a tear, there would be time for that. First I had to go through the futile motions of trying to revive him... to no avail.

It's been two years. He is done for, his main processing chip is charred. But he's still in a box, waiting the way people wait in cryogenic stasis for medical science to cure death. I'm waiting for roland to cure death. Or that one day I might actually look into getting him fixed. One thing is for sure, I'll never let go old buddy, never.

(I know that technically the 303 is the Dr. Sample, not the 404, but that was his NAME)

Playlist loop death

Not sure how many more Radio 2 phone ins I can take... Radios should be banned from the work place. I thought the ipod had been invented, have people missed that? You can have any music you like, all to your self, you can even have Stephen Hawkins explain theoretical physics to you, in your ears.

Yamaha CS1x (Not a sound on sound review)

Year of construction: 1996
Cost: Bought for £70 (ebay)
Key Features: Knob controls, it's blue... Sounds are fun.

It was Christmas day and a large unopened package from my brothers lay under the tree. I discovered it wasn't a really big super soaker, as I had initially contemplated, the relief was probably visible. No, under the festive paper wrapping was a large, long brown box, sealed with gaffa and giving off that definitive ebay smell. My brothers had done me the greatest service this Christmas; finding and buying me an old synth on ebay, saving me the nail biting bidding and irritating dealing with sellers and paypal.
It was a Yamaha CS1x from 1996. It's a sort of Mondeo blue, or the colour I imagine Mondeos to be. 6 rotary knobs control ASDR (well, AR anyway), Cutoff, Resonance and two are assignable. You can get a really wide range of sounds, so if you're into flitting about from genre to genre and having fun with music, then this is a really good buy. It even has some basic effects like reverb, and with basic LFO you can get creative with some more interesting effects. I should probably talk about the performance vs multi mode, and the editing of patches and... oh just read the SOS review. It has an arpeggiator, and that makes me smile.

Apparently, it was Yamaha's first attempt at a digital emulation of an analog synthesiser. I'm not sure I believe that, or if it's true, then it's quite a mad attempt. I mean that in a good way, it feels confused, unsure of itself, like a youngster synth making it's way into the world and desperately seeking it's place. Its a weird and great middle ground between trying to produce emulations of real instruments, very electronic sounds, sampled sounds and even drum machines. It of course, fails in each case, but as Bright Eyes said "Failures always sounded better".

It's got a good keyboard too.

M