MOVED

I've decided not to continue this blog.

My website is now at http://www.inspiringsounds.com/

Mark

A Wreath of Stars

A track started in 2012, finished off in 2014

Galactic Blue

This one has been a long time coming. I started it back in July 2012 and then went off onto other projects and then completed it in 2013. Following the upgrade to the new PC I've completed the final mixing and at last it's published. Hooray!

Into the Zone

Into the Zone was inspired by the Russian sci-fi book "Roadside Picnic" and the subsequent film "Stalker". The core premise is that aliens land on earth and after a few days take off again. No one sees them or has any contact. But they leave behind in the "zones" mysterious artifacts that appear "magic". As the book says it's as if ants discover the remains of a roadside picnic.
 
The track ends with the sound of a stream, birds and the wind blowing through leaves. Nature always wins out. Over man or even super advanced aliens.

Listen to Into the Zone here  

Beyond

Released this on Soundclound a while back.
 
Listen via the link below


Beyond

Galactic Running Wave

I was going for a particular sound for this slice of hazy "Kosmiche musik" and I think I more or less got it. Aparently there are huge clouds of stellar dust just waiting for some galactic shock wave to start the ignition process. Above are the "three pillars of creation".


So anyway the music is on my usual page

 http://www.soundclick.com/markgriffiths

What I did on my holidays and a brief meditation on mortality

"Please exit via the gift shop" was a frequently signed request on our trips round various tourist destinations last year.

It soon became my personal mantra, particularly as I realised don't we all at one time exit through the gift shop?

It became the obvious title for this hotch potch piece, partly because of the environmental recordings I made at the beach at Bournmouth, from a minature train at Bleinheim and so on that meant for me it captured the spirit of that holiday. 

The other connection was that I used it to try out various little gifts, new bits of equipment or older things I had but had never quite found a place for. All of these were added in, over doing it until I ended up with a sticky sweet mess that you then find stuck down the side of the car seat when the holiday is over. (My wife took the pictures)

Listen to Please Exit through the Gift Shop

Gliese 581d

Nearly a year since the last post! Actually quite a lot musically has been going on - I have about 5-6 tracks on the go, about as many other sketches but haven't been that great at finishing them.

Gliese 581d is a long open work - in the vein of "Through the Gates" but denser and with the balance more on conventional structures and harmonies.

The rough idea of the piece is a probe flying through the Gliese system and passing various worlds and finally leaving the system altogether.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=12081948&q=hi

K2 (2011)

Nearly 30 years ago I wrote piece called "K2" after the mountain. It became the central track of a cassette release of the same name which included a number of "scenic" works. In 2010 I started thinking about reviving the track, half remembered from decades previously. I got stuck in the track's foothills and had to reluctantly turn back.

Then in 2011 the conditions felt right and I made a final assault on the music, pushing on to the summit.





Listen at http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=11398903&q=hi

Sunburst (In the lair of the Purple Ultra Kitten)

Somehow I forgot to release this one. I think I finished it in April...anyway I decided to redo "Sunburst" and make it something that was more for a better expression, "me".













http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=11103704&q=hi

Oxford Dawns (May day mix)

I've been working on this one for a while, actually I started it last year but didn't finish it for my deadline, went off and did some other things and then returned to it. It's a sort of aural picture of May day in Oxford, with the chimes from Old Tom, the choirs greet the dawn and the follow up revelry of people attempting to jump into the river.

Every note and sound in the track has a specific meaning and everything was entirely planned.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=10647848&q=hi

Clockwork UFO

“Clockwork UFO” is short sound picture, a heavily re-worked splinter from the longer piece “Through the Gates”.

Download “Clockwork UFO”
http://www.soundclick.com/util/downloadsong.cfm?id=8789118

Stream “Clockwork UFO”
http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=8789118&q=hi

Download “Through the Gates”
http://www.soundclick.com/util/downloadsong.cfm?id=8666852

Stream “Through the Gates”
http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=8666852&q=hi

Sunburst

Something a bit different, this is the first time I've used drums in nearly 30 yrs so it's a bit of a departure, it's a dance track to boot. I managed to get it done just in time for Valentines Day.

The track is here 
http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=8762743&q=hi

Through the Gates

Through the Gates is a spooky Sci Fi/Horror romp through the Lovecraftian abyss.Enjoy, but be careful what you dream of tonight.

Download http://www.soundclick.com/util/downloadsong.cfm?id=8666852

Stream http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamm3u.m3u?id=8666852&q=hi

Do you remember the day?

Very different from "This House is like a ship", "Do you remember that day (in 1969 when you asked what I was going to do with the rest of my life?) is a melodic New Age style piece. But then "Janus" is an autobiographical work so that is probably to be expected.
The idea came from a barely remembered conversation at the age of 10 when I was asked by my friends what I was going to do with my life. I had grand dreams of living in California.
Nursery rhyme motifs repeat through the music, starting with a musical box. The music, as life, is through of some twists and turns, but overall this is a hopeful and happy track, the childish skipping rhythm continues to the final heartbeat. Dedicated to Martha.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7531641&q=hi

This House is like a Ship

The track is an every day tale of a man that retreats to his house, loses touch with reality and becomes convinced his house is a ship, to the extent he won't even look out of the window to see that it is not the case. The text is vaguely like:
"Sometimes this house is like a ship, and this room seems like a ship's cabin, with the creaking of the timbers and the ebb and flow of light it seems as if I am on some kind of immense sea. I travel forever. I hardly ever look out of the window these days, I know the sea is there...it's just waiting there, immense, impassive and primal. Windblown or becalmed, I travel forever".
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7509400&q=hi

Lonely People (Shedding Oxide)

Back in 2006 I transfered some old music from tapes from the 80s. I planned to release these under the general heading of "Shedding Oxide". A mere 3 years later, here is the first track "Lonely People" recorded entirely using a Yamaha DX9 synth, using a bit of spring reverb and ReVox echo onto a Tascam 4 track.

The track appeared on "Like the passing of summer rain" released 1989(?) on the Electronical Dreams label. (If anyone knows what happened to that label I'd be interested to hear).

This was the track that got picked up by a few radio stations in Canada, US and apparently Russia. Links below for stream or download.

Stream: http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=7207296&q=hi

Download: http://www.soundclick.com/util/downloadsong.cfm?id=7207296

Experimental Track released

I have now completed a short experimental piece “I had lost my friend (No way out)”.

The text came from a dream recorded 30/6/2007. It is only a part that appears to deal with the fragmentation of the self into a number of personas, hero, scientist, servant and victim. It’s no co-incidence that the personas are within a graphic novel, they are literally “paper thin”. The significance of the conclusion which adds (No way out) to the title, still eludes me. But I won’t lose any sleep over it.

I had lost my friend.
I was afraid I had lost him.
And then I found him, finally, trapped in a black and white graphic novel.

He was a between the wars butler, but he cannot remember who he used to be before.

He was part of an expedition to Africa with an aristocratic group, but the expedition had gone wrong .

His face appears in one panel. Another scene shows other members of the expedition staked out by the natives.

Yet another scene panel shows one of them, Werner von Braun, dead in the plane crash,

Now my friend appears as superman, but he is only in the garden we started from.

Everywhere else he sees himself dead.

Now he can only exist as a fantasy figure, in this one place.

(Coda, not part of the dream)
I can only exist here as a fantasy figure.
I can only exist here as a fantasy figure
I can only exist here as a fantasy figure


Listen (will open the Soundclick player)
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6814438&q=hi


Brought to you under the Freedom of Too Much Information Act.

Titus Alone

In addition to working on the “Strange Stars” theme/ album I’ve also been working on ideas for a largely autobiographical set, “Janus”. “Adieu” released a while back was the first, today I released the second element “Titus Alone”.

It’s at http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6441216&q=hi

Catch Up - April 2008

I've released three tracks as part of the "Strange Stars" theme. All are available on Soundclick.

The most recent is "Point with no no reference". It’s actually an old track. In the early 80s I created a short piece of cosmic/ space synth work called “Depayse”, it was probably on my first cassette release.. Later in the 80s it was reworked for a compilation promo for the Electronical Dreams label “The Dream is just beginning” and re-titled “Point with no reference”. It’s now reworked yet again. By accident when messing around with one of the keyboards I used in the second version I quoted from one of my other pieces of the time and left it in. My first synth was used to take the bass part it had taken about 25 years ago.
After all those years the structure remains very simple and close in feeling to the original. The text that accompanies this version is



“Somewhere in the far reaches, a place with no name, something sings a song of eternal solitude.”



It’s at http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6423309&q=hi