Scribblings
Random thoughts on random subjects
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Just relaunched and heavily updated the website, changing theme/design, removing the redundant section (‘Soundware’ is linked directly to Gumroad now), and making it more suitable for mobile users. So – welcome again!
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‘The Day of Life Forgotten,’ the experimental electronics net-label, have released black-sided sun’s latest album ‘Summa Timorum’ (The Sum of Fears). As per label’s message: ‘Dark ambient, post-industrial, experimental electronics. New album by black-sided sun delivers exceptionally dark and precisely detailed sound scape. An epic, and hopeless, sound canvas, both startling and attracting at the
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Autumn hits hard: temperatures are down, if it rains, it pours, and the intense live season is basically through, although Sombra Del Mar isn’t going to slow down: we’ve booked for a month ahead. I believe over these recent months I’ve played more live shows than ever before – I mean, probably more than throughout
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I’ve blogged recently about the AI muzak from YouTube that I have to hear every time as our band’s scrambling for live performing. It looks like there’s kind of a development. Expectedly unexpected – or vice versa: the AI ‘reimaginings’ of classic rock music – or any other. I’ve bumped into a flick of Scorpions’
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My attempts to translate the patches from TAL U-NO-LX to Cherry Audio’s DCO-106 proved to be way more problematic than I expected. These emulators may cover similar instruments (Roland Juno-60 and Juno-106, accordingly) but some of their aspects, such as LFO, inverted Envelope for the LP filter, Arpeggio settings, Unisono mode – they all are
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Back in 2020, during the COVID pandemic, I’ve completed one of the longest of my projects – an LP ‘Equinox: The Rite of Spring’. It tells about a catabasis-type journey through the night of Spring Equinox, i.e. March 20. A journey that followed a catastrophe. It started out in 2011 with a very grim two-part
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I see now, how practical was the claim by Enya‘s producer Nicky Ryan that they will never get rid of Roland Juno 60. Dug deep into TAL’s emulator (U-No-LX) and can’t stop tinkering with it. Despite its deceptively simple architecture, the synth is a sonic powerhouse with totally enormous capabilities. Surely it has some upgrades,
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Have my hands full with rehearsals and gigs – we’ve got some kind of a residentship with a local venue, which is an Irish Pub. The only problem for me is that it’s located on the other end of the city from our appartment, heh. On the other hand, walking just under 3 miles one
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The weekend is going to be busy: Quite unfortunately I’ve been hit with nasty flu, so I’ll have to perform wearing a medical mask this time. Not an enjoyable experience. Elsewhere, it is utterly enjoyable to see how many people come to download Luminophore pack. And it looks like it’s not only about being free
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Recently looked into my – quite multiple – bandcamp accounts and discovered that the very first album by my first band had been released around this time back in 2007. 18 years ago. I was 18 years old myself when this project – Lacklustre Mirror – started out. Had zero comprehension how things are done
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Music by Lacklustre Mirror (my old band). Lyrics by Alexandr Blok. Translated to English: How often do we all, me and you,Bemoan our life’s misery!Oh, if only you, my friends, could knowThe chill and darkness of the coming days! Now, you cuddle your dear’s hand,Play with it joyfully,Then cry, once you notice lies,Or discover this
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…If/when you do right, every gig is a celebration. At least it should look like the one for the audience. It’s nice if it feels like the one for the performers – a better rapport with the audience is invoked then…
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It was a year of hardships for me. Don’t expect them to go away next year either, but somehow under pressure I’ve yielded more than, probably, ever: Written in memory of my friend Manticore, who suddenly passed away in late October last year. I knew him for 20 years… A sort of chronicle of the
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For some of my projects I used (somewhat maligned, occasionally) Z3Ta+ 2 synth by Cakewalk. The migration is always painful, but with this thing it is a whole new dimension of torture and misery. :-) Thing is, activating it is a very non-straightforward process, and having proper CD keys for Steam-based version in my case
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In May 2006, i.e. just under 19 years ago, I self-released the second LP with my project Decembered. It was called ‘A Treatise on Eschatology’. I was pretty much into Gnosticism back then, and basically that’s what the album was all about. Re-listened to it recently. Although those weren’t the brightest days of mine, the
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…Those are totally great about gigging: first is seeing people burst into dance to a classic rock music – I didn’t expect the old rock-n-roll is still that popular. Second – a blissful hush afterwards. A relative one, of course, – in the streets even past midnight there are still cars, some people and the
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A photograph surfaced at Facebook, dating 12 years back. 2012 wasn’t easy for me. Two creative endeavours I’ve invested a lot of efforts in crashed, I’ve lost an ability to sing and compose music for many months, and it had become totally evident that I wasn’t going to become a professional actor. Even though later
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Just read somewhat a troubling news that My Dying Bride seems to have parted ways with their vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe. Or, rather, they are coming out of their hiatus (which saw them cancelling all the shows in 2024) next year and doing at least one festival with Swallow The Sun‘s frontman Mikko Kotamäki. It is,
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Joined a cover band as a keyboardist. The Beatles, Joe Cocker, Pink Floyd, Stray Cats, etc. I guess 20 years ago I’d object doing something like this out of pride – and illusions. Now it’s just another job to sustain myself in emigration. And by all means, the good and honest one.
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Will improvise some dark ambient with my #blacksidedsun project later tonight. If I get lucky, I’ll be able to record some stuff too. Not sure yet, though.
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