In this post, I will focus on the three new Iphone-recorded releases, each of which promises to take you on a unique mind-altering sonic journey. After recording the 24-Hour Psychosis, which took nearly 2 years to complete, I took a long hiatus in order to pursue a masters in science degree. I spent a great deal of this time travelling back and forth from Philadelphia, PA to the Pine Barrens of NJ and immersed my egg-fried brain in endless hours of experimental and ambient recordings while studying human anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, clinical medicine, pathology, human behavior, and a host of other often painful clinical science courses. The music I discovered holed up in my anthole-sized Philly apartment as well as on my endless drives to the nether regions of Jersey, which ranged from dark ambient artists such as Lustmord and Robert Rich to so-called glitch artists like Loscil and Kim Cascone to minimalist artists including William Basinski and Julien Neto, inspired my swollen brain musically in ways it had previously never imagined. Images of cadavers, microscopic bugs, blood, guts, and vomit began to meld with a soundtrack of synthesizers, bleeps, blips, beats, distortion, white noise, screams, and lulls. I knew it was a matter of time before I would have to record again. However, I vowed that I would not record another note after the 24-Hour Psychosis until I had access to a new digital format, as I felt I had exhausted the possibilities of analog recording after years of manipulating tape in nearly every conceivable way. When I finally traded in my outmoded Crackberry for an Iphone 4S, I had no idea how powerful this little 4" by 3" or so window into God-knows-where could actually be. I soon found out and the results were astounding. You can read all about my infatuation with this new technology in previous posts archived within this blog.
As for the three aforementioned Iphone-created albums, I will give a brief overview of each. The first of the three, ELEMENTS, was recorded during January and February of 2013 at the Log Cabin, my creative hideaway, located in southern New Jersey. Much of the album was recorded during late winter nights over multiple glasses of red wine in my candle-lit living room, frankincense burning constantly. This is by far the most melodic Bedtime for Robots album I have ever recorded. A close friend of mine stated that it reminded him of a late-night underground New York City loft album, a grand departure from my usual darkened, ambient-noise driven madness. VISCOUS, the second of the trilogy, is an excursion into sci-fi nightmare dreamscapes. I absolutely fell in love with a touch-screen synthesizer called Eden which is included in the Nanostudio app. This is an incredibly versatile synth that can be manipulated in endless configurations. The majority of VISCOUS was created with Eden and the Nanostudio app for Iphone. The third and final installment of the trilogy is a sweet little dream-inducing sleep soundtrack aptly titled LULL. After recording THE SLEEP MACHINE during the 24-Hour Psychosis sessions, I created a monster of sorts (the sort that hides in your closet or beneath your bed). LULL is the epitome of the original intent behind the name Bedtime for Robots, a soundtrack to soothe sleepy machines into psychedelic dream states.
The artwork for all three albums was also created on the Iphone with a combination of several photo apps. My girlfriend, Jennifer Lubinski, and I created the images in our backyard, outside our front door, in the darkness of the Log Cabin, and in dive bars of southern New Jersey, where we do our best collaborative work over house wines, bar fare, and mostly forgotten 70s tracks pumping out of digital jukeboxes.
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