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Mr Atomy's Blues Hypothesis

 
 
Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER
02:26 / 23.10.06
With no further ado, I present my new, full-length album:

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TRACK LIST (and single mp3 downloads):
1:Briefcase (Part 1)
2:Glamatomy
3:I Lost My First Love To the Night
4:Caerulean Thoughts
5:I See Blue Skies
6:The Morning After The End of the War
7:Quest for the Snow White Crow (Part I)
8:Dream (My Radio Tells Me To Obey)
9:Ejection
10:Over the Sea/The Scientist Doesn't Care
11:Horizon
12:Cars and reversE geaR
13:We'll All Go Together When We Go (Bonus Track)
14:Ulterior Motive
15:You've Lost that Lovin' Spirit of the Age
16:Quest for the Snow White Crow (Part II)
17:Briefcase (Part 2)

Click here to download the entire album as a single .rar file from sendspace

NOTES
This is a glam-prog concept album about nuclear weapons. It wouldn't have existed without Martin Amis's fantastic and disturbing Einstein's Monsters" -especially the introduction, the upshot of which is that the existence of the atom bomb permanently warps human
thought and morality. Mr Atomy himself is a kind of nuclear deity, as anthropomorphised by a small child, and probably would have been my imaginary friend as a child if I'd had one. Tracks 9 and 13 are covers (respectively, of Robert Calvert and Tom Lehrer), and track 15 contains material by Robert Calvert and the Righteous Brothers. Otherwise, all tracks are written, performed and copyright Withiel 2006.

Distribution notice
THIS MUSIC IS FREE. Give it to your friends, family, dog (don't do this. I hate dogs, and have done ever since one gave me a bad review), whatever. If you like, include a link back to The Rhexis. However, all this material was produced by my dubious self over a long period of time, so please credit my hard work.
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I've stuck this up firstly because I've made it and am proud of it and want people to hear it, and secondly because I'm frankly not well at the moment, and one of the ways I'm keeping on the tracks is by making stuff and engaging with people.
This one's a bit better-produced and frankly, better-played than Goblin Logic, and also a bit less angry-young-man and a bit more emotionally honest. It owes a lot to Trent Reznor, Robert Calvert, and David Bowie, but I think this is a recommendation rather than a deficit.
Basically, I'm sticking this here because I enjoyed the fuck out of recording, singing, howling, hitting my guitar like a misbehaving child, and otherwise creating it, and I hope you lot enjoy listening to it.
 
 
Chiropteran
02:50 / 23.10.06
You just made my week, Withiel.

Downloading now.
 
 
Chiropteran
12:38 / 23.10.06
In brief: expectations exceeded.
 
 
Feverfew
17:41 / 23.10.06
Thank you! I'm downloading it now.
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
16:55 / 24.10.06
I really enjoyed it, Withiel -- "Ulterior Motive" was a standout track, as was "We'll All Go Together When We Go" and "Caerulean Thoughts" It's standing up to multiple listens and little new bits keep jumping out of odd corners. Hooray!

If you're open to some highly subjective constructive criticism -- I liked all of the production except the voice effects, which continually gave me the distinct impression that you were hiding behind them. Everything else made a lot of aural sense, but some tracks (Briefcase 1 and 2, for instance) seemed like they would have been a lot more effective if there'd been a "raw" voice over the production going balls-out instead of letting the processing shoulder some of the vocal load.

Am I totally off-base here? Again, I liked it as a whole -- really -- but I often react this way to heavy vocal processing and can't figure out if it's a mark of deliberate intent or if it's being used because the singer isn't 100% confident.
 
 
Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER
11:28 / 25.10.06
Firstly, incredibly glad and relieved that people are enjoying this one - most of the time I was making it I was either cackling self-indulgently and muttering things like "Yes! The Righteous Brothers vs Robert Calvert in SPACE! I will make listeners EXPLODE AND CRY!" or panicking that I was, in fact, effectively wanking into the speakers...

Matt - you're dead on on both counts: certainly in a couple of songs on this album (and more on the last one), I have been guilty of hiding behind as many flangers and reverb effects as I can get my paws on - a lot of the time I'm either uncomfortable with the way my voice is sounding, or want to get a vocal effect that I can't entirely achieve on my own. However, in Briefcase 1 and 2, the vocal effects (such as they are - they do come in and out quite a bit) are entirely deliberate, as much as any of my stuff is - I'm trying to make the vocal line a bit otherworldly, I suppose. (Of course, some of what you're hearing is my slight obsession with adding as many extra harmonies to every track as possible) However, it is, of course, a crutch, and in my current stuff (such as this) I'm going for a far more naturalistic, balls-out style. Hopefully.

(If it's not clear from my first post, any criticism is warmly welcomed.)
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
13:41 / 25.10.06
Ooh, I'm liking it a lot so far. As well as the Calvert & Bowie comparisons, I'd chuck the Legendary Pink Dots in there too, which really can't be a bad thing at all.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:10 / 25.10.06
Ooh, and you got my favourite Hawkwind song in there too!
 
 
petunia
19:53 / 26.10.06
Fun. Much fun.

I'm reminded in parts of the Bonzos. This makes me happy.

What is the repeated lyric towards the end of 'I lost my first love to the night?'. I'm assuming it isn't 'I lost my soul to a sodomist'...

Fun.
 
 
Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER
22:43 / 26.10.06
"I lost my heart to that sudden bliss" (although I almost prefer yours now...)
 
 
Loud Detective
20:28 / 29.10.06
What an awesome album! I am digging this as much or more so than Goblin Logic. Far out in all the best ways.
 
  
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