Ohfield
Here's another song in the dub-techno style I've been doing recently. This one is comprised of field recordings of my wife in the kitchen preparing our weekly meals. I captured the sounds with a pair of Sound Professional binaural mic's and a Sony portable DAT. Through heavy processing using Max/Msp, Sound Hack, and external outboard distortion and tube pre-amps, I was able to transform these mundane every day sounds into basses, synth-like pads, percussion, and textural background layers. All the main parts were sequenced in Mooquencer and arranged in Logic.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Where did the year go?
It was an extremely busy year for me as my company had its best year ever, completing over 225 mastering jobs for AudibleOddities. I did't really do much else but work, and focus on my career. I spent almost no time on the bike, and it shows. I don't really have much in the way of regrets. I did this year what I've done every other year, stay intensely focused by remaining passionate about what I do. So while I wasn't out on the bike training for the next race, I was researching and studying new ways to improve what I can accomplish at work, as a mastering engineer. The holiday dust has settled, and I'm looking forward to another frenetic year of work. Why? Because quite possibly, I have the best job in the world, and I love it.
Favorite 10 Releases For 2009
2009 was a really great year for music, and there was something kind of special about it. Maybe it's the economic crisis forcing people to look to the artists to console them in their financial despair. Maybe it's all the free time unemployed people have to sit around and synthesize their struggle. I'm not sure. But I'm thankful for what feels like another Golden Era in music, and not just a specific genre, but all genres. Like many of you, I'm savvy with emergent technologies and the combination of resources like Last.fm, IRC, Vanilla Forums, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Pandora, private torrent sites, and a plethora of digital distributors helped me amass an impressive collection of new and exciting music. It's also worth mentioning that I'm eternally grateful to my various dear friends for exposing me to many of the releases that made it into this years top 10. I keep good company! So, without further ado, here's my top 10 list for 2009 (in no particular order). Enjoy!
1. Bon Iver - Blood Bank
2. Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms
3. VA - Dark Was The Night
4. Jacaszek - Pentral
5. Kreng - L'Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu
6. Volcano Choir - Unmap
7. Fink - Sort of Revolution
8. Jasper TX - Singing Stones
9. Proswell - Konami (2009 Remaster)
10. Eskmo - Hypercolor
Bonus Album! - Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Release: Twerk – The Formative Years (1997-1998)
Three tracks taken from a folder of hundreds of unreleased techno I made back in the late 90's. It was before I used computers for music, and back when my studio was an elaborate MIDI and CV network of drum machines, synthesizers, and hardware fx. Everything was mixed live on a Mackie 1604 and recorded to DAT using a Tascam DA-20 MKII.
Download
Video: From Brown to Green
From Brown to Green from shawn hatfield on Vimeo.
Music by Shawn Hatfield, Video by Scott Pagano
Taken from the album Living Vicariously Through Burnt Bread, Mille Plateaux.
Cycling: Track 2009
The 2009 race season didn't quite turn out the way I expected. I put in some good work this winter though I've forgone the specific sprint-training with goals refocused on endurance and the omnium and I came into the beginning of the season with good enough form to take some early results. With the longer miles and hill climbing back in the training-mix, I was finally able to contest the points race which has always been my worst event, and despite not having trained for sprints, the years of cumulative training have kept my sprint powerful, as proven by beating Dave McCook (National Crit Champ) and Brian Peterson (Multi-National Champ on the track) in the match-sprints to go on to 2nd place overall in the elite-men's sprint tournament during Hellyer's Friday Night Racing. But as wedding planning kicked into high-gear, less and less time was being spent on the bike and more and more time looking at Etsy. We were racing every week but the form just wasn't improving. It seemed like it was getting worse, but I realize now that everyone else was getting better and I was just maintaining. Week after week the results went downhill and I began losing motivation and confidence. I finally decided to pack the season and be realistic about my goals and responsibilities. I'm convinced it takes super-human powers to both plan a wedding, and race competitively. I know a few super heroes, but I'm just not one of them. I can live with that. As it stands now, I'm just happy to get out on the bike when I can and try to keep some base fitness for perhaps another year of racing in 2010.
Some photos of my fiancée and I this spring.
DJ Mix: Step Up, Circa 1995
I was recently digging through some old DAT tapes, trying to clean up the closets, when I came across an old mix-tape, well.. part of one. Seems the recording is destroyed in sections and I've had to piece a few parts of it back together digitally to keep the corrupted bits out. It was from around 1995, putting this mix at nearly 14 years old. Damn, where does the time go? I figured it would be fun to post since a lot of it was very influential music to me in the early to mid 90's and much of it is from producers that inspired me to start making music for myself. I don't have a track-listing or artwork though Mike Stern of Proper Gander designed the original J-Card that came with the retail product. If anyone has a copy of the art, lemme know. And I suppose I could dig through the vinyls to make the track-list, but perhaps you can help me out with some track id's in the comments section. I'll give you a lead on the first one–it starts off with Neil Landstrumm.
Download: Step Up!
Interview: Multilink Magazine
Click here to read an interview I did for Multilink Magazine.
Sometimes a path meanders for so long, it intersects the beginning.
I've been a huge fan of dub-techno for more than a decade, yet somehow completely avoided (unintentionally) the creative boat that took many of my musical colleagues on a sonic rastafari. I've just recently decided to explore that trodden path for myself, fully aware that the ground-breaking had done been broke, and my only goal now was to pay tribute to a sound that has inspired me for a long long time. In the coming months I will be producing a series of tracks in this genre for DJ's to hopefully work into their sets. Here's a first offering of where things are headed in my studio for a bit.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.