JH Sounds

Happy birthday!

Dat birthday!

I've been drawing this webcomic for a while, and I never had a place to post about it on OCR before. It's about Matt, a man who is unable to function in society and frequents a therapist. My current story arc is about Matt obsessively watching the new Starship Hope movie (the CRACKTON-universe equivalent of Star Trek Into Darkness). The webcomic is hosted via tumblr, so you can subscribe to it that way if you want, and provide feedback as the story arc goes on. Thanks. http://comic.jhsounds.com/

Happy birthday!

I like how they acknowledge it though. Not only in liner notes, but in things like this:

I can possibly get something in for this, provided the planets align properly.

I think context has a lot to do with it, as well as the crediting mentioned above. I recently did an experiment by making video representations of the sampled material I've used in my songs. Overall the reaction seems quite different when people know exactly where the sounds came from, and it makes for a very self-conscious listening experience. By contrast, listening to the music without any preconception mostly feels like the listener is hearing any type of music, sampled or not. I personally prefer to be upfront on the sampling I do, to the point where all my sample-based songs are spun off into my alias "Duosis". When I make something more "composed" I use my usual artist name.

Probably this one for me. This was the turning point, when I started to give my compositions actual song structures.

Happy birthday!

Birthdays!!

Late Night Tales: Röyksopp

I have to say, I was a bit blindsided by the Matrixness of the film. At one point I even expected Perry White to blurt out "He fights for us." The fact that Man of Steel spends a bit more time rounding out the character motivations is where that similarity ends though. I assumed the whole retelling of the Krypton/Smallville mythos would bog down the film, but I think they did a decent job of using those moments to flesh out the characters (Kal-El in particular) to make their plights relatable. These are aliens who have powers beyond a normal human being's comprehension, and yet I managed to care about them a little bit. I think that's an accomplishment. Having both the internal and external conflicts be about alienation also works decently, I think. Snyder, Goyer and Nolan work pretty well together IMO; an example that comes to mind was that one brief shot showing Zod's crew salvaging an engine part or somesuch thing -- it's a striking visual image of Kryptonians in Superman-like suits physically pushing a piece of machinery, accompanied by swift narration. It lasts like half a second, but it's very efficient and memorable exposition that's emblematic of a good storytelling team. So, what did you think of the film?

My name is JH, and I make sounds.

Awesome. I've been following these B-K orchestrations for a while now, and I'm glad the album is out. Also I'm a fan of your , haha.

Ironically this is brought up by Scotty in Into Darkness. The recurring theme for the Trek movies seems to be "have a certain set of ideals until the bad guys show up, then forget all that for two hours". Just when the conflict resolves and everyone gets on to the real, intended mission, the film ends. This isn't an issue exclusive to the reboot films either.

Well, I brought up The Outsider as a classic example of how heavy use of collaborators can severely fragmentate an album. After listening a few more times, I feel this was not the case with RAM. In The Outsider it just seems like the guests came to DJ Shadow with their ideas, and he basically produced those ideas into songs. In RAM it's clear that Daft Punk had rough drafts in place, and that they invited the collaborators to augment those ideas. To me, that's the key difference between a collab-heavy record that feels consistent, and one that's a mess. Oh, and I'm not hating on DJ Shadow or anything, heheh. Wreckage by Overseer is another example of the fragmentation I'm talking about.

I had this thought elsewhere, but I might as well drop it in here: Some people have brought up the Alice Eve underwear shot, saying that the film is sexist because of it or that it was in bad taste. I don't mind the shot itself, it's just the way it was implemented that made no sense. It would have been way cooler and sensible if it had been at Starfleet Academy, maybe with Kirk passing by a futuristic tennis match on campus and seeing Carol in revealing sportswear. Just as he turns to get a look, Spock would interrupt and remind him to visit Pike. That would have been both titillating AND intriguing to the plot, IMO.

So I saw it yesterday and I enjoyed it. I can't help but feel that they kinda shot themselves in the foot with the previous movie as far as scale goes. The stakes are probably never going to be that high again, although an all-out war with the Klingons could be interesting. Star Trek Into Darkness is weirdly talky in spots, but I guess that's just the timeline trying to mend itself. Also in this new alternate reality, the warp core is the primary power source for the ship? Okay then. It's funny how I was still startled by the reveal of the villain's identity even though I already knew at that point. There's just something about the way he says it that got to me. Now I'm just waiting for the eventual tie-in comic explaining that he got cosmetic surgery to conceal his identity, heheh. Oh, and was I the only one who expected Kirk to say "oh my..." as the life left his eyes? I guess they didn't want to remind people of that death scene. So, what did you think of it? EDIT: Apparently they still have impulse engines. When the warp core wonks out on the way to Kronos, Sulu says it'll take longer to get to the Neutral Zone, so there must be some secondary propulsion. Abadoss' explanation about the ship being too damaged later on makes sense.

That would make sense, since the guy from Chic is on it, lol. So yeah, there seems to be a group of people who think this album is Daft Punk's best work, and others who think it's so wildly inconsistent that it can barely be considered an album (kinda like DJ Shadow's The Outsider). I've heard the album in full maybe seven times now, and I still haven't quite processed the album in my head.

I forgot most of what I thought about this film. It was cool though. Also the appearance of Yinsen in the flashback was a pretty neat mini-red herring.

Yup. iTunes Preview Stream is now available.

I can't believe we're so close.

By popular request, here's my album in full, set to the film The Wizard of Oz. http://youtu.be/A_LyLgnYkaw

"Old Souls" from Phantom of the Paradise.

The real thing (radio edit) for people who like buying stuff. Also on iTunes, Zune etc.