Zentrum

Blah Blah:

I have been in a super fucking bad mood lately and I dunno why... Irritable, burnt out, lost in weird sad memories, and tired all the time. It fucking sucks and I hope I snap out of it soon.

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Playlist:

Mork Gryning

Valborg

Sloth Hammer

Agressor

The Cult

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Band Stuff:

- Feeling sorta "stuck" and like the amount of music theory I know is insufficient to get me to where I wanna go musically. Really need to find the time, energy, and patience to learn some more.

- Been really trying to hone in on themes and a key influences and I think the vision is slowly coming into focus... 

- Industrial doom/ dirge ala early Swans/ and the heaviest parts of Godflesh. I think this is the foundation that we laid down with our first demo.

- Primitive black metal, especially Bathory, Valborg, Profanatica, and Demoncy. Mid-paced and ugly, simple, pounding, evil.

- Scrap metal/ tribal drumming ala Test Dept, Einsturzende Neubauten, Leech Woman, maybe even Dissecting Table.

- Creepy washes of noise, drone, and dark ambient... Generally whatever sounds cool... Probably don't need to explain this one too deeply.

- Processed field recordings of storms, fire, the ocean, rain, and lava would be cool to really dig into and see what we can make in terms of noise instruments that get used on more than one song. Sounds that reflect the idea of a planet in its death throes.

-Keep the fucking songs short! Or at least keep things moving. 3 minute songs don't have time to get stale.

- At the end of the day all of these ideas are just idea... Less of an exact roadmap and more ingredients we can cook with and put together in a zillion different ways. Don't get too overwhelmed or hung up on particular details just listen and see what strikes you as cool.

- Creative use of cymbals... I'm bad at this... Feel like I could do a lot more but don't really know where to start.

Biochemterrorism

Blah Blah:

Just did a million pounds of laundry in 97 degree heat... It was unbelievably fucking brutal, but it's supposed to be even hotter the whole rest of the weekend so I guess it kind of had to be today.

Oh well, at least it's done now.

In happier news, the new Capcom Arcade thing finally came out so we can hang out and play Saturday Night Slam Masters tonight. Pretty stoked for that.

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Playlist:

LLNN

Reencarnacion

Morbid

Nekrasov

Dhampyr

Goatpenis

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Band Stuff:

- How to work dark ambient and noise into metal oriented music?

- How to make things sound really cavernous and huge?

- Some homework is fine, but remember to just chill out and listen too.

Long On The Low Road

Blah Blah:

A long time ago I promised myself that if there was ever anything in my life instead of just nothing I would grab hold of it and never, ever let go.

That's why I keep trying even when I'm stressed out and music feels really unrewarding: I remember what "nothing" felt like.

That feeling of working shit jobs, living in a place I hated, family of religious weirdos I couldn’t even talk to without getting screeched at, wanting the be in a band with no hope of ever being in one. It was fucked. I never want to go back to that.

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Playlist:

Profanatica 

Diabolical Masquerade

Drug Honkey

Hellhammer

Siege

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Band Stuff:

It might be slightly tedious to set up but I think it could be cool to sample a bunch of our favorite drum sounds onto the 404 just for the sake of having them all accessible on one device.

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Halo Stars

Blah Blah:

Still no big thunderstorm, but it did rain a little last night. Gonna be hot as hell today so maybe we’ll luck out and get that storm this evening.

In other news, I had a cool dream that we went back in time and saw Amebix play in an abandoned house.

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Playlist:

My Dying Bride

Sadness

Fates Warning

Valborg

Canaan

Negura Bunget

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Band Stuff:

More ideas for lyrical themes:

- Fatalism. Feeling like a useless person in a dying world. The feeling of it being too late to avert disaster. The cataclysm is already in progress.

- Ideas of leaving the Earth and departing into the unknown... Certain death vs. a lifetime of terrifying uncertainty out among the stars. Sabbath "Into the Void"/ Ison "Andromeda Skyline"/ Voivod "Lost Machine"

- A human brain/ soul transplanted into an indestructible mobile weapons platform dubbed "The Crawler" doomed to eternally wander the aftermath of a world ending war.

Songwriting stuff:

- When we're looking to branch out into faster mid paced sections Bathory is still the main one I'd look at, especially the "Under the Sign of the Black Mark" album, but it also occurred to me to also look at Valborg and Amebix, especially Amebix's "Arise" album.

- Maybe even some krautrock too since a weird sort of trance-out is kind of the vibe we're shooting for.

The Slayerking

This was a neat find, sorta Peaceville meets early Cathedral style doom from the former singer of that 90's Greek band Nightfall. Was totally unfamiliar with this stuff, but I always liked Nightfall, especially the first three or four albums.

Throwing this up here so I don't forget the band name.

Heart Of The Ages

Blah Blah:

Well, we didn't get the massive thunderstorm I was predicting last night, but we did get a quick downpour and some flashes of distant lightning. Guess that's why my back was so pissed off all goddamn day yesterday.

Side note: "Distant Lightning" would be kind of a cool song title.

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Playlist:

In The Woods

Dies Irae

Candlemass

Encoffination

Paradise Lost

Carpathian Full Moon

Ras Algethi

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Band Stuff:

We took a few minutes and dug into the new sampler last night, got sampling and chopping pretty much figured out. The 404 seems like a really cool device already and it will only get cooler as we add our own gross sounds.

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I think we're getting pretty close to releasing our first demo with Rot Coven. It'll definitely be on the primitive side, but you gotta start somewhere.

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It will take some time but it would be cool to see our stuff slowly evolve to a point where it sounds like early Godflesh and Encoffination meets Chu Ishikawa/ Einsturzende Neubauten scrap metal drumming, and just enough 90's death doom/ black metal melody thrown in the mix to make things sorrowful and hypnotic... Like looking down from the mountains on a sprawling ruined city.

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Spinecrusher (aka: I’ve got A Weatherman’s Everything)

Blah Blah:

So, I was starting to get bummed with myself for not listening to everything on these lists every day and/or not having the time to listen to the full albums when I do, but then I remembered that this is really just trying to get away from constantly listening to my headphones on shuffle and literally any listening “with purpose” I do is better than nothing.

Life is busy, I’m doing what I can. Plus it’s not like this is a fucking contest anyway.

In other news, I woke up in the middle of the night to a brutal fucking back spasm… Willing to bet there’s gonna be a thunderstorm today.

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Playlist:

Rotting Christ

Bathory

Mortuary Drape

The Nephilim 

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Band Stuff:

Really want to dig in on Bathory and early Rotting Christ for our faster stuff. Granted, our stuff will be weirder and sludgier, but I like their skuzzy mid tempo blasting… and the fact they both used drum machines at various points in their career.

Lysergic Death March

Blah Blah:

Day two of trying to buck the brain-scramble and "listen with a purpose" rather than letting the music I've loved for so many years fade off into the "iPod on shuffle" background roar of passive existence.

Still fucking bummed about the news that my friend passed away, but I guess it is what it is.

On a happier note, we took long walk out to the music store and picked up the SP-404 mkII we ordered a while back so I guess I'll have learning that to distract myself with.

I keep wishing it would rain, like full-on downpour/ thunderstorm rain, and it keeps teasing that it's gonna, but so far: no such luck... Thought for sure it was gonna soak the fuck out of us while we were walking home with the sampler in my backpack because that would have been the one time that rain would have been sort of inconvenient, but it only threw down a couple of drops.

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Playlist:

Exhausted Prayer

Thorns of the Carrion

Javelina

Battlefields

Rotting Christ

Tristitia

A Visitation

Pedestrian Deposit

Strid

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Band Stuff:

Possible song titles: "Dead Bloom" "Digital Ghost" and "Swamp Machines."

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My Mind Palace Is A Crackhouse.

Blah Blah:

Ok, I have brutal fucking ADHD and I've developed this stupid habit of waking up in the morning, thinking of a bunch of shit I want to listen over my first cup of coffee, then forgetting what the hell it was as soon as I'm up and moving. Gonna start writing it down so I don't forget, then really making the effort to "listen with a purpose" rather than just passively leaving my iPod on shuffle all day every day.

Might also make some random notes and jot down ideas for our bands throughout each day to hopefully keep things in my brain longer than 30 seconds at a time.

Playlist:

Bestial Warlust

Celestial Season

Astarte

Septic Flesh

Encoffination

Misanthrope

Trepalium

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Notes:

- Finally got a normal amount of sleep last night.... Only pulled down 3 hours Tuesday so I was a fucking mess yesterday. Feeling a little less "surreal" today.

- Prices on Discogs are officially out of control... I keep seeing shit that is still in print going for $30 - $60 before shipping. What the fuck is going on there?

-Pretty sure one of my few friends passed away... He was dealing with some real scary health stuff last time we spoke, and it hit me a while back I hadn't heard from him in a few months.

Emailed him a couple times to check in and see if he was feeling any better and got no reply which is out of character for him. 

Edit: Found an obituary. Fuck.

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Band stuff we were talking about before bed last night:

- Using the new sampler for mangling environmental sounds into weird grey washes of noise. Train tracks, rain, highway overpass traffic, etc. etc.

- I see the first demo for the new band being pretty stark and brutal, like Godflesh + Encoffination + hints of power electronics. Then, slowly, probably over the course of several years, incorporating touches of melody (psychedelic + goth + Funeral Doom + early 90's Greek black metal + Peaceville deathdoom), more varied tempos, less distorted drums, bits of clean guitar, and generally making things slightly more dynamic without losing the wasteland creep factor.

- Lyrics set in an empty city, people dead or disappeared overnight. Lovecraft, Ligotti, etc. Not exactly doing full concept albums but I feel like it's an idea we could come back to for multiple tunes.

- Vastarien, City of Dreadful Night.

-Gloom, Dread, Isolation, Emptiness.

- Supernatural Disasters. Hostile Architecture. Environment being so fucked up that eventually reality itself starts to fall apart.

- Contagious Insanity/ Thoughtplague.

- I eventually wanna circle back around and do a couple more Inverted Tower tracks the 404 should be useful for that as well.

- Digital Ghost.

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