Showing posts with label cover series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cover series. Show all posts
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)
Joy Division cover, live in studio.
DSI Tempest
Moog Little Phatty
Korg Volca Keys
MS20 Mini
Gforce Virtual String Machine
DSI Tempest
Moog Little Phatty
Korg Volca Keys
MS20 Mini
Gforce Virtual String Machine
Monday, October 15, 2012
Cover du Jour : "Creators of Rain"
One of my favorite late 60's pop songs, most famously covered by Claudine Longet.
Gforce M-Tron Pro w/Chamberlin for most of the sounds.
Gforce M-Tron Pro w/Chamberlin for most of the sounds.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Cover du Jour : "Man with the Gun"
A favorite song of mine from my favorite singer.
Gforce M-Tron Pro for the strings.
"I'm out of my senses
I'll only smile
The night I meet the man with the gun
Not that I'd be defenceless
But I don't think I'll fight
The night I meet the man with the gun
Maybe I'll say what kept you?
I knew you would come
I somehow didn't expect to
Be spared for so long
Was it a whim of fortune
Or was I hard to find
What's the routine of a man with a gun
Was it a kind of torture
Have you been out of town
What is like to a man with a gun
Maybe I'm glad to see you
It's hard to believe
But standing here beside you
Is such a relief
This is gonna hurt me
I do know why you've come
But I got this feeling
That it's already been done"
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Cover du Jour : Split Yourself Lilith (Liger)
This one has been laying low for too long.
I've recorded it for a Bitkins project that never came to fruition, where each musician would cover another one's song (Adcbicycle did an outstanding version of my "Way to Dusty Death").
So anyway, this is a great great song by Liger.
"Hello ghost, can i try to impress you?
Like with crushing my dull face on the pavement.
Split yourself Lilith,
like i drove a wedge between us
Oh ghost, i have betrayed you,
curb-stomped your infinite faith.
Stiched to the pillow in someone else's place,
baited with rags soaked in their saliva.
This is not a battle, it's a fucking massacre.
I am probably turning into something disgusting.
Oh ghost, oh how i failed you. It's like killing.
I could not impress you. I can not save you!"
Like with crushing my dull face on the pavement.
Split yourself Lilith,
like i drove a wedge between us
Oh ghost, i have betrayed you,
curb-stomped your infinite faith.
Stiched to the pillow in someone else's place,
baited with rags soaked in their saliva.
This is not a battle, it's a fucking massacre.
I am probably turning into something disgusting.
Oh ghost, oh how i failed you. It's like killing.
I could not impress you. I can not save you!"
Monday, May 21, 2012
Cover du Jour : Song to the Siren
My favorite Buckley song, with "Phantasmagoria in Two".
I used Gforce VSM and M-Tron Pro Chambertron on this.
I used Gforce VSM and M-Tron Pro Chambertron on this.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Bowie du Jour : Funhouse
From my archives, at last finished, a rather obscure song from Bowie.
Prophet 08 and Moog, and Abbey Road 80's Drums.
"Back into the funhouse
Music is sublime
See the lady spinning
She'll show me
We all lie in the funhouse
No one is your friend
No one loves a loser
We love you
We all lie in the funhouse
Girls wag their pain
No one sleeps in the funhouse
They'll show you
Really good time
Back into the funhouse
My dream dogs have arrived
My summer turns to fall
And I'll miss you"
Prophet 08 and Moog, and Abbey Road 80's Drums.
"Back into the funhouse
Music is sublime
See the lady spinning
She'll show me
We all lie in the funhouse
No one is your friend
No one loves a loser
We love you
We all lie in the funhouse
Girls wag their pain
No one sleeps in the funhouse
They'll show you
Really good time
Back into the funhouse
My dream dogs have arrived
My summer turns to fall
And I'll miss you"
Monday, April 9, 2012
Cover du Jour : "Mercenaries" (John Cale)
"Mercenaries are useless, disunited, unfaithful. They have nothing more to keep them in a battle other than a meager wage, which is just about enough to make them wanna kill for you, but never enough to make them wanna die for you"
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Cover du Jour : Sometime World (Wishbone Ash)
A gem from a great 1972 folk-prog album by Wishbone Ash. The original has lenghty instrumental parts but I went for a stripped-down version. Piano and Mellotron courtesy of Gforce M-Tron Pro.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Cover du Jour : Captain Hook (John Cale)
Rework of a song I did for a compilation some years ago for the Bitkins label.
Original song by John Cale, "Sabotage" album.
This was the inspiration for my "Broken Sails" EP
Lots of Prophet 08 and Moog.
Original song by John Cale, "Sabotage" album.
This was the inspiration for my "Broken Sails" EP
Lots of Prophet 08 and Moog.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Bowie du Jour : I'm Deranged
This has been hanging around for some time.
Favorite song from the "Outside" album.
Favorite song from the "Outside" album.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Bowie du Jour : Tired of my Life
This has been hanging around my archives for some months now.
Often mentioned to be the very first song he wrote, but it's more likely been written circa 1968. Recorded in 1970. Reworked for the 1980 "Scary Monsters" album. Re-recorded in 2001 for the unreleased "Toy" album.
Piano and Gforce M-Tron Pro.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Cover du Jour : State Trooper
This is actually a remake of a Springsteen cover song done a couple of years ago.
Still lots of Moog and Gforce VSM, but I also added Roland JX3P pad and strings, new vocals and better mix.
Download MP3
State Trooper by khoral
Still lots of Moog and Gforce VSM, but I also added Roland JX3P pad and strings, new vocals and better mix.
Download MP3
State Trooper by khoral
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Free Download Ahoy
Lots of streaming here lately, so these are the MP3 downloads of the latest songs.
Hollow Man Kurtz
Full of Holes
How the West was Won and Where it Got Us
Sweetness Follows
Place to Be
Hollow Man Kurtz
Full of Holes
How the West was Won and Where it Got Us
Sweetness Follows
Place to Be
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Unplugged du Jour : Place to Be
Place to Be by khoral
“Pink Moon” is often regarded as Nick Drake’s best album. There’s a lot of truth to that, although we may be biased by the fact that it is the artist’s final work. There are, of course, polished gems like “Things behind the sun”, “Place to be”, “Parasite”, with sophisticated chord progressions and complex lyrics. But it’s arguable whether tracks like “Horn”, “Free Ride” or “Know” show Drake at his best, composition-wise. “Five Leaves Left”, in that regard, is more cohesive.
On the other hand, “Pink Moon” is Drake’s truly timeless album : a guitar and a voice, captured with intimate, detailed precision. “Five Leaves Left” and especially “Bryter Layter” sound dated in comparison, with their typical late-60’s English folk arrangements.
“Know”, “Pink Moon” and such embryonic songs can’t help but capture imagination. Their brevity alone is striking, like stark musical aphorisms. “Know” only features a primitive, hypnotic and, well, somewhat uninspired guitar riff, far-cry from the elaborate arrangements of his previous output. But then Drake wails : “Know that I love you - Know I don’t care - Know that I see you - Know I’m not there”. That’s all he has to say. I’m fine with that. This really set the tone of the album, which sounds less like flowery poetry and more like a factual observation of one’s state of distress.
“Parasite” is exemplary. “Take a look you may see me on the ground - For I am the parasite of this town”. That kind of statement may look commonplace after New Wave, Grunge and so on… But this is 1972, remember… such confessional lyrics are somewhat unusual to the era, and especially unusual for Drake, who would generally use a much more circumvoluted and abstract vocabulary. But now the man is down and he tells us so in no uncertain terms. That is what you do when you’re at the bottom and you don’t give a damn about what the world will think of that display of honesty.
The words even verge on nihilism: “Hearing the trials of the people there - Who’s to care if they lose”. The whole song is a cry of alienation, reflected elsewhere on the album by his plea for a shelter : “And I was green, greener than the hill - Where flowers grew and sun shone still - Now I’m darker than the deepest sea - Just hand me down, give me a place to be”. That is the portrait of the artist as a metaphysical outsider. When you don’t fit in, there is no place to be, as in “to exist”.
The choice of words is also remarkable. The pastoral imagery of the first couple of sentences brings us back to his early, “English-countryside-poetry” work, a nod to the delicate, civilized and peaceful wanderings of “Five Leaves Left”. The nostalgia here is striking since Drake is only alluding to three years in the past. He was green at the time, but 1972 is darker than the deepest sea. There’s only guitar on most of “Pink Moon”, giving the same sense of isolation and dread than Springsteen’s tenebrous “Nebraska” album.
There’s still something of that youthful style, and interestingly so, Drake has chosen to close the album with a fairly optimistic and serene “From the morning” that could easily feature on “Five Leaves Left”. Pure esthetical choice, heartfelt feeling of completion despite the bleakness at the work’s core? Who knows…
What we do seem to know is that, having completed the album, Drake just left the tapes at the record company’s desk, wrapped in an anonymous envelope. Only after several days did the company realize that the new Nick Drake album was here. Cioran once said that an obscure writer with no readers feels at his publishing house like an aging whore with no clients at the brothel.
These songs were recorded almost 40 years ago. The man and his suffering, which meant all the universe to him, all is lost. Every now and then I read something what would have happened if he hadn’t die so young, and speculations on the cause of his apparent suicide. Well, ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you live 20 years or 80 years. Life is a process of exhaustion. Or as Shestov put it, life, to sustain itself, must destroy itself. The small victories you held dear when you were a kid are null today. Whatever prize you think you’re winning by making it through 80, you’re taking it to the grave. Hence, regarding voluntary death, motive especially doesn’t matter. Suicide arises from the belief that life is a purposeless void, thus it makes no difference whether the trigger is personal catastrophe or a flat tire. Nick Drake died because he couldn’t live anymore, and I guess that’s it.
"I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon"
On the other hand, “Pink Moon” is Drake’s truly timeless album : a guitar and a voice, captured with intimate, detailed precision. “Five Leaves Left” and especially “Bryter Layter” sound dated in comparison, with their typical late-60’s English folk arrangements.
“Know”, “Pink Moon” and such embryonic songs can’t help but capture imagination. Their brevity alone is striking, like stark musical aphorisms. “Know” only features a primitive, hypnotic and, well, somewhat uninspired guitar riff, far-cry from the elaborate arrangements of his previous output. But then Drake wails : “Know that I love you - Know I don’t care - Know that I see you - Know I’m not there”. That’s all he has to say. I’m fine with that. This really set the tone of the album, which sounds less like flowery poetry and more like a factual observation of one’s state of distress.
“Parasite” is exemplary. “Take a look you may see me on the ground - For I am the parasite of this town”. That kind of statement may look commonplace after New Wave, Grunge and so on… But this is 1972, remember… such confessional lyrics are somewhat unusual to the era, and especially unusual for Drake, who would generally use a much more circumvoluted and abstract vocabulary. But now the man is down and he tells us so in no uncertain terms. That is what you do when you’re at the bottom and you don’t give a damn about what the world will think of that display of honesty.
The words even verge on nihilism: “Hearing the trials of the people there - Who’s to care if they lose”. The whole song is a cry of alienation, reflected elsewhere on the album by his plea for a shelter : “And I was green, greener than the hill - Where flowers grew and sun shone still - Now I’m darker than the deepest sea - Just hand me down, give me a place to be”. That is the portrait of the artist as a metaphysical outsider. When you don’t fit in, there is no place to be, as in “to exist”.
The choice of words is also remarkable. The pastoral imagery of the first couple of sentences brings us back to his early, “English-countryside-poetry” work, a nod to the delicate, civilized and peaceful wanderings of “Five Leaves Left”. The nostalgia here is striking since Drake is only alluding to three years in the past. He was green at the time, but 1972 is darker than the deepest sea. There’s only guitar on most of “Pink Moon”, giving the same sense of isolation and dread than Springsteen’s tenebrous “Nebraska” album.
There’s still something of that youthful style, and interestingly so, Drake has chosen to close the album with a fairly optimistic and serene “From the morning” that could easily feature on “Five Leaves Left”. Pure esthetical choice, heartfelt feeling of completion despite the bleakness at the work’s core? Who knows…
What we do seem to know is that, having completed the album, Drake just left the tapes at the record company’s desk, wrapped in an anonymous envelope. Only after several days did the company realize that the new Nick Drake album was here. Cioran once said that an obscure writer with no readers feels at his publishing house like an aging whore with no clients at the brothel.
These songs were recorded almost 40 years ago. The man and his suffering, which meant all the universe to him, all is lost. Every now and then I read something what would have happened if he hadn’t die so young, and speculations on the cause of his apparent suicide. Well, ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you live 20 years or 80 years. Life is a process of exhaustion. Or as Shestov put it, life, to sustain itself, must destroy itself. The small victories you held dear when you were a kid are null today. Whatever prize you think you’re winning by making it through 80, you’re taking it to the grave. Hence, regarding voluntary death, motive especially doesn’t matter. Suicide arises from the belief that life is a purposeless void, thus it makes no difference whether the trigger is personal catastrophe or a flat tire. Nick Drake died because he couldn’t live anymore, and I guess that’s it.
"I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon"
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Cover du Jour : Sweetness Follows
Another tune from an unfinished Cover Series EP, this time REM.
Pretty folkish, with a small dose of Moog and vintage drum machine.
Pretty folkish, with a small dose of Moog and vintage drum machine.
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