One of the first of these events I attended was at the Tennessee Theatre way back in 2011. My friend told me that the historical Tennessee Theatre would be open to wander around in and that they’d hired the organ player to come for a few hours one rare Friday night when the theatre didn’t have some sort of ticketed event going on.

I really enjoyed that evening. Usually the Tennessee Theatre is so packed or the ushers are intent on getting everyone seated that it’s hard to really see the whole place, but that evening we were able to peak into the orchestra pit and look behind the curtain on the stage and find the secret bathrooms and view the whole auditorium from the balcony, all while the organist played Christmas songs on The Mighty Wurlitzer.

Since then, I’ve gone out to a handful of First Friday events over the years, a few photography galleries at restaurants, a free entry, free-jazz night at The Bijou or two, a sculpture garden at the nature center. All have been wonderful.

The first day of November happened to be First Friday this time around and I was graciously invited by Andrew Swafford to come out to one of my favorite historical sites in Knoxville for an evening of visual and aural art, The Candoro Marble Building.

While any description of the event pales in comparison of being there to experience the collaboration between these two artists and the space they were given, I would like to attempt to describe the showcase to the best of my abilities through the audio recording of Swafford’s nearly hour-long performance, a few photos, and even fewer words.

The main focus of the collaboration was a stack of six various sized CRT televisions hooked up to oscilloscopes, which are graphical meters for displaying changes in voltages. As Swafford played, each tone created manifested on the different screens in it’s own way. Swafford’s music was ambient but not in a dissonant way, and had a lot of structure vs. the typical ambient soundscape. Drums and delay-heavy guitar parts dotted the performance that was mostly calm but swelled to incredible highs during many of the movements.

Roden’s installation of televisions was flanked by two of his huge murals made from hardware store materials depicting familiar, nostalgic references to the universal activities of the near past and a stark corner featuring one widescreen CRT with an N64 running Mario Kart practically begging the folks roaming around to lock in for a round or two. Oh and a lamp.

In the recording, you’ll hear Swafford list video game music as one of his many inspirations (and even a cover from a video game soundtrack), and I found that to ring true. The 90s ambient Playstation VGM era is a place Swaffords music could live very comfortably in, though his music is very uniquely his own.

No movement makes that more apparent than the final track, starting at 51:00. A very pretty piece written just for the Historical Candoro Marble Building. A blend of sounds made specifically to echo off the marble walls of a century old building just right. And it sounded nothing short of amazing.

As for my part, during Swafford’s performance I, of course, wanted to represent this collaboration the best way I could, so after taking in the experience I decided I would create some double exposures featuring the performance photos of Swafford overlayed with the visual representation of their music created by Roden’s live sculpture. I used the ambient light and the glow from the televisions to create some shutter drag photos as well.

I want to say thank you again to Andrew Swafford for inviting me out to this special night. Please check out their Bandcamp if you liked the recording in this post! Their album, Harvest Moons, will be out in just a few weeks and will contain the studio version of “Yond Marble Heaven” along with many other folk-inspired tracks!

Well, that’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed the sounds and photos and words! If you’re looking for some old tapes, please check out my page on Archive.org for the full list of digitized media. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message right here or drop a comment below. If you haven’t already, please check out the one of my previous posts below, or all of my other previous posts here. Thanks so much for checking out this week’s edition of Diptych!

See you soon!—Forrest

This extra entry for the week will be a shorter post, mostly just to inform all of y’all that my newest release on Bandcamp is out now!It’s called Velvet Tea: Dumb Beats Vol. 6, and will be available exclusively on Bandcamp. If you’ve been following for awhile, many of the tracks have trickled out over the past year on my Youtube channel, but there are several new songs as well. I’ve also put together a physical media release in the form of cassettes. All the info is available on my Bandcamp. Below, you’ll find the album itself, extra artwork, liner notes and thoughts, and photos of the physical release.

Thanks so much for tuning in!

ファジーティー

It was imperative for my mental health to take nearly a year off, but believe me it felt like a decade. In 2020, I spend nearly every evening creating (and many afternoons too). It was exhilarating at the time. I had more free time than I’d had since middle-school summers and the world was telling me not to breathe anyone else’s air, so I stayed inside with my record player and my SP-404. In a year, I had made over 4 hours of music.

After I released Commercial Break, I well… took a break. I didn’t know how long the break would last, but I was busy again, and if I wanted to continue with even a fraction of the output from the year prior, I was going to have to sacrifice some other portion of my life (sleep, friendship, work, etc) and I wasn’t willing to do that.

Creating was always supposed to be meditation time for me, but my obsessiveness with numbers and watching them go up can really get in the way of my intentions with music. I needed a reset, and I loved hearing from everyone about how much anticipation there was for the new music, but I never let myself feel bad for knowing I hadn’t even started on it.

So now it’s nearly spring in 2022 and I’ve got a whole hour’s worth of new music. Even in my “break” i worked on stuff. I can’t just stop completely, I find that impossible. I’ve found a new space in my life for music again, and it’s calming and the early reviews for my newest release are positive. I still feel motivated for the next one, and tapes are running out fast (the warmest feeling in the world). Thanks for listening and reading and supporting.

Thank you to Molly and Indigo and Jon and Abbey and Rach and Rih. Thank you to all the weirdo Craigslist fellahs I’ve bought video tapes off of the past year. Thanks to Emma at Asian1. Thanks to Andre Navarro. Thanks to every thrift store employee who’s ever given me a bulk deal without me asking. Thanks to Finders Keepers for hooking me up with a TON of cassettes too. And thank you to Crystal Gayle (if you’re reading this call me).

This release was different to me in many ways, but if you’ve followed my work for the past 5 years or so, you’ll notice the main difference immediately. I… played a bunch of different instruments for this. I didn’t sample everything. I borrowed synths and drums and I bought and sold a bass during the making of this tape (I’m not a bassist). I love the idea of mastering and constantly iterating in some niche way, and I think of what I’m doing as just that, but becoming a virtuoso of any single instrument has never been something I wanted.

I played a chord organ, a singing bowl, pan flute, multiple Yamaha PSS series synths, a banjo-lele. I borrowed a Moog Little Phatty for a day but the owner dropped it the week before while loading it in his van and the audio-outs weren’t working so I never recorded with it. I played my families old upright piano for this.

I’ve never had more fun in my life making something. And now, all I want to do is go back to sampling all the records (and maybe a movie or two) I’ve accumulated in the past year. I want to build new folders full of old music other people have thrown away and I want to make something that inspires other people to do the same.

I do want to buy a pan flute though. Like out of all the instruments I borrowed to mess around with for this tape, that’s the one I gotta get back. In an upcoming article, I’ll talk all about everything I was listening to in 2021 while I was making this. Not necessarily direct inspiration, but definitely everything I listened to or watched last year and some effect on what I was making.

Anyways, my next project with be very back-to-form for me, and in a month or so, I’ll start posting about the progress on that, but for now, thank you so much again for reading, listening and supporting.

As always, if you have any questions or comments you can get at me here or here or leave a comment below this post. If you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter yet (it’s free) please think about doing so.

See you soon!

—Forrest

This was the one venue I spent most of my time at in late 2009-2011, both as a musician, as well as a listener. When they shut down, I was able to keep a ton of memorabilia that had been left by bands over the years (depicted above), and I retained all the demos I was given and bought from bands there too.

Both local and touring bands would stop here, and I’ve chosen a half-hours worth of music from some of my favorite groups at the time. Bands like The Verity, Chokeslam!, Kills and Thrills, Beyond the Coast, The Yellow Team, Looking for Alaska, and so many more came through and put on great shows. Here, I’ve put together ten songs to give you a taste of what the scene sounded like.

In the future, I’d like to gather photos and even more music from that time and put another post together to give you more of a visual of what the place was like, until then you can check out their old Youtube channel to get an idea about that.

I hope you enjoy the music! The artists in order are: The Verity, Camillo the Ocean, Chokeslam!, Kills and Thrills, Kidnap the Sun, Last Second of Silence, The Yellow Team, Looking for Alaska, Servant Advocate, and Dark Harp.

Thanks so much for checking out this week’s edition of Diptych. As always, if you have any questions or comments you can get at me here or here or leave a comment below this post. If you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter yet (it’s free) please think about doing so.

See you soon.

—Forrest

Rockline was one of many call-in style shows that were great PR for bands trying to get their name out, and had interviewed guests of all levels of fame by that point. Running for as long as it did, it is considered to be the longest running uninterrupted rock radio program.

I’m of the type that enjoys directors commentaries, even on movies I only half enjoy, and this type of radio interview feels very much like getting that same fix, but for an album and band I really love.

This tape is warbley and garbled at times (being a loose tape sitting in the sun for two and a half decades) and most of the questions aren’t asked to elicit any kind of deep philosophical musings out of the band about the album, but the few incites I did glean from this made the album just that more special on the next listen. I also just love hearing about what touring was like in the 90s. So much has changed.

Thanks so much for listening and reading! If you have any questions or suggestions or if you know anything about these bands / artists, please contact me here or here. Let me know if you checked any of these artists out and if you liked them in the comments down below. Don’t forget to absolutely projectile vomit all over that like button, and fist bump that mf subscribe button if you know what’s good for you ahaha thanks for tuning in.

See you soon.

—Forrest

Thanks so much for listening.See you soon.—Forrest

In the mean time, while I sort out my thoughts and photos, here’s a couple tracks I made on the SP-404sx while my computer was down for the count. At least for the start of 2021, I’ve taken it pretty easy on creative output, but I’ve been reading and managing my time properly, and I hope it will all serve me well in the early spring when I have my usually scheduled creative burst.

Thanks so much for listening to these little tracks and reading my dumb words. Stay safe and I’ll see you soon.

—Forrest

As for 2021, I will be limiting how many posts I make here about my own music, instead, I’ll be using the last section of a bigger weekly post to link to the new stuff I’ve made. Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who’s listened this year. While 2020 has had it’s ups and downs creatively and emotionally, some of the highest highs of this year have been elevated by those of you who listen to my music and I truly can’t thank you enough.

I’ve got an update to one of my articles about demo tapes coming soon, so stay tuned. :)

See you soon.—Forrest

After finishing up Vol. 4 of my Dumb Beats collection, I thought I would be eager to reorganize the studio from the ground up. In the past, this is exactly what I’ve done after finishing nearly every project (and sometimes right in the middle of one too). If you want to see what the studio started out like, check out this CRINGY vlog from 2018. While I haven’t kept a perfect log of every itteration the studio went through since 2018, if you follow the order my Youtube videos were published, you can get a decent idea of how things used to be.

Fortunatly, this time around, after taking some time away from music completely, I was more in the mood to fine tune the setup I already have, rather than tear everything out and start from bare deskspace. The last real complete teardown I did was this past spring. I welded up some desks from some really strong storage shelves and narrowed down all my gear to just what I needed by giving some stuff I wasn’t using to friends who might find it helpful.

There is, of course, a list of things I’d like to add to the studio, as well as some tidying up that can always be done (especially come cable management). But overall, I’ve felt very focused and creative in my little space, and having a dedicated spot to work on or just listen to music has been extremely helpful in keeping me inspired and creating.

Thanks so much for checking out this peek at my home studio. I hope you enjoyed it! If you’re looking for more information about the beat in this post, you can check it out on Youtube. All photos in this post were shot with a Canon T1i + the Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6. The camera shown in the photos is my Olympus OM-D E-M1 MKII with the Panasonic LUMIX G 25mm, F1.7 + a Neewer UWA 0.61x Wide Angle Converter.

If you have any other questions or comments, you can reach me here or here or leave a comment on this post.

See you soon.—Forrest

I’ve had a couple questions about how I’ve been filming these little videos, so I’m going to give a quick run down on how I go about it.

For a long time (approximately 50 videos), I would run the audio out of my SP-404 into my camera’s microphone jack, and this worked really well… except when it didn’t. The preamp in my camera (OM-D E-M1 MKII) is very sensitive, so the audio off my sampler would often clip, and ruin the take, so I’d have to start all over again. Once I got some studio monitors, I came up with an easy fix.

Nowadays, using the SP, I resample the performance as I’m filming it, and that records everything to another pad on the sampler, then just using the audio off of the built in mic on the camera, I sync everything up when I pull the camera file and the audio file off the sampler into my video editor.

I was hesitant to do this at first, thinking that it would be difficult to sync the two up, but after trying it a few times (and with a few mistakes), it’s actually made things a lot easier.

As far as equipment goes, I always use the OMD E-M1 MKII camera to shoot, and depending on the angle, I use a few different lenses. If I’m shooting straight down (ex. here) from overhead, I often use the Canon EF-S 10-18mm on a Viltrox EF-M2 II to get that super wide field of view. If things look a little fisheye (ex. here), I’m using the Pixco 8mm Fish Eye f/3.8, and if I’m shooting from the side, like I am in both of the videos I posted today, I’m using the Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 with a Neewer UWA 0.6x Wide Angle Adapter.

Lastly, for rigging the camera, I just have some old backdrop stands with a center pole. They aren’t branded or anything but they’ve been incredibly useful for getting any angle I want while also never having to set up a tripod. To attach the camera, I just use a Smallrig clamp with a ballhead. These two items allow me to do overheads, over the shoulder shots, left or right profile shots, pov shots, really anything I could want, and I don’t have to move anything around but the clamp.

If anyone has any other questions, you can always get at me here or here. It’s also been suggested that I do a studio tour, and though I’m a little hesitant to do that, if there’s some interest in it, I’d definitely consider it!

Thanks so much again for reading!

See you soon.—Forrest

lo-fi instrumental hiphop x dozibrion

Got in from a show early Saturday morning and couldn’t really sleep, so I decided to work on a little beat. I had to unpack everything and put my cameras back on charge etc, and it felt really great to just organize everything again and sit down and just put something together real quick.

I had an extremely busy weekend! As I mentioned, the show on Friday went well and I got home early Saturday morning, reorganized all my gear, and made this quick beat (check the sample here), got some sleep and headed out for a late night dj set at a Halloween show that lasted until early Sunday morning. This afternoon, I also slept in after getting back so late and headed out to Dandrige, TN to get some quick photos of some of the blue herons that have been hanging out by the lake.

Anyways, I just wanted to give a little update on what’s been going on. As for what you can expect on the blog in the coming weeks of November, I’ve got: photos + video from the show on Friday, three new demo cassettes I picked up from the same thrift store I’ve previously written about (more on that here), and maybe even some photos from my trip to Dandrige.

Hope you’re doing well.

See you soon.

—Forrest

Here's some songs i made with my hands!

TRACK LIST:

0:00 "h8rs" (kanye edit)

1:11 "ilu"

3:07 "the joker movie sucks lol"

As it will take a little while for everything to pop up on streaming services, I wanted to take a second and talk shop about my new tracks —the samples, the construction of them etc. In the past two years, I’ve really started to focus on beat making. So much that it almost felt like coming out of some form of retirement when I was working in my studio last week and decided to plug in the vocal mic for the first time in months.

In an effort to give some innate purpose to the things I make, I’ve started keeping detailed accounts of the music I sample when I make beats and songs. Recently, I watched Tiny Tim: King For A Day (2020), and Tiny Tim’s actions while he was alive really had a deep impact on me. One particular habit of his was to constantly talk about his influences in interviews, often unprovoked. Being that he had such a unique sound, he often covered older songs to try to get more people to listen to the (old) music he loved more than anything.

For me, I think that’s incredibly powerful. Maybe the 2014 version of that was finding a Youtube playlist of every song Kanye had ever sampled (much like this one). I didn’t have parents that indoctrinated me into great music from the come up, nor did I develop a very good taste in music on my own. There’s a TON of blind spots in my music history, and I’m constantly finding new groups and artists I love, but I’ll never forget how much closer I felt to the music in those early ‘Ye songs after listening to and studying over 20+ albums from that playlist that I really vibed with.

All this to say: I think music history is important. I want to make sure when I put some new beats or songs out, I list the samples I use in detail. I know for producers, it can feel like we’re giving the keys to the city away when we show what we sampled, but I really believe it’s beneficial everyone and the future of music if we let people know what we are into at the time.

So… here’s what I sampled:

This release is two just two songs: a single and a b-side. For the first track, “DBL PARK’D”, I had recently watched Tintorera (1977), a horror / shark attack film. From the opening credits I was struck by how good the music was and it only got better. The film kind of dragged and was sometimes not super interesting, however the music really kept my interest and I ended up watching it a few times this year.

The melodic sample from this track is "She Leaves" by Basil Poledouris off of the soundtrack of this film, but truth be told, the whole soundtrack is so good, I could have made something from nearly every track. In addition to that, there’s a couple lines of dialog sampled from the film to set the tone.

I wrote the words to this song about a specific time of my life where I was listening to a lot of Say Anything’s album ...Is a Real Boy. This was probably my fourth phase of listening to that album on repeat for weeks on end, and I wanted to include a piece of my favorite songs off of it in my track, so I pulled a vocal sample from “Admit It!!!”, structured the chorus around it, and that was that.

For the b-side, titled "Golden Hour (Exit 26)” I again drew inspiration from films I’d been watching at the time. This summer, like many others, I had some extra time on my hands than I’d expected to. One of the ways I occupied that time was attempting to go through the entire Hammer Films Productions catalog. This once again led me to a mediocre film with an astounding soundtrack. The main sample for this track is "Carol's Theme" by Mario Nascimbene off of the soundtrack for The Vengeance of She (1968), a less than stellar sequel to the very popular She (1965).

At the same time I was trying to get through a film called Punishment Park (1971), but I could only sit through a few minutes at a time. For a movie made nearly fifty years ago, it was resonating a little too much with the current trash fire that is 2020. I sampled a couple relevant lines of dialog from that, and I eventually finished the movie (it’s amazing). If you can handle more commentary on currently events, check it out.

Lastly, I wanted to give a little nod to a local artist whose music really carried me through a lot of different (challenging) times this summer. I’ve been a big fan for a long time, but I wanted to shout out Benji III and reference his short but sweet "CONFiDENT FREESTYLE". I started with less of a sample, really more of a wink towards his opening line of the song in the middle of my verse, but then to thicken up the drums, I sampled the percussion in the beat of his song and layered it up with the kit I made too.

Well, thanks so much for reading and listening! I promise I’ll check back in with some thoughts about music history / documentation and it’s importance for the future. And of course I’ll be checking back in to announce when my new music is live on streaming platforms! I really hope you enjoyed this early listen!

See you soon.

—Forrest