Elektro 80: A Scanner Darkly

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:13 pm Post subject: Elektro 80: A Scanner Darkly

This is a repost from the old XMAS Specials thread.

This one is from my early 80s Philip K. Dick period. I wrote a piece for practically every book and short story by Philip K. Dick. The pieces were seldom direct translations into music, more like comments and explorations of certain themes and ideas.
A friend of mine,Ernst-Wiggo Sandbakk plays drums on this track. A picture of the guy is below here somewhere. He has published many books about drumming and stuff. What he really does is jazz, but he is a really great guy anyway.
Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

I rewrote the song when I got my first PPG Wave 2.2 and then again later when I traded the two Rhodes suitcases for a Yamaha biggie. The song as it sounds now is pretty much how it looked on paper in 85 after years of tweaking and revisions.

The style of the song is a bit curious I guess. I had just ended my "audiotory stream formation" period when I became interested in the Philip K. Dick material. Apart from the usual classicial and avantgarde influences I guess you can hear traces of contemporary late 70s/early 80s avant pop like Talking Heads, Holger Czukay and Material in here somewhere.
Well, quite possibly some prog influences wil probably be evident too.

The song itself is premidi and the patces are pretty far from what the early big mean polka boards could do.

The song is not properly mixed or mastered. I guess I will get back to that later on, when I have finished my work on the "Utmost Savagery" material.

Credits:
Ernst-Wiggo Sandbakk: Yamaha DTXpress synth drums
Anna I. Grebstad: Some vocals and some synth work.
Stein Grebstad: All the other instruments. Various PPG synths, Mellotron, C-2, guitars, various analog Roland, Korg, Octave and Moog synths.. and some software synths.

---A Scanner Darkly is now offline at 750 downloads.---

bachus · Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 5:14 pm Post subject:

Good one Stein! The rhythmic diversions that structure the piece into passages work especially well.

elektro80 · Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 5:33 pm Post subject:

THX Robert. Well yes, there might be some diversions in there.. Very Happy

Hard to say really, with pieces like this one that I have written, played, rewritten, played.. etc. the whole construct is a bit hard to see from the outside.

mosc · Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:24 pm Post subject:

I like this, especially as a way to see how you have evolved musically. There are some parts I especially like in there - very nice sounds - tasteful.

Mohoyoho · Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:47 pm Post subject:

Very nice Stein. I really love the drums. Very tight.

elektro80 · Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 2:08 am Post subject:

seraph · Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:53 pm Post subject:

Dear Stein
I am a collector of anything Grebstad and so it happens that I have a previous version of this piece. There were drums already and the drummer does not seem, to me, to add much to the value of it. Maybe if he had used real drums it could make a difference Idea

seraph · Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 2:16 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 2:41 pm Post subject:

Proof! And I guess you even have the pudding.. Shocked

Carsulae · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 2:16 pm Post subject: Wonderful

Wonderful sounds and rithms in your A Scanner Darkly!!!!
I'm sure to find other very interesting songs in your web page

May i have more information about voices devices used in it song?
Are natural or synth?

Thank

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 3:00 pm Post subject:

I have mostly used synths, but there is some piano, guitar and M400 in there too. Frankly, in order to give a full list of all the parts I will have to check with the notes and score, and the comments to every recorded part.
The M400 parts weren´t quite completed while I had the M400 so I filled those in with the M-Tron later. As for natural vs. synth.. I think synths are pretty OK instruments so I tend to think of those as natural too. There is some C-2 in there too. I dunno if organs are entitled to being called natural instruments though.

blue hell · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 3:48 pm Post subject:

I had missed this when it happened, good it got bumped - I like the track & it might have some prog influences indeed :-)

Organs .. natural ?

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

Guess those were the first synths.

more ...

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 5:22 pm Post subject:

I won´t deny the prog. And I think you are right about the organ bit too.

elektro80 · Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 6:55 pm Post subject:

I removed the song from the first post in this thread. According to the download counter it was downloaded 750 times.

bachus · Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 8:03 pm Post subject:

seraph · Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 12:51 am Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 10:48 am Post subject:

This track has been picked up by this site: http://myspace.com/godtnorsk

Very Happy

mosc · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 11:48 am Post subject:

Looks fab...

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 11:57 am Post subject:

A guy called Haakon hacked that one together. Shocked

What will my wife say to this. Oh my...

mosc · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 11:58 am Post subject:

Haakon - a great name for a hacker.