Cthonicist

Anyone who saw the brilliant meta horror movie The Cabin In The Woods knows the role of the Harbinger… it’s the local who warns the stupid college kids not to take that back road/stay in that house/mess with that book, foreshadowing made flesh, the calm before the storm… here it’s a sequenced and overdubbed jam with live improv made on the marvellous, mutable M-Vave FM1 hardware mini synth. It’s as cheap as chips, and here is running one of its many, many alternative firmwares, Cranky Man’s Nachtfahrt - Night Travel. Audio & Midi both via a single USB...

“The roses are going mad, those crimson roses…” On The Hill Of Roses is the title story of a collection of short horror tales by Stefan Grabinski, a Polish contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft, who offers a unique macabre and sensual twist on the kind of overwrought synaesthetes most often encountered in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, or HPLs own Dreamlands pieces. Worth checking out. Track made in AUM on IPad with 3 TestFlight instances of Ink, a soon to be released software clone of the Plinky hardware synth/sampler/sequencer.

…is how Guardian columnist Jan Werner Muller described American ‘Secretary of War’ Pete Hegseth’s recent video glorifications of remote control push button destruction . Started in Ableton Note, finished in AUM on iPad . Etherpad for voice, some loops, Decent Sampler pianos and cellos.

“Some might believe also in people who *do* care. I can’t count myself amongst that happy band, I’m afraid, Ms. Petworth. Not after all I have seen of humanity’s indifference to its own inflicted cruelties.” - The Colonel. Made in AUM on IPad with multiple instances of the following apps: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/055u4ry/id6789734684 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/mntrp/id6800424988

“Yes, there’s a hotel in Innsmouth—called the Gilman House—but I don't believe it can amount to much. I wouldn't advise you to try it.” - Trustpilot, probably

“The worst thing about the abomination wasn’t its bite. At least, not at first. It was the sight of that second face, that second mouth, upon its ghastly back.” - Professor Challenor. Quick try out of a free drum machine app, a recreation of a rare Soviet era machine, the Pulsar ES. Heavily affected and messed with in AUM on iPad. Get the app here: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/pulsar-es-drum-machine/id1661825756

Power electronics, aka Dark Noise, but for old folks.. That is: some of the sonically abrasive edges, and all the teenage edgelord sentiments sanded off. One instance of noise app Wail,manipulated live, variously effected in AUM on iPad. No sequencers, no AI, just restless fingers. Get Wail here: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/wail/id6786723124

In the alchemical practice of the ‘solve et coagula’ The Sun (Sol) represents the masculine, active, fixed, and drying principle (often associated with Gold and Sulfur), while the Moon (Luna) represents the feminine, passive, volatile, and moist principle (associated with Silver and Mercury). The ‘Solve et Coagula’ is the interaction between Sun and Moon that drives the alchemical process of dissolution and coagulation, leading to the Chemical Wedding, or union of opposites. A powerful metaphor…

“Despite her youth, Sister Mary had long been our order’s most expert exorcist. But whatever it was she encountered in the catacombs of the ruined Abbaye de Mortemer, the Abbey of the Dead Sea in Normandy, it was no spirit susceptible to faith. And it… changed her.” -The Abbess.

“Quantum-based magical theory views the reality in which we live as coextensive with a malleable virtual reality. Thus, the computer provides an excellent locus for magical experimentation.” - ‘ Collins, S, ‘Technology and Magick’, Scan, journal of media and culture: http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=35

“There are two schools of thought regarding the effects of the drug Axplakadine. Those that haven’t taken it believe it can extend life, by centuries. Then there are those who have taken it. And they are all dead. Or mad.” - Dr. Festin. Multiple Strange Loops and AD202s in AUM on iPad.

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.” - Carl Jung. Created live in AUM on iPad on a base of two instances of the new Strange Loop chaos theory based generative MIDI app: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/strange-loop/id6795408783

“That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.” - H.P. Lovecraft, ‘The Nameless City’. Link to full story here: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/nc.aspx Made entirely with Diego Capoccitti’s superb line of hands on synth apps - DroneDie, OktaDie (Lyra 8 clone), AlchemDie (Strega clone) and SwarmaDie (Dewanatron Swarmatron clone). All beautiful and strange.

“There is in the land of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream and out of which no stream flows” - ‘The Doom That Came To Sarnath’, H.P. `Lovecraft. A friend of mine is a scientist who models water flows through landscapes. He gave me some of his raw data to see if I could ‘sonify’ it. His data provides the core electronic sounds here, which I have augmented with real found sounds and synthesised voices, recorded live in AUM on iPad. Drums courtesy of the excellent free app Beat Scholar Mobile https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/b...

“The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.” - William Gibson. Neon sunsets lambent in the smeared smog of the Sprawl have a kind of malformed beauty, a freakshow fascination. We are all dying here, but sometimes in the slaughterhouse, even the sheep look up. Just to take in the view.

Kozyrev Mirrors are experimental devices consisting of spiral or cylindrical chambers made of polished aluminum, designed to reflect and concentrate what theorists call "time energy" or torsion fields. Originally based on the work of Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Kozyrev, who proposed that time is a physical energy interacting with matter, these mirrors were later developed in the 1980s and 1990s by researchers such as Alexander Trofimov and Vlail Kaznacheev to test hypotheses about non-local consciousness and temporal perception. Participants who sat inside these mirrored chambers reported altered states of consciousness, including telepathic transmission with up to 95% accuracy in some experiments, out-of-body...

Non Mutual (You Are Not One Of Us).wav by Svetlovska

I do like me some epistemological uncertainty. Are you a blue pill or a red pill sort of person? Composed mixed and recorded with apps directly on iPad.

Everything is possible for one who believes. And isn’t that just the problem?

“How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.” One of the best post Lovecraftian, SCP adjacent sci fi horror concepts to have emerged recently. Check out the book, and the brilliant short movie. https://amzn.eu/d/08QMbez7 https://youtu.be/3v8AsTHfAG0?si=9V4dnE_Y-RJlVQ6u

Saṃsāra is the concept of all beings experiencing an ongoing cycle of life, death, and rebirth. iPad improv using new app 16 Drones into AUM: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/16-drones/id6761003327

Casadastrophobia is the very specific fear, not to be confused with agoraphobia, of falling into the sky. It may be triggered by landscapes of vast open spaces, unbordered fields, unbroken views to the horizon and wide featureless skies. Sufferers experience panic attacks, vertigo, dizziness, and even collapse. In the UK, the flat, marshy terrain known as the Fenlands of East Anglia, remote, rural, sparsely inhabited, and poorly connected, are best avoided by those susceptible to the condition.

Sonder : The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, includiing strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it. First spin with excellent cheap drone/ambiemt app Dark Park https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/dark-park-cinematic-synth/id6760255481

“At the climax of the movie, the entranced and drugged acolyte begins her slow climb up the temple steps toward the ravening cold flame of the sacrificial altar. It will consume not just her body, but her soul. And she wants this. Will our hero arrive in time?” Created in AUM on iPad using the new groovebox app Snorkel Synth: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/snorkel-synth/id6759827999

But… who was that extra mourner? Or rather - *what* was he? Hey, it’s Monday. So sue me. Recorded and mixed live into AUM on iPad. No actual keyboards harmed during the making of this. And -NO AI!

DM10 drum app, recorded live into AUM on iPad. Piano: BS16 app.

Congratulations, your master is ready. Deron, you got a line on any deep-discount Naugahyde suppliers? Day 1 with new toy, the Synthstrom Deluge. Like, cool, daddy-o.

In ‘The Matter Of Britain’, the body of medieval and legendary tales which describe the foundational myths of King Arthur and the knights of the round table, Ygrane is the mother of Arthur, as initially recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his ‘Historia Regum Britanniae‘.

“Some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests. And then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonder that was ours. Before we were wise, and unhappy.” - H.P. Lovecraft

From Wikipedia: “La Llorona (‘the Crying Woman, the Weeping Woman, the Wailer') is a vengeful ghost in Hispanic American folklore who is said to roam near bodies of water mourning her children whom she drowned in a jealous rage after discovering her husband was unfaithful to her. Whoever hears her crying either suffers misfortune, death or their life becomes unsuccessful in every field.” A first go with the new Super J8 Synth Jupiter 8 app for IOS, inter alia, recorded live into AUM on iPad.

A striking phrase I recently heard used by a chronic pain sufferer. Composed & performed live into AUM on IPad. Military chatter courtesy pate klankbeeld clips @ Freesound.org

Do you possess, or are you possessed?

“We dance alone. That’s why we only play electronic music.” - The Loner Leader. Created on iPad using Musyc2 physics-based generative composer app.

It was good to get out of the rain. Another single module exercise, a Braids clone sequenced by Behringer 182 and manipulated live into AUM on iPad. Reverb: FAC Alteza. No keyboards were harmed during the making of this noise.

“The past cannot be forgotten, the present cannot be remembered.” - Mark Fisher: hauntologist, scholar, suicide.

The past is immutable. The future unknowable. There is only ever one eternal present. A single-unit modular jam, using the Maneco Labs Grone Dark Drone Machine looped and varispeeded in AUM on iPad. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

“Upon Earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.” Job, 41:34 Manipulated live from the littlest Euro: just two cheap Behringer System 100 modules, in an MMS skiff - the 182 sequencer and the 110 complete synth voice, - via Alm HPO phones out and a ten quid in line audio interface into AUM, on iPad, Tape Player looped, initial recording multitracked and varispeeded. Reverb app: FAC Alteza.

“If the crops fail, Summerisle, next year your people will kill *you*…” - Sergeant Howie

A quick spin using only BramBos’ Groovebox Battlestation https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/battlestation-groovebox/id6754467726 Not my usual thing, but hey. It’s Christmas! :)

Because it knows where it isn’t.