Now Available: Dub In Deep Red CD & MP3

My newest album, Dub in Deep Red (actually recorded over 2 years), is now available in both CD and MP3 formats.

The entire album is inspired by the exotic music of Martin Denny. Lots of ambient drones created with the classic VCS3 mixed with punk and r&b style drums. A total summer/beach album. Enjoy!



Purchase the CD on Amazon or through my online store.
The MP3 album is available through Bandcamp.com

New journal posted on Last.FM

I posted a journal entry on Last.Fm of my top 10 ambient albums.

Here is an excerpt:

As a composer of ambient music, I have been asked several times what have been my influences. Which, depending on what day you ask me my answers may change. I went through my collection to try and find what I would not only consider great ambient music, but also a great diversity in the genre. You'll notice there is no Robert Rich or Harold Budd in this selection and as much as I do love their work, I wanted to include a variety of artistic styles. Not all of these will be found on your digital cable soundscapes channel.

Enjoy.

Kristian Day's Top 10 Ambient Albums

I am now a proud owner of the FM3 Buddha Machine II...

Today I received an early birthday gift to myself. The Buddha Machine II created by Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian (also known as FM3). I am always interested in small gadgets(that are not keyboards) to create music with. Something minimalistic, that doesn't take up space, and does not take my entire brain to figure out how to make it work. Behold the Buddha Machine II (I picked the burgandy one). It's as simple as turning it on and hitting a button to change what's playing.

Yes this is a 2nd generation of the original Buddah Machine. It is an ambient loop player with volume and pitch bend controller. Besides having it's own built in speaker it also has an output jack to plug into...anything. It will play for as long as you want it to or until the batteries die. It has 9 different loops to choose from, all very beautiful sounding. As I mentioned before, I don't like thinking to hard when I make music, well this requires NO THINKING as the unit plays itself. It falls under the criteria of "generative music". Iphone owners might be know about the "Bloom" app(also made by Brian Eno) which could be used for a similar purpose.

When the first Buddah Machine became available, Brian Eno was the first customer and purchased 8 units. Other artists/bands who use the unit include Sunn 0))), Einsturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld, Throbbing Grislte, and Jan Jelinek. (What a surprise, all people I listen to.)

My intentions are unclear at this point on what I want do with it. I have had a few different ideas, but for now I am just enjoying the ambience.

to learn more about the Buddah Machine II please visit:

http://www.fm3buddhamachine.com/

The Gristleizer..... Finally available commercialy

I began making music in 2001 and in 2004 I decided that I wanted to make music for films. From the very start, I wanted to make unconventional music. Something that was difficult to the listener, mood setting, and could cause reactions. There was a small part of me that was really wanting to be in a band and make music, but I learned right away that I had such a difficult time working with people that it just didn't seem like it was going to be the path I took. One night I was having a listening with my close friend, Barron Christian. I had brought over a handful albums, including my original "Engineer" demo that I had made right before moving Cedar Rapids to Denver. We listened to old Skinny Puppy, Throbbing Gristle, and a variety of others. We through in my old demo and made the comment that I should be doing this for movies. He also commented that everything I did was only done by me (not true, he just didn't know about these bands). One of these bands, Throbbing Gristle, had one of the biggest influences on me. They were the pioneers of Industrial music. Not the lame Industrial music that we hear today, but an experimental nightmare of tape collages, aggressive synthesizers, horns, and scientific sound generating equipment. This was one of the first band's that could scare me with the music they made. Songs like "Hamburger Lady", "Exotica", and "Beachy Head" I would listen to in a dark room lit up the Christmas lights. Chills would come down my spine.

Today I learned that the one of the original sources of Throbbing Gristle's sound has finally been made available to purchase: The Gristleizer. This was Chris Carter's homemade synth module that ended being used by every member of the band. This unit would destroy any audio signal that could pass through it. The sound 80% sounded very ugly. This was the sound that I felt needed to be used in film scoring, especially the horror genre.

Here is a picture of newly re-constructed unit and the original design.

Here are my list of recommended "gristleizer recordings"

Throbbing Gristle "Five Knuckle Shuffle" (first TG recording I ever heard)
Throbbing Gristle "Hamburger Lady" (very light gristle on the voice and loops)
Throbbing Gristle "Circle of Animals" (all over the place)
Skinny Puppy / Throbbing Gristle "Puppy Gristle" (45 minute gristleizer jam!)

To purchase an official TG Gristleizer go here:
http://www.myspace.com/smashingguitarsasheville

To learn more about the TG Gristleizer go here:
http://www.throbbing-gristle.com/tg/gristleizer.html

To download the free & VERY AWESOME VST Gristleizer (WINDOWS ONLY) go here:
http://www.tinygod.com/productthrobber.html

Fangoria reports on Mutilation Mile Soundtrack

Fangoria made a report under their music news section the other day about my score being available on Last.fm

click below.

Fangoria reports Mutilation Mile Soundtrack

Cockhammer Soundtrack now available on LAST.FM

Hack Movies released their newest film Cockhammer(directed by Kevin Strange) on July 17th. I have uploaded my soundtrack to Last.FM so anyone can stream it. It has a good mix of sleazy lounge music mixed with synth pop similar to the scores from Lucio Fulci or Dario Argento films.

Music from Cockhammer

Last.FM Profile has been established

I have set up a Last.FM profile where anyone and everyone can either or download or stream my music releases. This includes full length albums & ep's, soundtracks, and compilation appearances.

All albums, ep's, and compilation appearances are available for free download under the creative commons license. This means:

You are free:

* to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work

Under the following conditions:

*Attribution- You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

*Noncommercial- You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

*No Derivative Works- You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

or to put it simply. You can listen to his music, download it, burn it, share it with others. If you want to use it for anything outside of this you must contact me to discuss licensing.

All soundtracks are available for live streaming only due to copyright issues.

Please visit:

http://www.last.fm/music/Kristian+Day

Never Send a Monster Trailer

Finally! Here is the trailer for our upcoming animated short Never Send A Monster. It is based on the short story by William Tooker and animated by Kevin Gentilcore. Features the voice talent of Barron Christian, William Tooker and Genine Henke. I scored the music. Enjoy.

Fear Girls: Volume One trailer is up

Here is the trailer for Fear Girls: Volume One. It will be out DVD April 21, 2009

A Sound Night

I just completed another piece of music called "Partial Piano Concerto". I sampled a single note from the Hellraiser score done by Christopher Young. I ripped it straight from a cassette and through it into Fruityloops. I made a melody that is played through the entire track. At every third measure a new appregio is done with the same sample. I made it sound really nasty as if it was found on a scratch old record. I did this by puting it through an overdrive, a lowpass filther, reverb, and then through a VST called Dub Box. I totally wrecked it with that and it sounds great.

The weather was terrible and it kept me home for the evening. But with that I accomplished a lot. As soon as I finish these last projects I can dive back into making music with full force. When completing monotonous tasks over and over again my mind begins to work with full force to force something out of me. There are times I feel like acting out, almost like shitting on the floor out spite. Its a uncanny urge these thoughts provoke. I hopefully someday can let them rest after my fullfillment in this life is complete.

A Sleazy Interview

just completed my first techno track. It reminds me a lot of Coil's Backwards album. I dig it kinda. It has some weird voice loops that I manipulated in fruity loops but a lot of synth lines were done using Reason. In a lot of ways i hate that program but it can be useful.

Also I finished my music business term paper today. hence a state of relief, it included in interview I did with Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson.

Here it is

An interview with Peter Christopherson of Coil
In late November I contacted five established artists who have broken away from major labels and have established their own. Only one had replied. Peter Christopherson has had a very incognito presence in music history, but very important. He has done album covers for Pink Floyd. He was a member of the first industrial music group Throbbing Gristle. He has produced music videos for the likes of Sepultura and Nine Inch Nails. Pete Christopherson is also an established remixer who has done work for Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, and Orbital. He owns Threshold House, a record label he started that exclusively releases recordings of his band Coil.

What provoked you change from a 3rd party distributor to self-distributing your own records?
If you are talking about being on a 'major' label, we changed because, like many third party distributors they did not pay us. (At least not reliably and on time.)

What have been the benefits for you from changing over to independent distribution?

Firstly financial, 100% of a small amount is always more than 10 or 14 % of a larger amount, which you don't actually receive...
I'm sorry to be facetious but I’m afraid I do not have any faith in a system which relies on the honesty of a company to VOLUNTEER the information of you how much they owe you, AND then to pay you every three or six months.
The music business model is fundamentally flawed.
It’s true that publishing companies were invented to maintain a check on the record companies, but they have lunch together for chrissake.
ALL the record companies I have ever been associated with, from the smallest to the largest (EMI) frequently do not appear to even KNOW how much they owe anyone at any given time, and often claim to have paid too much, and want some back. Maybe the appearance of ineptitude is just a show for business purposes, but in my long experience I think it’s more likely that they do NOT, in fact, have any clue.
Of course working with independent distribution companies has all the same risks and problems associated with the majors, UNLESS they are small enough that one person actually has a fair idea what's going on financially, AND you can reach them on the phone, AND you can tell if they’re telling you the truth.

What types of problems have had to deal with now that did not have to when under labels supervision?

Well all independent distribution companies are different.
In the case of Coil for example, World Serpent simply pressed up, and sold our records internationally to various shops and other distributors, then collected the money and split the profit with us. [In theory at least - Eventually they were unable to continue, as a consequence of rising bad debts, closing mom-and-pop record stores and/or mismanagement. They went out of business owing us over $50K].
Even when it was running properly, World Serpent did not do any advertising, promotion or press of any kind, so if we wanted any, we had to it ourselves.
Just making interesting records is pretty hard at the best of times, so sometimes we could have done with some help in the area of promotion, even if we'd had to pay for it in the long run.

Are there any benefits you miss from being part of another label?

If it’s a good label, bands certainly benefit from the association with other more famous or popular label-mates. Its a sad fact of human nature that people tend to buy more from the same rack / label / website as other records/bands they have liked, rather than bother to walk, or click, a few steps away to try something new. At one point Coil were going to be on Trent Reznor's vanity label and if that had happened, we would certainly have sold a lot more CDs, though whether that would have been a good thing, I cant say.
In the end, it was not to be.
There is no doubt that, under the old method of distribution in the last century, where you went into Tower and saw what just came out, there on the rack... At that time, the clout or power of the major to say to the chain store "If you want these Madonna records you have to display these PTV (or whoever) ones too" DID get weirder records into a lot more stores (esp. in the US) than would otherwise have carried them.
I'm afraid I have always been a slight snob, and would rather sell fewer records to a market of discerning customers who appreciate going out of their way to find my stuff, and take care of it over the years, rather than have my record sit un-played on the shelf (or worse, in the box of old cds in a thrift store or Car Boot sale) of someone who just bought it because they liked Nine Inch Nails.



Also the Ugliest dog in the world just died at just short of age 15
The Ugliest Dog dies just short of age 15

Japanese Bands that kick your Ass

* Guilty Connector
* KK Null
* Tatsuhiko Asano
* Tanakh
* Spike
* So Takahashi
* Koji Asano
* Haco
* Bisk
* Sachiko M
* Otomo Yoshihide
* Aki Onda
* Yoshio Machida
* View Masters
* Contagious Orgasm
* Ken Ishii


Now first go download one or two track just to hear how much better these bands are to yours, then go out and spend oodles of money on their albums.

My Current Playlist

Cock Esp/Origami Genitalia split tape

Great noise blashpemy from MN.


Einsturzende Neubauten - Drawings of Patient OT
fantastic metal banging from Germany

Merzbow- Puroland
if one cannot understand then ur time i do not need

the Cure- Kiss me Kiss Me Kiss Me
SHUT UP