iv notes

iv (2010) was the fourth album, and was the last of the numbered albums as well as the first of the non-numbered ones. It's a bit different style-wise than the previous albums, and the songs had a lot more time spent working on them up to that point. It was my favorite up until 'A Collection of Songs For Dancing or Amusement' but I still think it's pretty good, especially following the unpolished turd that was 'iii'. All of the songs were completely new, non-Polymer Bloom songs, although early ideas for shaved + tame were originally recorded during some of the later sessions for 'iii'. Grendel King was written on Christmas Eve 2009, a few hours before a live acoustic performance, and Retro Space-Age Future Vision was written later that night after the performance was canceled. My personal favorite songs from the album are: Pink Rattle, Buzzkill, Thing, Retro Space-Age Future Vision, and Plastic Ono.

A Collection of Songs For Dancing or Amusements Notes

A Collection of Songs For Dancing and Amusements (2013) was the sixth album, released on November 12, 2013. It is my personal favorite. The songs on it were meant to be more structured and complex than previous ones, while still trying to maintain a sense of simplicity. With a couple of the songs, namely Goofy's Lament and Hrt & Soul, they started out as a bunch of several, similar sounding songs that were somewhat lacking in various ways, and were combined into one song. Heart & Soul was originally part of an outtake song from some recordings done between 'iv' and 'Robot MonStar'. Drool a Puddle is the first instrumental song on an album, but it was originally going to have lyrics, though none were ever written. The version of Medical Needs that appears is from a pair of recordings done in September 2012. The other song was terrible and has never been released, but it was eventually drastically re-worked in 2014 and ended up becoming Some Moments of Violins from 2014's 'Basic' EP.

Basic Notes

BASIC (2014) was the seventh album, though it's technically only an EP. It was the spiritual successor to Robot MonStar, and was likewise a concept album in many ways. While Robot MonStar's main sound was of a more robotic and mechanical nature, Basic was supposed to be more primal and primitive.  Originally it was intended to sound like a post-punk/new wave DIY compilation album, which were semi-prevalent at one time period (like the 'Killed By Death' compilations), with the more raw guitar oriented songs making up the second half, or B-side of the album. It sounded good on paper, but felt too disjointed when listened to as a whole. I abandoned the idea midway through production, and focused on the keyboard songs. Warning Light, originally titled "No Warning" was an example of the style of songs from the aborted second half of the album, although it remained on the final version.
I thought about having all of the song titles follow one of 2 types of name patterns. Pattern A songs were all titled "___ of ___" (Matter of Tact; Monster of Noise, etc.), and would make up the first half of the album. Pattern B songs would be on the second half of the album, and were all titled "No ___" (No Violins; No Warning, etc). Some of those remained for the final versions, like "Matter of Tact", and "Monster of Noise". "Moments of Violins" was originally titled "No Violins". "Warning Light" was called "No Warning", and "Future Arcade" was originally called "No Words".

Although BASIC was supposed to have been twice as long, had it included the planned second half, I decided to play off the name and make it the most minimalist version of an album I could. (Also, because I'm lazy.)  It would have around 8 songs or so, and run just on the borderline between full length LP and short play EP. And once again, because I like gimmicky things, the title BASIC also was meant to signify that it's mostly features songs of an electronic/computerized type as well. I think it's a pretty good album, but it went in several directions during it's production. I was still restructuring it up till a couple days before it's release. Some of the cut songs included, "You Are the Dope", "Meanie Beanie", "Aurora Bearing Malice", "Kitty Spit-Up", "Circle Squares", 'No Feeling', "Sound of Television/warming glow", 'generic pop fair' and a couple others. Another short EP with the deleted songs was planned, but pushed to the side temporarily. A few of these songs have turned up since then in various forms.

Radioset 10th anniversary and more notes

While last year marked the 10th/or 11th? anniversary of the first live show, this year marks 10 years since the first Radioset studio album was released. So this year I'll actually update the blog (or whatever those things are called now) with random facts about the albums and things.  And today I'll do Robot MonStar...

Robot MonStar (2011) was the fifth album. It was meant to be a concept album, surrounding themes of science and sci-fi, and sound very electronic and mechanical. I wanted it to be very Devo influenced. I had gotten access to a keyboard, and spent some time playing around with it, figuring out how to play stuff and playing with the different effects settings. I discovered one that sounded really new wave, and kind of 8-bit. I came up with the idea for the song Quark, and then went on from there, coming up with similar material for a "new-wave" album. I had a lot of ideas for gimmicks, like song titles that were highly complex math equations. The release date of Nov. 1  was chosen so as to look like a binary sequence (110111) when written. The album wasn’t ready in time for release in October, due to the cover art not being complete, but ideally I would have liked to have it out on Oct. 1 (100111), or Oct. 10 (101011). The album title was supposed to reflect the mechanical and science/sci-fi elements. MonStar is the name of the main villain from the mid-eighties Rankin-Bass outer-space cyborg action cartoon, Silverhawks; and Robot Monster is the name of a 1950's sci-fi film. The album was meant to be longer, but I was working on it at the same time as a video project, and that ate into a lot of the time. A couple of orphaned song ideas ending up in the video instead of being finished for the album. But I think it holds up pretty well, and I still like it.

Fleischer Animation

I'm a huge fan of quality animation, and a lot of the early golden age of sound animation during 1930's is some of the best ever produced, despite the limitations of the time period. While several animation studios were around at that time, the top two were Disney and Fleischer. Everyone knows Disney, but the Fleischer's name isn't as well-known nowadays, though many of their creations, such as Betty Boop and Popeye, are.  I like the Fleischer Studio's animation best, mainly due to the surrealness of them, and the fact that they advanced techniques, such as rotoscoping and the stero-optic processes. It was miles beyond what Disney was doing, and far more interesting in my opinion. Unfortunately  things didn't last as they fell victim to the Hays Production Code, and corporate buyout by Paramount. The new management began downgrading the quality of the work and, and making all types of changes to the titles they had obtained. Eventually their popular franchises became just namesake without the heart and soul of the original. Another testament to what happens when money becomes the primary motivation.

Radioset notes (part ii): Robot MonStar

This is probably about a year late, but here's some notes about the latest studio album, Robot MonStar:


- It was intended to be a new wave/sci-fi concept album.
- The title is based off of the 1953 monster film Robot Monster, and Mon*Star, the main villain from the 1986 Silverhawks animated series.
- The release date (Nov. 1, 2011) was chosen because it looked like binary code when written (110111).
- The album has a shorter run-time, since filming/music was also being done at the same time on the short horror film, "Curse of the Chicken Fucker".
- Complex mathematical equations were considered being used as song titles early on.
- The album cover was taken from the first in a series of link-able paintings:

Radioset notes

Considering that this was set up as a blog for Radioset fans, I guess I should post something related to my music... So here's miscellaneous info:

The 'Demos & Other Such Things' box-set released last month is almost all of the unreleased material from the past 10 years. But a few thing weren't included on it, because they were either too incomplete, or already represented on it in some way, or just sucked way too much. (There was also a different, guitar version of Quark that wasn't included, because I had forgotten about it until a few days ago.) So anyway, here's what didn't make the cut:
Sunday Drive (acoustic home demo of 'Pleasantries and Other Such Things' - 11/2004); Household Drugs (acoustic home demo - 11/2004); Milk Glass (acoustic home demo - 11/2004);  the version of Manvoice included on 'Disc 3', but with weird lyrics;  a later version of Milk Glass with the chorus line from Breathe Like An Alien;  an early, noisy, solo version of Terrapin Drop from early 2005;  a very bland and repetitive song from 2007;  a short demo of Nocturnal Emissionary;  the acoustic improve that ended up becoming Retro Space-Age Future Station (Christmas eve 2009);  the ivy demo of Violent Afterbirth;  instrumental practice demos of Faraway and Machine Automatic;  2 untitled songs from Fall 2009; and several hours of lo-fi Polymer Bloom rehearsals from 2004-2005.  There's also a tape somewhere from towards the end of the Polymer Bloom era as 3-piece, that has recordings of Manvoice, New York Simon Underground, Briney, and Lilac Stray that may or may not exist anymore. The tape was borrowed and never returned so...