ThePumpkins.net

No.
Bolly's ego is much bigger than mine

DON wrote:

So the main recording is finished...we succeeded in recording 9 tunes instead of 7...the 2 further ones are bonus tracks, one is a Jazz Impro the other one an electro-spoof.
Anyway, still mixing isn't done and will take on for some days I suppose and the artwork must be finished + some parts of the violin must be rerecorded on Monday...
Here's the album's title:

"M'Rel"

Stay tuned for more infos to come on our first very handmade DIY album (and don't expect too much...).

What does M'Rel mean?

The German word that means "noise" is "Lärm".
It is "Mräl" backwards....guess what
"M'Rel" is also the name of Klingon leader's father in Star Trek...

Well very clever Don!

I'm deducting a point from my future rating of the album due to the Star Trek reference Just joking, looking forward to hearing it

I have made an intro track for an EP I am working on. The EP will be called Extinction and I will be... The Molten Mammoth

Here's the intro track (it's called Existence):
www.zshare.net/audio/89364447798e090d/

It should lead directly into the 2nd track, which will be called Exhume - the start of which I posted in the Currently Thinking thread yesterday.

Also, I have re-uploaded a track I did last year, which was about 90% finished. I think I might tweak that to become a Molten Mammoth track, although it won't be on the EP I've planned out. This one is called Exquisite:
www.zshare.net/audio/89364567e3eb759b/

Let me know what you think

EDIT:
I've changed that first track a bit. It was supposed to have a bit of a tribal sound to it, which didn't really come across very well. This new version has a shorter ambient section at the start and more tribal drums (or my attempt at them anyway ). There are a few other minor tweaks too.

So this is the version to listen to, but if you listen to both feel free to let me know whether I actually made it better or worse

www.zshare.net/audio/89369428d326d256/

I uploaded some rock-y songs of mine from years past! Happy Easter!!

vimeo.com/22803304
vimeo.com/22803414
vimeo.com/22805263

WHYLA - M'REL
So "M'Rel" is finally mixed.

We skipped one track and made an album of six ones for the flow was good enough and the running time exactly 52 minutes.
A short introduction to us, our music and the individual tracks:

Whyla are:

Bassti Sozusagen S. Surreal - Bass guitars, singing and programmings

Don C. Gish - Guitars, singing, keys

Fofie - Violine & Singing

We always wanted to be a project withing guitars NOT performing 101 rock music. WE DO NOT FEATURE A DRUMMER AND WE NEVER WILL.
Driven by avantgarde bands like the early Velvet Underground and early Sonic Youth (and, by the way some Joy Division darkness, too), two of us found themselves performing sick (and crappy) noise rock in the spring of 2009 as A WEEK IN PARADISE....but it eventually evolved into something more avantgarde, experimantal, structured, though, almot closer to the 20th-century classical music than to rock.
When we performed our first shows in 2010 as YOUTH LOST ASLEEP, Fofie joined as a guest singer on a live impro called "Spine"...we later found out that she also was able to perform on the violine for she had learned playing chamber music for years.
So we finally named ourselves in WHYLA.
Our audiences usually are small but rather full of classical music and noise nerds who really dig into our Post Noise meditation.
We would describe our genre as Avantgarde or Post Noise.
We tried hard, but we didn't fully manage to capture the live atmosphere on this album - visit our shows!!!

The tracks:

1. Edge City (Bassti: Bass guitars / Gish: Guitars / Fofie: Violine):
This avantgarde instrumental piece usually opens all of our shows since we finished it. In this album version we added a spooky sample of a German TV show in the beginning to bring on the atmophere...this is very simply though extremly trippy Pot Rock with a glimps of 20th-century classical music.
Try not to find any popsong in it rather than the pure atmophere and meditation.

2. The Ian Curtis Way Of Life (Bassti: Bass guitars & voice / Gish: Guitars) :
This is our only pure noise rock track.
Fast and simple.
The lyrics deal with the dilemma situation of Ian Curtis.
This is also the only track featuring a drumming-machine for it's sheer punk-rockness.
Heavily influenced by 1983's Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore by the way...

3. Let This Be Our Last Battlefield (Bassti: Bass guitars & voice / Gish: Guitars) :
Well....I think it's the most unapproachable of the albums tracks.
An über-noise track of dissonance and distortion and the favourite of most live audiences.
Peronally, I love the middle-section of pure noise and a quotation of Sonic Youth's Brother James.
But I recommend to skip this one if you can't handle it...

4. Hiroshima (Bassti: Bass guitars & voice / Gish: Guitars & narrator's voice / Fofie: Violine) :
The first song we ever finished and also the first of our two Post Rock monoliths.
The topic is isolation, lonliness and shizophrenia.
Yes, there are many themes and sections featured here...firstly, the harmonic jumps of guitar and bass guitar, than the posty middle section featuring the most haunting violine and thirdly a heavy metal finale.

5. 64 Cell Square (Bassti: Bass guitars & voice / Gish: Guitars) :
The second and even more lethal Post Rock monolith. Featuring melodies, distortion and a long, winding and trippy bass section in the middle...just let yourself go on the trip.
A piece full of desperation and angst. It used to be my personal favourite until...

6. Alte Kaiser Stadt (Bassti: Bass guitars & voice 2nd verse / Gish: Guitars & voice 1st and 3rd verse / Fofie: Violine):
This is our calm and beautiful ending, heavily worshiping the 90s Smashing Pumpkins.
It's not only a rather common song, but it also features, again, a beautiful melody and sexual lyrics that make you feel bad in a good way (maybe you'll get the pro-homosexuality message).
My favourite by far.

Everything was written and performed by WHYLA.
We also do own the full copyright.
Spread it if you want to - FOR FREE!!!
And enjoy it yourself.

The Downloads:

HQ-MP3s ripped from the master-disc:

www.megaupload.com/?d=AT8FHXAQ

Lossless original WAVs:

www.megaupload.com/?d=3H2IHTJI

(Artwork still to come....)

Have an avantgarde day...

Cool! Going to download and listen now. Don't think I'll be making it to any shows any time soon unfortunately...

Also, I guess I'll throw in my own update...

We started working on a demo album ALMOST A YEAR AGO NOW. Last June I believe, to be exact. Well we've never been able to get the music to sound just right until recently, when we handed the multi-tracks over to a lad on a Weezer forum (go figure). We all go to school and/or work, so this hasn't exactly been priority one, which is why it has taken this long to get anything done.. but we'll have it done soon! We've got some silly artwork in the works, and just found an absolutely amazing deal on merch that we couldn't pass up as well which means t-shirts! Exciting. We have a show tomorrow evening as well, and if we can get somebody to record it, we will.

Seems like an exciting time for thepumpkins.net bands!

Wow Don, if only Billy was that fast!

And Rivers, demo albums don't have to be perfect. The songs I have on my ipod by you are just fine for a demo album.

Don't you dare overproduce this album Rivers (like Weezer does these days). If you leave a cake in the oven too long it will burn.

I'm listening now. It is different. Why won't you guys ever use a drummer?

I really like Edge City. It feels so bleak and hopeless, kinda of apocalyptic. Hiroshima is good too. I get that same feeling from it as Edge City. The Ian Curtis Way of Life is cool too, except what is that like, popping/thump noise when the drums kick in. How long have you guys had these songs? Any new ones from the recording sessions?

Also, some of the songs remind me of Godspeed You!

Also Don,

www.last.fm/music/Whyla

FIll it out!

ryon wrote:

Nah don't worry. Because of the way it was recorded there's no way it'll sound too commercial and/or thin, but I'm still really critical of what I do so I/we have to be happy with it before it goes out!

Thank you for your poitive comments, dreamelectric.

That sound on Ian Curtis is dead notes on a very muted bass (the arranged sign to switch on drums and to kick-in for me;) )

I don't think a drummer would improve most pieces but rather destroy them (except Ian Curtis which is performed live with the album's programming).

We also thought about God Speed You Black Emperor when we were recording it - I'm not kidding.

Most of the songs are rather old.
Battlefield and Horoshima reach back almost two years and Ian Curtis is almost that old.
64 is probably one year old, so the real new ones are Edge City and Alte Kaiser Stadt (which was even finished in the recording sessions). Another new one is Odd (Thomas) but the recording turned out to be rather bad, so it's back on the shelves as a live track.

Here are our live only and outtake tracks which are not included:

- Odd (Thomas)*
- Chose Life [completly skipped by now]
- Spine [a live prog rock impro with Fofie on vox]#
- The Jazz Impro [an accedentialy recorded and reconstructed impro for the shows]*
- Semi-somnolent appraisial [Another Sonic-Youth-wannabe impro also with Fofie on vox]*
- What would Lee Ranaldo do ? [a beautiful post rock semi-imro from our very beginning that should be re-performed]*
- Obit [An avantgarde solo-guitar piece with me on vox which was also skipped but perfromed once]*#

* = studio recording exists
#= live reording(s) exist(s)

Well I say you guys are off to a very good start!

Don, I'm still trying to get the official Pumpkins.net band rolling! We need to find musicians and see who wants to do what and what we want to play.

Thank you, again .

You could instantly have my guitars and sick ideas for the official band, but how to perform, record and rehears ?

Holy nuts, cleaning up my DIY-library I found a home demo of my first sketch of Hiroshima from April 2009 recorded all alone..it's extremly different and full of stupid guitar-to-midi experiments and laughable lyrics.

Well I think if someone record an idea, or maybe a drum track then someone else builds on it, We could send the files back and fourth. I'm not sure about who has what, but I have stuff I can record with. So, if we can find enough people to do various things, maybe we can get a song down.