24 Nov
2013
24 Nov
'13
11:01 p.m.
Hail citizens!
M'colleague and I are proud to announce the first releases from Julius
Quintus, LAU's least-productive prog supergroup (for which I am entirely
to blame -- the productivity thing, that is, I'm only partially to blame
for the music).
These were recorded at JQ's first recording session (and second ever
meeting) in August 2010, in the UK.
Rough mixes were done three years ago, but they've languished ever
since, basically waiting for me to get my arse into gear. An injury
earlier in the year that rendered me unable to play, together with other
personal circumstances, made it a good opportunity to revisit these two
pieces and finally do them justice.
I'd like to take this opportunity to dedicate these two pieces to
m'colleague, Julien, as a thank you for all the friendship and music
we've shared, and as an apology for being so damn slow with everything.
Those that can, make music: those that can't, make excuses. We have a
good partnership: m'colleague makes the music and I have a batch of
freshly made excuses specially prepared...
https://soundcloud.com/quirq-uk/julius-quintus-as-a-cloud
https://soundcloud.com/quirq-uk/julius-quintus-time-to-go
Details and other links further below. We hope you enjoy and, as always,
comments are welcomed.
No capes, Persian rugs, curries, knives or ice rinks were harmed during
the making of this music.
Ave,
Julius Quintus
---
AS A CLOUD PASSES THE SUN, SO MY LIFE TURNS GREY
This main bulk of this short piece was written in the studio in August 2010.
The flute was added later in August, following the main session. The
take was only supposed to be a placeholder until a better one could be
recorded, but so far that hasn't happened. So the flute playing is even
crappier than is usual.
The guitar overdubs were the last to be done, being added in September
2010 following an inspirational break in Orkney.
J: Black Grand piano, Virtual String Machine, M-Tron Pro (three violins,
eight choir), drums
Q: guitars (SA503TVL, Les Paul), fretless bass, flute, percussion
Music: J&Q
Engineering, mixing & mastering: Q
SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/quirq-uk/julius-quintus-as-a-cloud
FLAC download:
http://juliencoder.de/nama/Julius_Quintus-As_A_Cloud_Passes_The_Sun_So_My_L…
---
TIME TO GO [6:01]
This was a studio marmalade -- you can't really jam a full prog piece
with two people -- recorded in August 2010.
Piano and guitar were laid down together with the string machine overdub
quickly following (sadly not the real deal, since the studio wasn't
equipped with real string machines until later). The next day, the drums
were improvised/overdubbed, followed by the bass (improvising on a
fretless was not the best of ideas and protestations were made!).
The improvised lead guitar part was overdubbed on the last full day in
the studio, as it was beginning to dawn that it would soon be time to go
and something needed to be laid down. It's the first take.
The other details were added during pre-production, which commenced this
summer.
J: Black Grand piano, Virtual String Machine, drums
Q: guitars (SA503TVL), fretless bass, ChamberTron (female voice, male
voice), M-Tron Pro (boys' choir, female choir, male choir), Little
Phatty SII, Dark Energy, percussion
Music: J&Q
Engineering, mixing & mastering: Q
SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/quirq-uk/julius-quintus-time-to-go
FLAC download:
http://juliencoder.de/nama/Julius_Quintus-Time_To_Go.flac
---
Our special thanks go to, but are not limited to, all those behind:
Ardour, Linuxsampler, Hydrogen, linuxDSP, Calf, Invada, zita, IR, SWH,
Guitarix, ZamAudio, GForce Software, Sampletekk, NI, plus Ian Shepherd.
25 Nov
25 Nov
12:26 a.m.
Thanks for sharing.
Nice piece. My only complaint is that when the flute part gets a tad
harsh (not sure if that's the right word), like you're having trouble
getting all the notes. I'd prefer to hear those runs more easily
played.
Nice tune. I'm not sure if guitar was the best choice of inst. for the
melody. I'd have chosen something else ... flute? Or even a big organ
sound? Well, I would have chosen sax, but that is my main instrument
these days :)
Details and other links further below. We hope you enjoy and, as always,
No capes, Persian rugs, curries, knives or ice rinks
were harmed during the
making of this music.
Damn. Not being a fan of curries I'd hope you would have arranged for
less of them in this world :)
--
**** Listen to my FREE CD at http://www.mellowood.ca/music/cedars ****
Bob van der Poel ** Wynndel, British Columbia, CANADA **
EMAIL: bob(a)mellowood.ca
WWW: http://www.mellowood.ca
10:57 a.m.
On 2013-11-24 23:26, Bob van der Poel wrote:
Yeah, I'm not really a curry-eater either and people tend to assume you
are in this part of the world. I'll never give Wakeman a run for his
money in the keyboard stakes either :-D
Thanks for sharing.
No problem, many thanks for listening and commenting.
Nice piece. My only complaint is that when the flute part gets a tad
harsh (not sure if that's the right word), like you're having trouble
getting all the notes. I'd prefer to hear those runs more easily
played.
I'm glad you liked it, despite my crappy flute playing.
Tone sadly never was one of my strong points (along with vibrato,
breath control, technique... ;-) ) and certainly isn't these days as I
don't play or practice anywhere near often enough.
I'd always intended practicing the part more and doing a better take
when I wasn't so tired: I seem to recall my lungs being on their very
last legs so to speak when I recorded it. I was definitely running out
of air at various points, but I've never had good lung fitness even when
I played regularly.
There are parts where the tone is okay, but a lot of it is far too
breathy for my liking. I suspect the "good" tone bits might be the ones
that you find a bit harsh. Some of the runs were certainly not as fluid
as they could've been. I did learn from the experience that it's not a
good idea to try writing, practicing AND recording a wind part all in
one go!
Nice tune. I'm not sure if guitar was the best choice of inst. for
the
melody. I'd have chosen something else ... flute? Or even a big organ
sound? Well, I would have chosen sax, but that is my main instrument
these days :)
Again, glad you enjoyed it. Whilst I am a keyboard player, I do find it
necessary to counter Julien so that ruled out more keyboard parts and it
wouldn't have been his worst Floydian nightmare with anything other than
guitar, so I had to oblige :-D
But the choice of instrument came first and the melody second. I'm not
sure a flute solo would've been big and epic enough for the piece,
certainly not with my skill level. A Jaxon or Collins-esque solo
could've worked nicely.
No capes,
Persian rugs, curries, knives or ice rinks were harmed
during the
making of this music.
Damn. Not being a fan of curries I'd hope you would have arranged for
less of them in this world :) 
11:42 a.m.
In Nov 25 A.D. 2013 Q scripsit:
On 2013-11-24 23:26, Bob van der Poel wrote:
[...]
>> No capes, Persian rugs, curries, knives or ice
rinks were harmed during
>> the
>> making of this music.
>
> Damn. Not being a fan of curries I'd hope you would have arranged for
> less of them in this world :)
Hey you two, a curry was harmed. It was the first
meal, after arriving
on British soil, that I had. A really nice one with some mint sauce!
Nothing better at elvenish at night. :-)
Spicily yours
Julien
12:37 p.m.
That doesn't count as it was consumed neither on-stage nor mid-guitar
solo ;-)
Q
On 2013-11-25 10:42, Julien Claassen wrote:
In Nov 25 A.D. 2013 Q scripsit:
On 2013-11-24 23:26, Bob van der Poel wrote:
[...]
>> No capes, Persian rugs, curries, knives
or ice rinks were harmed
>> during the
>> making of this music.
> Damn. Not being a fan of curries I'd hope you would have arranged
> for
> less of them in this world :)
Hey you two, a curry was harmed. It was the
first meal, after
arriving
on British soil, that I had. A really nice one with some mint sauce!
Nothing better at elvenish at night. :-)
Spicily yours
Julien 
12:44 p.m.
On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 11:42:43AM +0100, Julien Claassen wrote:
In Nov 25 A.D. 2013 Q scripsit:
I didn't know Elves ate curries! Well, you learn something new every
day. :)
--
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people
who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the
oppressing." --- Malcolm X
On 2013-11-24 23:26, Bob van der Poel wrote:
[...]
>>No capes, Persian rugs, curries, knives or
ice rinks were
>>harmed during the
>>making of this music.
>
>Damn. Not being a fan of curries I'd hope you would have arranged for
>less of them in this world :)
Hey you two, a curry was harmed. It was the first
meal, after arriving
on British soil, that I had. A really nice one with some mint sauce!
Nothing better at elvenish at night. :-)
9:33 a.m.
Ave!
M'colleague, you are too kind. I've enjoyed it all just as much.
In addition to good friendship and fellow musicianship. In addition it has
always been a privilege to play and record in your studio. All those lovely
instruments and I was allowed to make some love to them. :-) But when it comes
to apologies, we've all got reasons for them. How about all the work I
convinced you to do, whilst here and the very little time we got to actually
make music.
I'd love to conclude this mail with yet another greatful word: thanks for
those beautiful masters. It may have taken some time, but it was worth it!
Salve
Julius
----------------------------------------
Music, creative writing, technical information:
http://juliencoder.de/
30 Nov
30 Nov
8:38 p.m.
On Sun, 24 Nov 2013 22:01:30 +0000
Q <lists(a)quirq.net> wrote:
Hail citizens!
M'colleague and I are proud to announce the first releases from Julius
Quintus, LAU's least-productive prog supergroup (for which I am entirely
to blame -- the productivity thing, that is, I'm only partially to blame
for the music).
These were recorded at JQ's first recording session (and second ever
meeting) in August 2010, in the UK.
Rough mixes were done three years ago, but they've languished ever
since, basically waiting for me to get my arse into gear. An injury
earlier in the year that rendered me unable to play, together with other
personal circumstances, made it a good opportunity to revisit these two
pieces and finally do them justice.
I'd like to take this opportunity to dedicate these two pieces to
m'colleague, Julien, as a thank you for all the friendship and music
we've shared, and as an apology for being so damn slow with everything.
Those that can, make music: those that can't, make excuses. We have a
good partnership: m'colleague makes the music and I have a batch of
freshly made excuses specially prepared...
https://soundcloud.com/quirq-uk/julius-quintus-as-a-cloud
https://soundcloud.com/quirq-uk/julius-quintus-time-to-go
Details and other links further below. We hope you enjoy and, as always,
comments are welcomed.
No capes, Persian rugs, curries, knives or ice rinks were harmed during
the making of this music.
Ave,
Julius Quintus
Hmm. Thought I'd commented on these.
However...
I liked them both, but thought 'as a cloud' suffered from being too
'studied',
probably due to the way it was recorded.
--
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.
11:37 p.m.
On 30/11/13 19:38, Will Godfrey wrote:
Hmm. Thought I'd commented on these.
However...
I liked them both, but thought 'as a cloud' suffered from being too
'studied',
probably due to the way it was recorded.
Hi Will
You have commented already, although it was over on KVR -- better twice
than never :-)
You mentioned there that you preferred Time To Go, but didn't go into
specifics. I did pass your comments on to Julien.
Thanks, I actually take that as a compliment since personally, I'd take
studied over improvised any day. It's not really possible to do decent
prog improvised, by the very nature of the music, unless perhaps when
you get a band like King Crimson. Even then, I bet they had a fair
number of misses with their improvs and the ones I've heard haven't had
the finesse of their composed pieces.
Time To Go is both the exception that proves the rule and an argument
against improv. I don't think I've ever before, and haven't since and
doubt I would again in the future, improvised a part that I've been able
to use whole sections from -- let alone in its entirety as in this case
-- on the Nth take, let alone the first.
I also had to do a huge amount of editing, correcting timing issues in
the drum performance (although the performance itself was otherwise
mostly fine), construct an in-tune and in-time bass part and do some
serious corrective mixing work on the piano because they were improvised.
The piece was essentially recorded in the same way as Cloud and
everything else that Julien and I have done individually, with overdub
after overdub, just in this case we didn't bother to write and practice
parts for it.
I know Julien loved the mix of TTG and the overall sound, but I think he
preferred Cloud as a piece of music and felt it had more going for it
because it was carefully written. It also doesn't help that TTG sounds a
bit Floydy and he hated them with a passion :-)
It's a shame he won't be able to chip in. But, he has sold all his music
gear, emigrated and has effectively dropped off the grid for the
forseeable future, although there's a chance he won't be totally
incommunicado indefinitely.
Sincerely, thanks again for listening and commenting (again) :-)
2 Dec
2 Dec
11:30 p.m.
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 22:37:03 +0000
Q <lists(a)quirq.net> wrote:
<snip>
It's a shame he won't be able to chip in. But,
he has sold all his music
gear, emigrated and has effectively dropped off the grid for the
forseeable future, although there's a chance he won't be totally
incommunicado indefinitely.
Wow! That's a bit extreme. I would have thought it simpler just to pay the
electric bill :)
Seriously, that seems a bit sudden. I hope he moved for a good reason and we'll
hear from him again.
--
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.
3968
days inactive
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9 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Bob van der Poel -
Chris Bannister -
Julien Claassen -
Q -
Will Godfrey