This was mostly written and recorded throughout 1999, though some of it goes as far back as 1997. Lots of firsts came with this album.
Noel2k was my most cohesive album yet. Previous albums has been collections of one-off experiments and improvisations. Creating this involved going through hours of improvisations, searching for pieces that fit a certain mood. I wound up with 14 pieces, then whittled it down to these 8. Then I arranged the hell out of them; save for some sectioning, cleaning, and adding and removing superfluous repeats, these are all pretty much just rerecordings of the original improvisations with lots and lots of stuff piled on.
This was the first thing I ever recorded entirely on my computer; everything was recorded using an Echo Layla 20-bit soundcard using Cakewalk Pro Audio 8 for the mixing.
This was also the first time I'd ever really spent a large portion of time on one set of pieces. This is an approach I obviously took to -- my current project involves between 7 - 10 pieces that I've been refining for about 3 years now.
But enough of this blather - here's the tunes:
1: Off [9.9Mb]
Man, I love this thing. Does anyone want to make a movie for it to be a soundtrack to?
2: Precious [6.2Mb]
An improvisation on acoustic guitar. Total fluke. Immediately after I recorded it, I rewound and recorded to another track. Suddenly it was a duet. I didn't even try to reproduce it -- this is the original recording.
3: Love Song #1 [10.4Mb]
I cringe when I hear my voice. Hopefully you won't. I think this song creeped a lot of people out, or maybe nobody wanted to tell me it sucked. Either way, no one ever said anything about it. These are by far the most hilarious lyrics I've ever written, and they should be taken in that light.
4: Clock [5.3Mb]
I wish I had spent more time on this one. I love the idea of using my parents' old clock as percussion, but I think it detracted from this piece. Oh well, it's long done.
5: Perfect [14.9Mb]
Perfect was two pieces on the original tape, but the start of the second one was so close to the first that I got used to hearing them as one so I kept them that way. So I made the first part an extended instrumental introduction to what otherwise is a pop song. If there's a hit single on this album, this is it.
6: Pinstripe [6.4Mb]
This is the other one that I wish I had taken more time on. The arrangement was spit out at the last minute, and most of the additions I tried didn't work. The clarinet is playing the part I would have liked to be a vocal - to me, this song wants to be very close to "Steady Girl" by Bill Frisell. Maybe I'll redo it that way one day.
7: Swell [12.4Mb]
Quite possibly my favorite piece I've ever done. Heavily inspired by The Melvins. Tension through repetition, tension through slooooow, tension through dissonance, tension through ambient washes, growing to an EXPLOSION resolving to... tension.
8: Pristine [7Mb]
I don't recall if Pristine was a convienient bookend akin to "Precious", or if I recorded it specifically for that purpose. but same general idea, only 3 acoustic guitars.