Welcome to waivestate

Welcome

Welcome to the waivestate newsletter. You're receiving this because you subscribed to my other email newsletter called bluelight, where I write very occasionally about design and technology. I don't really write bluelight anymore because I spend all of my spare time and creative energy making music and building synthesizer setups. I perform and release the resulting music under the name waivestate. If you're interested in the ways I approach design and technology, then I'm betting you'll be interested in my approach to music and technology.

I’d like this newsletter to be the main social media channel where I engage with people about my music. Instagram and Youtube are mostly interested in content about teaching and selling music gear, and I am mostly interested in making music for folks to listen to. The newsletter makes sense as a much less frequent, less gear-centric, more intimate, and more in-depth kind of communication.

Every month I will send updates, inspirations, exclusive session recordings, sound samples, field recordings, and behind-the-scenes stories about how and why I'm making music.

Accrete

A still from the Accrete music video

This inaugural edition of the newsletter coincides with the release of my latest recording, Accrete.

Mel (my partner) and I had the immense fortune to be on parental leave at the same time, so we took Juno (our kiddo) to visit Grandma in Barbados. I took my field recorder on the trip.

I carried Juno along the West Coast near Fitts Village every day for a week. She mostly slept in the baby harness and I made my sweaty way along the coast. We watched the cruise lines' floating cities come in and out of Bridgetown in the distance. I picked up bleached coral fragments and picked my way past the tide through shallows where the rocks looked like the frozen brains of ancient monsters.

We also saw the places where palm trees and foundations and beach chairs were being swept away by the slow, inexorable rise of the water. I couldn't help asking myself: "How much longer?" How much longer before the royal palms and the Coast Road and the coconut husks and the fire and brimstone churches are all swept away? What will they be like when the Earth pushes them back up again?

That was the inspiration for the piece.

You can watch a music video I made for the release on Youtube.

The making of Accrete

The track is made of 6 looping field recordings.

1. This field recording of the ocean

2. This one of me rubbing chunks of dead coral together in the shower of our hotel (I've been told that I'm a weird travel partner)

3. This one of birds at night on the fairway of a golf course near the South Coast, which I slowed down to 25% of it’s original speed and played backwards

4. Ditto with this one, but not quite so slow and a different bird

5. This one of a bamboo grove on a windy day in Coco Hill Forest.

6. A Christian church down the street put loud speakers out in front of the building on the Sunday we stayed in Fitts Village. They blasted the entire neighbourhood with out-of-tune singing interspersed with fire-and-brimstone sermons. This recording catches a snippet of that as well as the traffic on the Coast Road.

I sent those sounds through something called a "resonator" which uses math and computer code to create sonic simulations of physical objects like strings, metal bars, and caves. You play sounds into it, and those sounds "resonate" with the simulated objects living inside it. It also has a little keyboard that you can use to tell the resonator which notes to emphasize. That's where the chords in the piece come from.

I sent all of the resonated field recordings into my modular synth for more looping and effects.

This is what the whole mess looks like

The final piece was performed by me in one take with no overdubs.

You can download Accrete on Bandcamp or stream it wherever you get your music.

What do you think of Accrete? What would you like to see more of in this space? You can reply directly to this email, and I'll read everything you send me.

Thank you

Thank you for reading and listening. I recognize that there are many demands on your time and attention. I don't take it for granted. If you know anyone else who might enjoy the newsletter and/or my music, I really appreciate every single recommendation.