Atom Heart's Rather Interesting World Of Digital Drums

On this CD you will find nine categories, each of which represents styles or sounds reflected in my music during my existence on this planet. These categories are for guidance only, and to please my aesthetic sensibilities. You may find certain loops out of place or perhaps better located in another category. The truth is that those categories are considered 'peaks' (or points of reference) in a continuum of what music and sound mean to me. All the samples on this CD have one thing in common: they were entirely generated on a digital level, using a very minimalist set-up. Each loop is the product of many production steps: resampling, editing, reprogramming, etc., using and abusing the architecture and structure of digital equipment. Clicks, digital filter resonances, distortion, clipping, etc. - usually considered to be unwanted artifacts - are the core of this aesthetic, which aims to develop binary beauty instead of emulating analog sounds. Whenever you think this CD or your CD player is broken you can be sure that I have programmed it this way. Many of the loops you will find on Atomizer™ are actually unquantized and played by hand, not using the rigid timing grids of modern electronic music. Other loops have been generated by throwing virtually any raw material into the sampler and using its architecture to produce the rhythm. All loops have been sequenced on the Akai MPC3000, thus BPMs indicated refer to its Midi clock speed, which may differ slightly from other Midi clock speeds. Track annotations: #2 to #9 (Slo Motion™) Here you will find all kinds of atmospheric and/or downtempo beats. Emphasis is put on the binary mutation of such rhythms. Some of the loops may contain tonal elements. BPM: 40.3 to 116.0. #10 to #15 (Dig-Hop™) My interpretation and re-definition of Hip-Hop grooves... A style which urgently needs an update. Dig-Hop is based mainly on digital percussion, raw material and/or DSP-processed acoustic drums. BPM: 64.1 to 108.5. #16 to #23 (8-bit Boogie™) 8-bit Boogie refers to digital 'Electro' style grooves. The analog character which is usually connected with this style was eliminated and instead I provide an updated digital version. BPM: 89.0 to 135.0. #24 to #33 (Cut 'N' Paste™) My 'Cut 'n' Paste' section avoids the typical sounds used to produce typical kinds of beats. I used either selfmade DSP-based drum sounds or extremely treated and edited acoustic raw material to generate the rhythms in this section. BPM: 143.0 to 182.1. #34 to #43 (Supertropical™) My friend Señor Coconut invented this fusion out of Latin American grooves and digital abstractness. Supertropical contains digital Cha-Cha-Chas and Mambos as well as undefined rhythms which simply use the Latin swing. BPM: 88.0 to 196.5. #44 to #52 (Scientific Freestyle™) As the title suggests, rhythms which refuse to fit into any of the other categories on this CD. All types of speed, quantizations and signatures. Some loops may contain tonal bits. BPM: 68.0 to 209.4. #53 to #61 (Repetitive Digital Noise™) Beats created from various types of sampler/DSP abuse, such as clipping, resonances, or hard/software crashes. While many of these loops could have been placed in other categories, I include them here because the groove comes more from the digital artifacts than the underlying rhythm. BPM: 69.0 to 169.5. #62 to #71 (World Shuffle™) The world shuffle is based on the MPC3000's 'Swing' function. The 'Swing' quantize was always set to 75%. Some loops may contain combinations of various quantizations and Swings. BPM: 68.0 to 189.0. #72 to #78 (Percussion O.D.™) Intended to be layered with other loops, rather than used alone. BPM: 80.7 to 180.8. All sounds on "Atomizer™" generated, programmed, and recorded digitally at "Mira Musica", Santiago De Chile 1999. Equipment used: S6000, MPC3000, Kyma/Capybara 66 and Apple Macintosh G3 Powerbook. © Copyright 1999 Big Fish Audio Released in standard jewel case with 12-page booklet.