DOLPHIN BEAM 5.5

Ah Dolphin Beam...






Those were the days.

We were so young and full of energy, it feels like it all happened a year or two ago... and yet it DID!!!!

Okay Dolphin Beam was founded in one way or another by: Colin Alexander, James Chapman, Ben Collins (me), Jon Lynn and Kevin Phillips. We used to play a lot of shows and it was fun and crazy. It was all improvised, as you will certainly be able to hear.

We haven't played in a while but in total I think we did like ten or so albums, a couple of them lost forever. This record was toward the end of our time being productive as a live band and the start of time as more of an album band.

Playing on this record are:

Colin Alexander: playing mostly clarinet, I think some percussion and probably some keyboards

Jon Lynn: Singing lead, playing mostly organ, and maybe percussion and he might even play clarinet at some point.

Kevin Phillips: playing the more strummed guitar stuff and percussion

Ben Collins: playing the more lead-ish guitar, recorder, some percussion, backing vocals, and keyboard at some point.

Colin recorded and mixed it



Tracks:

1. Here comes the fog
2. Ride the sky
3. The Dolphin rides again
4. The Hero's journey


Maybe one day The Dolphin truly will ride again... until that day we will console ourselves with glorious abstract, improv folk-pop of this album.


Download it here

LIGHTSNAKE

Two days in a row, a guess I'm on a roll.

Anyway, this album should have been posted up sooner. It was completed almost a year ago and has been waiting to be heard since then. LIGHTSNAKE is a record of noise music performed by Travis 'TK' Knowles and myself. I put those names in that order for a reason: this record is TK's baby and I am honored to have played on it, (by the way travis does have an actual 'baby' which can be viewed here).

The material that makes up this album was recorded in a few hours one afternoon at the now defunct Atlanta College of Art. I think I was on spring break, it was my senior year of college and I was downtown in Atlanta, I think, buying the last Liars album. Travis and I made plans to record some and I went by his school, (which at the time had a great sound lab full of analog syths). We jammed for a while on computers, synths, minidisc and delay pedal, and we got "the best falafel in town" at the a place in colony square. I don't remember which came first, the falafel or the jamming. It was all over very quickly and a few months later Travis gave me this record.

Some of it was recorded by him at a later date, and all of it was edited and mixed by him. So I don't think I am stroking my ego when I say I think it is amazing. It is dynamic and well structured, especially for a noise record. If you like noise I think you will dig it, and if you don't: I think you might be surprised.

Credits:

Travis 'TK' Knowles: Computer and electronics
Ben Collins: Minidisc, synth, and electronics

Recorded and mixed by Travis Knowles

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B. Davis Collins - Calm Sounds (for Molly)

So this one is a big change of pace for me. This album is one of the first of electronic compositions that I have completed in quite a while. Although electronic music was the first type of music I ever made I don't often finish an electronic album that I am pleased enough with to play for people.

But the circumstances surrounding this record are very different from other albums I have made. It all started when my friend and frequent collaborator Colin Alexander mentioned that his girlfriend Molly Evans (also my friend) had requested that he make some music for her to meditate to. I heard this and for whatever reason wanted in. Molly is a good friend of mine and the idea of making something just for her was appealing, also appealing was the idea of making music I wouldn't have made under other circumstances. And so a month later there is this album.

It is comprised of only rain sounds that I recorded and processed. I made it all on my computer, usually at night.

All sounds by Ben Collins

1. The Rain
2. The Ghost of the Rain.

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