Robert Logan

An interesting moment while improvising with guitarist Daniel Rogerson in the early hours. (I knew him as a kid. Now he’s Olivia Dean’s guitarist lol.)

A friend is trying to persuade me to play live again, but a kind of "quiet music" concert - with volumes low enough to be manageable to someone with hyperacusis. The music I am making now is very cloudy; spectral, oblique and uncanny [an opposite zone to most recent releases] and would be suitable - but I don't get out much these days...how much interest would there be in very quiet dissonant music? :D Such is my ballooning ignorance that Cafe OTO is all that comes to mind.

@toffo@mastodon.social @energyismassivelight@mastodon.social @changterhune@mastodon.social @sean_ae@post.lurk.org I love that you imagined its true Form, and that both stances were selected. 🙏 Your choices are noble!

@energyismassivelight@mastodon.social @toffo@mastodon.social @changterhune@mastodon.social @sean_ae@post.lurk.org But what is a question? Poll Option 1: A question is an interrogative speech act that establishes a normative relation between speaker and addressee, characteristically soliciting the provision of information or the resolution of an epistemic deficit. Poll Option 2: A question is the linguistic articulation of an absence within a horizon of possible determination: it presents something not merely as unknown, but as requiring disclosure. (I couldn’t make a real poll because of the length of these; and a refuse to bow.)

I have put out some music. Feel free to give it a listen. https://robertloganmusic.bandcamp.com/album/otherscapes-unreleased-works-2006-2026

@energyismassivelight@mastodon.social @toffo@mastodon.social @changterhune@mastodon.social @sean_ae@post.lurk.org You have done it: we have arrived!

It is release day! 🥳 I decided to try a listening party for 'Otherscapes: Unreleased Works 2006- 2026'. The release is very long, and Bandcamp doesn’t let you stop it early - but it might be fun to chat for an hour or so? :) Many thanks to @HAPPENINGHOTDOG@universeodon.com again for his artwork. 🙏 It begins at 7pm UK time. https://robertloganmusic.bandcamp.com/merch/otherscapes-unreleased-works-2006-2026-listening-party

Hello, goat! 🇭🇺

Thank you so much to anyone who contributed to this. 🙏 I was able to tell those family members that a bit of help came through from this strange little place called Mastodon. ☺️ Sharing some of those other reasons behind this release did feel a bit awkward, and I debated not doing it. However, some friends off of here already know the situation, and it seems this place would read it charitably. (haven’t really shared the release anywhere else yet - apart from the message that went out with Bandcamp, where I of course didn’t include any of the background.) https://robertloganmusic.bandcamp.com/album/otherscapes-unreleased-works-2006-2026 (Also, I already said this, but the artwork was by @HAPPENINGHOTDOG@universeodon.com - who offered his help in a wonderful way. I hope we can buy physicals of his art soon. 😁)

I can’t tell if the heatstroke has made the improvising worse or the same.

@sean_ae@post.lurk.org @silvermoats@mastodon.social oh my gosh, you’ve triggered such distinct memories of loudness buttons from my childhood. I distinctly remember feeling “guilty” about liking it, like I wasn’t hearing the music as it “should” be. But I remember now a kind of proliferation of them, and how some sounded better than others; my dad’s hifi boosted things really nicely, but smaller more portable systems sounded even nastier when it was on, like they could barely cope with their own loudness buttons. As you mentioned though there’s probably similar-ish-in-principle but more sophisticated things going on with some modern phone and laptop speakers. :)

@elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @Maes_Matt@toot.community @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @ghostmeet@mastodon.social @HAPPENINGHOTDOG@universeodon.com @defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community @changterhune@mastodon.social A different day, a different time, and that first frog song I shared is joined by a new and increasingly complex array!

@elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @Maes_Matt@toot.community @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @ghostmeet@mastodon.social @HAPPENINGHOTDOG@universeodon.com @defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community @changterhune@mastodon.social Finally, the same spot at nighttime! A whole other sound creature. And with that, I’ll stop afflicting you all with these. :D

@miblo@mas.to @gloriouscow@oldbytes.space Dear Matt - I'm so sorry for missing this connect! Perhaps it's too late now - but either way, lovely to (virtually) meet you, gloriouscow!

@sean_ae@post.lurk.org @silvermoats@mastodon.social It was lovely to read of that experience of the Aiwa CA-100H and how glistening hats sounded / how any lowrate sampling came off as gorgeous. 😍 Very true what you said at the end. I’m not sure where I got that impossible notion from - but it was probably in the air at the time? Editions of ‘Sound on Sound’ were lying around. :D Flat monitoring is a sort of useful engineering fiction, but especially makes no sense as a target for music made on/for coloured playback. Over time I saw [the equivalent of] Boombox/PAs as the instrument and how all of that gets composed into the sound maybe like room acoustics get composed into orchestral writing, but that the the thought of attaining “the real” was ever there is still quite weird. And yeah, electronic music makes it even more obviously unresolvable, given there’s no acoustic referent. A third colouration stacked on the first two lol. On that note, I really like your idea for the Aiwa hunt and creation; a real target you can actually hit, unlike “should.” :D

@sean_ae@post.lurk.org Pretty wicked track, that. I like the remix even more than the original (no shade to that, which is very good also.) I always play your version to young people; it feels like it makes me briefly look much cooler than I actually am.

It’s Bandcamp Friday, and I can’t help but mention my latest release, ‘Otherscapes’ again - an 11-hour collection of previously unreleased works. I was a little sheepish about talking about this (or any aspect of it) before, given the length and all, but apart from the opening twelve tracks or so - which were intended as a broad survey, jolting between different styles to set the parameter space, if you like - the rest then settles into a flow, and was carefully sequenced for that kind of extended, labyrinthine, kaleidoscopic, endless-radio-channel-like experience. :) Some friends have suggested it was ridiculous to release the equivalent of eleven albums at once like that, but the feeling was there to take it on, and I like being able to be generous on my own Bandcamp. :D Proceeds still go towards people close to me who need some help. Either way, as always, any listens or support are greatly appreciated! It, um, works out at about 84p an hour. 😅 *awkwardness over* https://robertloganmusic.bandcamp.com/album/otherscapes-unreleased-works-2006-2026 Cover painting by @HAPPENINGHOTDOG@universeodon.com

@exinith@mas.to @elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @Maes_Matt@toot.community @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @ghostmeet@mastodon.social @HAPPENINGHOTDOG@universeodon.com @defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community @changterhune@mastodon.social Yeah, that’s a great way of putting it! Also, LOL to you and Matt’s comments. The frog’s ceaseless tones can certainly bring a kind of psychic solace - particularly where your own soul feels alien not only from being unhelpfully nocturnal, but also misaligned to the rest of society altogether too. 😅

@sean_ae@post.lurk.org Ha! No man, that minimal-but-mega-big swag with those vocals has to be a guarantee young human’s 🏆

@defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community @elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @Maes_Matt@toot.community @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @ghostmeet@mastodon.social @HAPPENINGHOTDOG@universeodon.com @changterhune@mastodon.social Ha! It sure sounds like it. (That’s a wondrous picture, btw. I assume you took it?)

@tsrono@mastodon.social Congratulations again on this. 🥳 🔥🎊🍻

@elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org that’s quite a great collection you have! Like you I haven’t actually played video games in years, really, despite still being interested in them…between work or music making and relaxing on here there doesn’t to be as much time for it. :D I mainly have old point n click adventures, like the ‘Broken Sword’ series, ‘Grim Fandango’, ‘Monkey Island’, ‘Sam and Max’…most of them, actually; and more games I loved as a kid, like ‘MDK’, ‘Little Big Adventure’, the ‘Creatures’ series. A couple of less old indie games like ‘Botanicular’ - those ‘S.T.A.L.K.E.R’ games. Am totally guilty of getting things on sale and never playing them too. 😬

@thisisnotparakovsky@convo.casa I thought only my mum and pa and wife were thinking of me. 🙏

@spiegelmama@infosec.exchange Ah, it’s lovely to hear this. 🙏 They haven’t complained yet, I’m happy to say! =) Thank you.

@elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org Thank you for asking! It can seem self-aggrandising to go into this (not my intention!), but to be honest most of how 'Cognessence' was seems this way to me now. Even the name itself - it was a made up word from a mixture of "cogs", "cognition", and "essence". That field between machinery, thought, and being. The inscape or essence of cognition; the beingness of thought; what can emerge from interlocking systems; the aura of the machine; the seeming aliveness of technological process (especially in music making.)...There was an instinctive fascination around these areas and how they interface - enough to name the album that - but only later do we "fill in" the details in what we read and find, it seems! 🙂 The music also seems to contain all the elements I'd still find interesting today, and sometimes it can feel like I did a better and speedier job of some aspects then! Polyrhythms, microtonal writing, beginning/informing a track's direction with field recordings you've made, making all the atmospherics for a piece with thick clusters of voice recordings ('Lost Highway'), feedback networks...For example, 'Proto Lexicon' was created by cutting up a recording of a baby with a lot of granular editing to signify early speech formation (the other element was made from bowing an autoharp and processing that); and I'm still exploring ideas around proto-lexicon with someone today. Again, don't mean all this to big it up - just being honest that certain directions and impetuses we have feel pretty "innate"! Like, we do gather new interests and side-quests along the way, but there's a fundamental orientation that is quite mysterious and hard to account for.

@elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org I hope so! They are due a replay. I think we’d enjoy the Monkey Islands a lot now in particular (which reminds me that we should try the remake - unless you already did.) Games did used to inspire tracks for me at times. Did they for you? There was a bit in ‘Half Life 2’ where you’re under this suspension bridge. The atmosphere was really on point; a celebration of steel and rust…and out of the feeling wrote ‘In Suspension’. But I kind of having a thing for certain bridges anyway. I mean those imposing, bare-steel ones that hide none of their brutality!

@sean_ae@post.lurk.org @MachineGrrrl@ravenation.club @Maes_Matt@toot.community @defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community “deranged funk” was how I used to try and sell ‘Draft 7.30’ to people at school. My evangelism was not so successful in those days, despite the enthusiasm. I hope you’re not offended; I wouldn’t call it that now. :D

@muz4now@mastodon.world Thank you! :sun_photo: That is very kind. 🙏

@defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community They may be onto something there! 🐦‍⬛ 🪶 🦜 🔥

@defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community @EVEL@c.im @keefmarshall@mastodon.online This post gave a lovely uplift to the day! Thank you, DMT. But even more importantly…please thank your birds for me. 🙏 Even if they don’t yet quite dig the music yet (or the vinyls, it seems.) One day I believe I’ll come up with something that bird minds appreciate. (But not a replication of their song, as that’s kind of cheating…)

@defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community @HAPPENINGHOTDOG@universeodon.com @elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @Maes_Matt@toot.community @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @ghostmeet@mastodon.social 🤣🤣

@Maes_Matt@toot.community @changterhune@mastodon.social @elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @ghostmeet@mastodon.social Haha, yes - know what you both mean! It has a sort of pure-tone quality that I find very unusual indeed. I’m going to try again today, as often there’s all kinds of unusual melodic / polyphonic variations, and it gets a lot denser than this with them. 🙏

@elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org Thanks for sharing that - I'm going to listen to this of yours in a new light, now. 🙏 (Just with people, so forgive my briefer / slower reply.) :) Your words on 'Cognessence' really mean a lot. It's true we romanticise that stage of music making sometimes, but it is also true that it's a wonderful period where it's all greener, isn't it? And fascinating how we hit on all these ideas musically that we'd later understand more consciously, but were already doing inductively.

@Black_Flag@beige.party @discoursology@social.coop @sean_ae@post.lurk.org Good point. In truth though I'm very happy with change in artists...but admittedly usually if that is to weirder ends. :D

@thisisnotparakovsky@convo.casa reading is the only thing I'm good at! And occasionally music.

@sfn@mastodon.world 😮

@Nixtrove@ohai.social 🚀🎉🥳👏🍾🎊

@thisisnotparakovsky@convo.casa is this book about religion and nothingness

@ayrtbh@fosstodon.org @exinith@mas.to @Maes_Matt@toot.community @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community PS - I was also once joined by a violist in a bizarre pub gig. But I asked him last minute. He did a great, but didn’t like lot total lack of instructions too much. :D

@HAPPENINGHOTDOG@universeodon.com I imagine so, given how nicely the first two tracks connect. 🙏

@changterhune@mastodon.social It's lovely to hear that! Thanks for listening. 🙏 (I actually love the heat, but my computer really doesn't. 😬)

@sean_ae@post.lurk.org @MachineGrrrl@ravenation.club @Maes_Matt@toot.community @defaultmediatransmitter@social.bitwig.community yeah, that was probably the sense! At the time “heavy” metal (including “nu” metal) were doing the rounds, which seemed the least uncontrolled music possible, so was probably trying to push that angle. Weird to think that there was a day where that’s what everyone found to be close to the edge.

@sean_ae@post.lurk.org 🙏 Apologies for a potentially annoying question, but do you remember gear you borrowed from his studio? Obvs the sounds are yours, but there's a quality to some of them that's really intriguing me. What's behind the crushed crunchy thing that comes in 6:34 especially (and how it evolves) and the stabbing glassy hits? Thanks so much for sharing. I properly enjoyed this. The way chords return and shift the feeling at the end. Such an excellent vibe. 👌

@elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @mcmullin@musicians.today I've not been there, no. :) Thank you both for the input and encouragement though. Seems this could have legs...! (I've played in a church / cathedral two or three times back when I played live, and it was wonderful to take advantage of the building's reverb.)

@novabrooks@selfhosted.cafe Ha! That’s excellent. And very likely true. 🐸🎶

@thisisnotparakovsky@convo.casa ooof, you’ve got me curious now dear Aleksas.