Show Notes
This one is a drone piece, with a 6Hz binaural beat. There's also a bit of synthesizer in the mix, which I rarely use but in this case I wanted to bring the binaural beat more forward in the mix. The synth drone helps to blend everything together smoothly.
I think the last real droney piece I did was Advent, which was something like two and a half years ago. Normally I try to go for a bit more structure, but this time around I wanted something that could serve as a relaxation piece. I think it works, and hope you'll enjoy it. As usual, the lossless version is available at: http://www.petalmusic.org/beats
MP3 here and also available through iTunes or other RSS readers:
Ocotillo
More from The Binaural Banjo
A couple years ago there was a podcast episode names A Thousand Ages. I like the name and have recycled it as the title of my latest Petal release - while the phrase is from an old hymn, my use is inspired by Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, a sci-fi classic which begins with a quote from the hymn.
Too much time has passed since the last Binaural Banjo episode, and I confess that many things have me contemplating the future of this podcast. I've been making lots of music lately, but my ideas and the way the tunes come together don't generally fit the vibe of the podcast.
Breaking with the usual guitar and banjo duet approach, this tune includes a couple low synth parts. I've also been experimenting a lot lately with poly-rhythms and overlapping time signatures, looking for surprises and interesting intersections of beats and phrases, and although some of that stuff has come out too abstract for what I like to do with this podcast there is a touch of that here towards the end.
First off, I should say that this tune is pretty dark and noisy. On the one hand, I think it makes some interesting changes from the kind of music I generally post. On the other, I tend to think of the Binaural Banjo as an outlet for my more melodic and light offerings and this tune just doesn't go there. Not for lack of trying - part of the delay in getting a tune up here is the fact that everything I produce lately turns out dark, regardless of how it starts out.