94: 8-channel electroacoustic music (10:00 duration)

94 (8-channels, 10-minutes duration)

In 1994 I completed a series of solo song demos that were grounded in what was still referred to at the time as alternative music, and influenced by a host of post punk and ambient bands that I followed, especially those associated with original incarnation of the label 4AD. I wrote and recorded a series of tracks using an acoustic guitar, electric bass, Yamaha DX-9 keyboard, Roland R70 drum machine, rack FX processor and my own vocals, though some of the tracks were purely instrumental. Recorded onto a Fostex 4-track recorder, and subsequently mixed down to stereo cassette tape, I didn't end up doing anything with the demos, and the tapes themselves ended up in storage in my parent's garage, enduring the temperature extremes of nearly 30 years of Canadian summers and winters. During a period of research leave in 2023, I decided to transfer parts of the cassette archive to digital media and in the process rediscovered the 1994 demos, much of which I remembered quite well, but with a couple of unfinished tracks that I had completely forgotten about. This rediscovery inspired me to first complete one of the unfinished tracks, and then to sample elements of 4 or 5 tracks to use as sound material in a new electroacoustic work. All of the sounds in 94 are derived from the original demos, subject to different transformations and re-mixing, and through sampling directly from the same drum machine that still functioned after all the intervening years. In a sense, 94 merges, or morphs between, my different 'musical selves', past and present.