Contention, the next studio album

I apologize for the lack of updates about the current music project. Life has a way of... getting in the way.

I just wrote up a schedule. See, Andrew Sega of Iris, who most of you probably know as Necros, said that either write electronic albums, or bit the bullet and start a band. Biting the bullet is right.

Challenges abound from getting the precision of MOD files into live recording, to actually getting my lineup solidified. Then, there's marketing more than simply an email blast, and while Club Silicon has exceeded my expectations in terms of its readership, I'd like this album to be somewhat mainstream for exposure, and that may or may not mean going with a CD Baby-like entity or the folks that can "get you into iTunes".

But the simple goals are still there. Write music I want to write, announce it to as many people as possible, and hope they enjoy it.

I won't divulge just what kind of music it is, except at this point you know there's live recording involved. In addition, while I believe I announced release this year, it ain't going to happen. But there is now a hard date. I will NOT be a Battlecruiser 3000 AD or a Duke Nukem Forever.

April 1st, 2009.

No April foolin'. Mark your calendars.

Comments

[Kitsunexus]

So...Contention in it's current form is...canceled? T_____T

Words cannot express my utter disapointment and sadness, I was really looking forward to this CD!

PLEASE don't scrap the previous album for a live band, live bands ALWAYS suck, there is just something completely and totally awesome about computer generated music.

If you are scrapping the previous stuff, can you please put it on the web so we can hear what it WAS going to sound like? You can put up a disclaimer to let people know that those tracks DO NOT represent the final work.

I don't mean to sound pessimistic, it's really cool that you ARE making another album, it's just that "MAINSTREAM" and "LIVE MUSIC" are two words that are usually NEVER welcome.

I will still keep waiting, and still buy your album, because I am a BIG fan of your stuff (especially Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (which I will defend as the best videogame soundtrack of all time), Unreal Tournament (second best), and Deus Ex (I dunno where this one would place, but it's up there).

And thank you for being the few, the proud, the PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY PUT A RELEASE DATE ON THINGS. People need to stop making fun of crates and start cracking down on "When it's done".

[suneel]

"So...Contention in it's current form is...canceled?" postphoned to April 1st, 2009.

[Kitsunexus]

Postphoned? Do you mean it's going to be converted to 11khz mono MP3s? Or do you mean he will just phone it in?

http://actuallynotbad.net/rimshot.wav

[suneel]

lol no, it means instead of 2008 it will be 2009. i am sure alex has the right equipment to dish out industry standard 44.1khz stereo :)

[Kitsunexus]

lol

[Kitsunexus]

lol i completely understand.

[Alex]

Hi guys,

Kitsunexus, just to address your concern, I'm not forming a live band, but I am adding live instruments and getting a couple of vocalists. There's still quite a bit of MOD influence in there along with a lot of my own style from the past, but there's an awful lot that's new also. If you're a fan of Necros he's gone ahead and made incredible music with Buzz + vocals with Iris. Of course there's not much acoustic stuff, I'm going more acoustic. But I am NOT going all Trent Reznor and replacing synths entirely with guitar.

Essentially I've picked songs that I always wanted to soup up, put lyrics to and release in homage to such bands as Yes and Toto. But I get urges every once in awhile to put something together that's without lyrics and more like Ozric Tentacles or ye olde demoscene / MOD stuff.

[Kitsunexus]

YAY! Thank you! YOU RULE! *bows to Alexander Brandon*

[Martin_161]

Hi Alex, I'm looking forward to what you will do with adding live instruments to your great sound! Good to hear you don't want to loose some of the feel of the old mod stuff. I've been following your game soundtrack work since Unreal blew me away and into another dimension when I was only 13 or so when I first played it. I was so excited when I found your website a few weeks ago, it's great that you're releasing your own music now, and I'm enjoying the first album. Cheers, Martin

[Saracen]

Awesome site, and good music, too. I just downloaded "Muse", "Incubus" and "Dragonfly" the other day. Gotta say, Mr. Brandon, you deliver! I'm more acquainted with your work from Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, and Deus Ex: Invisible War. Can't wait to hear your next album. Keep up the good work!

[suneel]

i am not aware alex worked on invisible war. it just didnt have the A Brandon feel to it. maybe worked on it invisibly? anyways that game was a disappointment. it was like eating out at McDucks fast food instead of your fav cosy restaurant

[Kitsunexus]

suneel, wasn't AB just audio director at the time?

Here's the info from the Mobygames (http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/deus-ex-invisible-war/credits):

Audio Director: Alexander Brandon
Audio: Mark Lampert, Todd Simmons
Session Musicians: Ian Davidson, Shane O'Madden, F. Joseph Santori

[Alex]

Yes, I was audio director on Invisible War, and I wrote 90% of the soundtrack. While I think the soundtrack works, it isn't my favorite especially in terms of a stand alone soundtrack. A certain creative director at Ion Storm (not Warren Spector) insisted on a very low key "Thief"-like atmosphere, which really was a little too far in that direction imo. But ah well.

Unlike many others I actually enjoyed the game quite a bit though.

[suneel]

wow i see. i think i should mention this...when i played unreal the music gripped me, it was a one to one mapping of the game theme and the music theme. then a year later at a friends house i played deus ex and i got the same music feel i got in unreal, which just got me hooked on. in my brain i was like hey this feels sweet like unreal! at that point in time i was a kid and i never knew much about music, game devs or musicians. the music in those games was very elaborately detailed and dynamic. for each level a different music was painted. not one music for several levels. also for each action sequence, kill sequence there was a nice music loop which was derived from the main theme. (just skip to the end of the mods and you will see what i mean).....so coming from that direction and playing ex2, i just got that feeling and so thats why i thought it was not probably..... :)

so alex if that certain creative director did not emphasize on the thief like atmos, what could have been the outcome?

[Kitsunexus]

That makes me mad too, because XMplay wants to rip all of the sub-tunes in the Deus Ex mods to like separate MP3s, and it was very obviously written as one whole of a song. I'm just going to use ModPlug Player.

Also, you can listen to the different DX subtunes by using the "legend" code.