This one flew out of me, from out of nowhere with no warmup and no preconceived direction.
I played with some new effects methods in post too that I really like, but I’m unsure they can be duplicated live.
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At least I got something on paper before I lost the damn thing, like so many others.
i sing
most of the time when i record or play something, its to sing more than anything else. although singing just wouldnt be the same without my own accompaniment, its still my favorite part of the whole process. my voice is my main instrument, as i hope will always be the case in my music.
i play piano/synth
when i was much younger i played some piano, now ive graduated to synthesizers. i am not a very good player technically, but my ear helps me along more so with a keyboard than with guitar strings. i find that i am happier with the results i get when using keyboards, even if i do play rather slowly.
i play guitar
well, i used to play guitar. every once in a while i will pick one of my four guitars up and start plunking with it, realizing why they all collect so much dust. i really am not very good at it, but if you’d like to heard some of my guitar stylings i would suggest checking out my covers section of the music page.. i use my guitars very little in the recording process of my original works.
i record:
THEN: (Point of Origin, Cover songs)
to make my first album, i pumped my Roland Juno 106 synth to the line-in of my Ensoniq PCI card and recorded the base music that way. when i wanted to record vocals or other instruments, i would have to muck with cabling and volumes as i only had one input to the computer.
to record my vocals, i would copy the base music file to a second machine (a slackware 4 machine called ‘deroda’, whom has since died) and play it through headphones. as i listened, i would record improvised vocals through a cheap $4 computer microphone into anya and effect the vocals after the fact in sound forge. if i tried to play the file and record on the same machine, the audio would meld together and i would get bleeding music in the recorded vocal track.
i then mixed all the pieces together in a single .wav file, using sound forges ‘mix’ command. this was all done by ear, as i would pause the needle indicator where i felt i wanted a certain sound to mix into the track.
in 1996 when i recorded my first cover songs.. i used the same technique, only i didnt have a synth and i played guitar through the cheap ass microphone as well as singing through it. i also encoded at a much lower quality, because at the time i was more concerned about the file size than about the quality of the sound. (i was on dialup) i used the famed l3enc program to encode those files.
NOW: Sepulture, and whatever lies ahead.
my production technique (if one would like to call it that) has not changed much in the past years. i now have a multiple input mixer so i dont need to get behind my computer as often as i used to, and effects processors to sing through.. but all in all its mostly the same. i have a professional microphone and no longer use a second computer, but i still listen to the base music to improvise vocals. i also still use the one wave method of mixing in sound forge, as well.. though i think i am finally ready to try a sequencer.
minimal is my key. i like the way i do things, it is hard for me to complicate my setup. gradually, with pressure from others, i am becoming a more proficient and fickle producer.. the result of which i believe can be heard over the course of my musical history.
biography:
I began creating, recording, and distributing music online in 1995. I started with rudimentary and quite terrible quality covers, and distributed those through my personal website and friends via IRC.
In 1997, I joined mp3.com as a means of cataloging and distributing my music. In October of 1999, I produced and recorded my first song, “Infinite Reality”, in about 7 hours from nothing to finished. It became considerably popular in it’s genre on mp3.com, and made way for the songs which eventually comprised my first album, “Point of Origin”, which received rave reviews within the mp3.com community and occasionally outside it as well. All of the songs I created during that time materialized in hours.
During most of 2000, the acceptance and success from my music was almost overwhelming. By my standards, being as I was simply a lonely untrained musician whaling sad things into a $10 computer microphone, I was astounded at the response I got from my fellow musicians and music lovers.
I nearly immediately released a follow-up album, “Altercations”, to showcase the amazing collection of re-mixes done by other mp3.com artists, which had been lovingly presented to me unsolicited. Very few of my albums were ever produced to CD, as they were made-to-order, and both of my original albums are out of print. I suppose that means if anyone ‘important’ knows who I am, they are collectors items now. :)
Since my beginnings on mp3.com, I have been asked to be part of many projects, films, college assignments, musical compilations and various media streams. During this time I was also periodically solicited in regards to recording contracts, all of which I turned down. I produce my music in solitude, on my own terms and through my own avenues, that is part of how I am able to create what I do, and I have no current intention of commercializing it.
Live solo rehearsal of Threshold, from the untold depths of exhaustion. Practicing breathwork, mic technique, releasing my inner bobblehead and sinking into the flow of the energy I feel at the time — which tonight was being dead, dead wrung out and sleepy.
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This isn’t my best work, but I’ve often created some pretty cool stuff when I was utterly exhausted. Both “I put a Spell on You” and “Diuturnity” were created in this space, as well as countless of my self photographs and a few paintings. At the very least, I am impressed with the mistakes in this, and am getting better navigating them in performance and letting them flow past.
Not sure where the clicks are coming from. It sounded like the Juno, but now hearing the recording it sounds like it’s popping through the whole file. Our power is being weird in the house, I suspect it might be that. Hoping it’s not the synth acting up again — now that I hear it I remember these things popping up in my original recordings as well.
Embodied is a one-woman show illustrating a musical journey, and a rare public performance including much of my original music and distinctive cover songs. It depicts the sense of the personality fragmentation in youth, and the experience of slowly piecing ones self together to truly be a whole person. There will be live music, stunning visuals, palpable energy and an aerial performance. Anyone who enjoys being moved by the dark, melancholy, and profound will love this show.
Artist, performer, director and writer: Courtnee Papastathis (also as Zita the Aerialist)
Sound Engineering, back-up: Edgars Klepers
Visuals and Lights: Courtnee Papastathis and Miked Up Productions.
November 9th and 10th. 2011
8pm – 10pm
FRED Wildlife Refuge
127 Boylston St
Seattle, WA 98102
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Example track “Threshold”, from my first album, “Point of Origin”. Flash required to preview music.
ABOUT THE MUSIC:
I first emerged on mp3.com as “Not Applicable” in 1999, with my first track Infinite Reality immediately topping the ambient electronic charts. Over the next few years through mp3.com, two albums were released; Point of Origin in 2000, and Altercations in 2001.
Until the 2008 limited edition self released album “Songs of Leaving”, my first album in 8 years, I’ve mostly favored covers and lending vocals to other artists. In 2001 I produced vocals for The Dream Traveler (Joey Fehrenbach) for the tracks Structure and Headpusher. Described as “impressive and emotive”, both Structure and Headpusher were released together as a well-received single through Fade records in 2003. Headpusher was featured on Nick Warren’s Global Underground release Reykjavik.
In 2002, I sang on Scribe Machine’s album Replicant for the stand-out track Fragile, a top 10 hit on many college radio stations, which was later released as a Maxi-single through Plan B and Tower Records.
“Not Applicable (Courtnee Papastathis) is a spectacular and rather cinematic experience. The central texture is influence by Tangerine Dream & Brian Eno and periodically altering its orientation to Phillip Glass & Steve Riech. My favorite part of this music is the mysterious tension of the hauntingly beautiful vocalization. The Music takes occasional ominous sounding detours into new age, and even flirts with electronic windham styling. But the overall aesthetic is still very original.” – The Big Roll
“Not Applicable is a one-woman band (Courtnee Fallon Papastathis) who possesses the unique ability to virtually freeze time with her moving, highly emotional ambient landscapes.” – Digital DriveThru Essentials
“For an album that has not one word, it still seems to speak to you; The music has a way of speaking its message through the pitch and emotion in the vocals rather than poetry. Point of Origin is the death of a loved one and the regret our minds ponder, the things that are spiraling around our subconscious every day. Not Applicable is a musical form of these” – Azriel J. Knight
Embodied was made possible by the generous donations of my Kickstarter Backers. Endless thank-you’s.
The protected post “I Made This” is a sneak peak mp3 for the people involved in the production of Embodied, most of whom are my kickstarter backers. In a post that only backers can view on at kickstarter, I linked them to that entry and gave them the password — and I also said this:
For the past week I’ve been home from my trip, I’ve been periodically marveling at the idea that this all really happened. That this all continues to happen. That I’m getting to do what I love because I asked for help and was met with a wash of amazing support. Right now, it feels like a fresh bathrobe straight from the drier. I’m snuggling down in it and sighing happily.
Though clearly this experience effects me as a musical artist most notably, I can already tell this project is changing my life. The confidence I’ve gained from your advocacy alone has felt profoundly altering. Beyond that, even in small ways, like the song fragment that escaped from the clarity and gorgeous response in that microphone, every day I’m feeling you guys, and how your contributions set this transformation in motion.
I am going to blow your fucking socks off in November.
:)
There are so many people who deserve to see that recognition who aren’t on kickstarter, I wanted to post it.
I’m sure I’ll hit a few glitches, but I think the worst of my brief freakout period is over. Right now I know I’m going to put on an amazing show that’s worth the money people pledged to me and more. I know it’s all going to work out and the chips will fall in the right places. I know I can trust myself to spend the money wisely and be proud of what I accomplish with it. And I know that this show is giving back, rather than paying something I owe. If I know all this now, I can know it again if things start seeming hard.
Thank you for helping me take care of myself, touch lives in the process, and gain so much toward touching more in the future. I’m unable to articulate just what’s happening in me right now but I tell you, I can feel it, and I’m leveling the fuck up something fierce.
The art is mine, but on an island, that kind of art can’t exist. We’re in this together, and I’m glad.
I had a pretty good day today, musically. :) I’m thinking in terms of layering and looping like I did when I was first making music; when I’d lay down all the music and vocals in three takes and work with what I’d improvised, I think because I spent time today playing with the BOSS RC-50 and the VoiceTouch Live I’m getting to perform Embodied.
I broke through my freakout stage over the last two days and it’s starting to get fun now. I still don’t have a venue but I’m focusing on the music while I poke around for one. I’m so, so looking forward to this show.
Oh and, when was the last time you sat down with a great pair of headphones and listened to the absolute nuances of a new album?
You will again soon. I’m getting some new song snippets coming on and jotting down the concepts while practicing. And this time, I’m saving them up for the real deal.
:)
Yea bitchez. See that hurdle back there? Cleared that fucker.
Wow. I just discovered the first audio file I saved while I was creating Sepulture and still messing around with what the song might become. It’s kind of fucking awesome actually.
First pass at Madonnas song, Sorry, from Confessions on a dance floor. It feels good.
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Flash required to listen. See if you can spot the part where I suck up drool. It’s weird, I’m having a drooling problem for the last two covers. Must be singing differently. Maybe I leveled up or something. I think it’s sorta hot.
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Slated to be performed in “Embodied” and included on the album – Already have the rights to the song in my shopping cart at Harry Fox. THANK YOU! Keep the backing coming!! I’m already almost halfway there with a month left to go.
Since 1999, I have published music online under the band name “Not Applicable”. My original works topped the ambient electronic charts on mp3.com consistently, and in the many years since the sites downfall I’ve created more original music and covers which have never been performed.
Though compelled to see the last 12 years of work come to fruition by bringing my music out from behind a computer screen and onto a stage formally, I’ve previously thought putting on a real show consisting solely of my work was unrealistic.
Then, I heard about Kickstarter. <3
Please check out my project, share the link with your friends, back me with your money and send me love in the comments section there, so random strangers will know even more why they should support what I’m doing. :) Yay!
Though I was preparing to play this for the Speakeasy last month, (I sang Hey You instead, and it was rad) for this one, because it’s in my low range and due to the type of sound I want for it, I’m going to have to wait until I am amplified to play it live. Not sure when that’s going to happen – so, I’ll share it now.
The volume is low, and headphones are recommended (as well as flash, if you’re not seeing the audio controls).
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What: Little Red Speakeasy
When: Friday, May 13· 8:30pm – 12am
Where: Hengst Studio
1506 Franklin Ave. E.
Seattle, WA 98102
How: Cost is $20, RSVP to Jeff Hengst jeff@littleredbistro.com
I am deeply pleased to be returning to LRS in its most distilled, raw formula to sing and perform my signature aerial act. You may also catch me painting throughout the evening as well, surrounded by friends and artists and creative energy.
The underlying mission of The Little Red Studio is to celebrate the intersection between art and erotic energy in a relaxed and positive space. What makes The Little Red Studio work is that models, artists, and guests are in an unconventional environment with the utmost of mutual respect. 18+ (It ain’t a sex club people, but you may see a nipple or three.). Here there is no fourth wall, and in being so a whole new world is opened up for both guests and the artists alike.
The monthly “Speakeasy” events continue to delight and infuse our audiences with a sense of artistic indulgence and fun social interaction. If you haven’t been to one in awhile, you may want to come check it out again and experience the new things, while relaxing into the familiar. If you’ve never been to one – now is the time to come see for yourself what Little Red Studio is truly all about.
The performances will amuse, mystify and perhaps even move you, while the opportunities to engage your senses will tickle your inner artist and open your heart. The Speakeasy events are part party, part performance, part spa experience and all kinds of in between. Bring some close friends and make a night of making new ones.