Clark

The music here isn’t anything like Steep Stims - it’s obvs not entirely serious. But everything seems to either start with a piano, synth or drum machine with me. My friend Angus did an excellent job in retuning the piano to 18 notes per octave. We christened the piano “The Spidey”. It was a huge part of finding the overall arc of the record.

It’s an odd tuning, but easy to get yer head around after a while. Minor thirds become major seconds. I’ve only explored it for a few months, you could spend a lifetime on it. In those few months I discovered you can either make simple moves with max 3 chords sound really complex/beautiful. Kinda like “othering” 12edo, as traces of those familiar chords leave an indelible mark, but come at you in this odd shape that’s more than just “detuned”. It has a brutal symmetry to the attentive ear. Or you can throw that quest out of the window entirely and go full polyrhythm, microtonal aggro. After a while 12edo especially equal temperament starts to sound like obedient normcore, too transparent. But then after dousing myself in 18edo microtonal petrol and setting fire to my brain, I start craving 12edo again. So I sorta go between them, finding a balance that intuitively makes sense.

London tickets on sale now!

Village Underground - 21st March
Tickets via link in bio

Gen X Wonk

Steep Stims Live - coming soon to London.

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I’m almost angry - I opened up the Steep Stims patch that I can’t tear myself away from - so now I’ve started about 7 new tracks when I should be being a good little christopher and spend time prepping the live show for Brighton next week.