Echoes of the Neighborhood (recordings from June 2008 – Feb 2009)
This is the only album that was originally supposed to be a concept album, but was quickly abandoned for the usual fare. I released The Elizabeth Bishop LP to the world the night before I left for a vacation to Texas. On the last evening I was having a hard time sleeping so I turned on the TV. About the only thing I could find of interest was a documentary about The Children of God cult. I was inspired, wanting to use sound clips from David Berg's "sermons", but once I got home, I could not find many. And the ones I did find had all of the dirty words bleeped out. So that was a no go.
On more careful consideration, it's definitely best I didn't use the words of a pedophile with a Messianic complex on all of my compositions. Under no circumstances do I endorse the words or deeds of David Berg and sampling his "sermons" might have given the wrong impression. Not to mention that Swans already have an album called Children of God. That said, the voice of the girl in gulf comes from an NBC News story done on the cult. It's one of the few moments of my music that gives me chills.
The title of this LP came from walking my dog around my neighborhood. The things you hear during the summer include things like crickets, tree frogs, passing cars and window unit air conditioners. Also the white trashers down the street screamed sexualized insults at each other loud enough for everybody to hear. I always walked my dog at random hours of the day, so it's scary to think that they might have been constantly drunk and angry at each other.
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gulf (4:27) [explicit] |
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Released: Early 2009 catalogue number: OSC003RCB003LP52:51 Look at the album artwork! Subscribe to podcast for easy mp3 downloads |
samples
gulf — contains samples of "City Skyline Ambience" (downloaded from usenet) and a portion of a 20/20 special on the Children of God
valve — contains samples of "Ambience Country Interior" (downloaded from usenet) and a portion of "Pedophile goes nuts at reporter on Australian News"
shapes — contains samples of "Cincinnati Suburb Summer" by sanus_excipio and "sinister preacher reading Revelations" by Incarnadine
summer — contains samples of "summer1" by Corsica_S and "Ambient Sub Facility" downloaded from usenet. All other sounds created by Ratan X on a Fender Telecaster guitar, with effects by GarageBand.
structures — contains a sample of Brooker's "TALENZ" video. All other sounds created by Ratan X on a Fender Telecaster guitar, with effects by GarageBand.
blessed — contains samples of GWEN Synthetic Telepathy by Thomas Ashcraft and a file downloaded from usenet many years ago called "Runaway Train"
beacon — no samples, but the bass line and the "morse code" tappings were created with my new G&L JB-2 Tribute Series bass.
windmill — story written by Ratan. Voice is built-in Apple voice "Junior"
decibel — story written by Ratan. Voice is built-in Apple voice "Alex"
swans II — contains a sample of "Mexican Megaphone" (downloaded from usenet).
infibulation II — contains samples of "indian_creek_01_steve_bayer" by sanus_excipio and "evening in the forest" by reinsamba
atom — contains samples of "Street Lamp Buzz," "Science lessons on Matter, Atoms & The Periodic Table : The Periodic Table and a random transmission on police band radio. No,I have no idea what is being said.
cogs — contains a sample of an ABC news report on Captain Midnight
Echoes of the Neighborhood dynamic range stats
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR Peak RMS Filename ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR9 over -10.44 dB gulf.wav DR8 over -10.31 dB valve.wav DR12 -1.02 dB -14.16 dB shapes.wav DR6 over -9.16 dB summer.wav DR9 over -10.33 dB structures.wav DR9 over -10.09 dB blessed.wav DR7 over -7.56 dB beacon.wav DR10 over -11.70 dB windmill.wav DR5 over -5.81 dB decibel.wav DR16 over -17.55 dB swans2.wav DR11 -3.37 dB -15.03 dB infibulation2.wav DR7 over -9.12 dB atom.wav DR6 over -9.23 dB cogs.wav ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of files: 13 Official DR value: DR9 ==============================================================================================
Legal crap
We are releasing these recordings under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. You're free to post these files on P2P, usenet, your homepage, etc. All that I ask is that you credit me (with the name Rural Citizens Band), and leave the ID3 tags as is. Please do not change them in any way, as this is a major way I credit myself for the work.
Also, if you use these songs for animations, or whatever, please email me, I'd love to see your work! Feel free to send any other comments, suggestions, etc!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License.