Portraits

I have long been frustrated by the current system of music distribution where artists create songs or albums meant to be consumed by the masses. I've been wanting to explore more direct means of engagement with listeners and have been thinking about the artist/patron relationship as a possibility.

I am calling the project Portraits. Portraits are songs that have been created directly for individual listeners. You send me a photo or words for inspiration, I write a song, and then give it to you. It ceases to be my property. Like an artist making a painting for a patron, it is now yours to do with what you like.



I have long found music to be a solace. It soothes over the rough edges of the day and keeps me grounded in times of great stress. These are times of great stress for many. I live in Japan and I'm not much of a fighter but I can help you get through your day with music. My music could be your balm. Or it could be a way to celebrate your identity, your friends, your family. It can be whatever you need it to be.

Because I want to help, I am not asking for any money for these Portraits. Of course, if you'd like to donate money to my PayPal account, or become a patron on Patreon, that would be very much appreciated.

Thank you for listening.

Slow

Obake Radio Out Now

My new album, Obake Radio, is out today on Architects + Heroes Records. It's a beatless affair though I wouldn't really call it ambient (although you might).




I just love that cover. The same team behind the cover, Leftm Graphics, did a nice video for the track, "Drone Haze."




I can also now announce that there will be a follow-up release to this, an EP entitled Drone Haze, with a new version of "Drone Haze" plus six other tracks.

Any Time Now

The second Architects + Heroes Records sampler features my song, "Any Time Now." It's harsh and claustrophobic and a little paranoid, much like modern life.

Arthur Dent & Deeper Than Space: Drift

In 1995, together with Arthur Dent (aka Borful Tang), I released an album of miasmic ambient on the Silent Records label. Entitled Drift, it was two epic slabs of murky ambient that favored low-end tones. The album has been re-released by Architects + Heroes Records and is available for download here.



The download contains an hour-long third track, "Chindogu," which was intended to be the follow-up release. Silent Records changed hands by this time and then closed for good and the track was never released.

Obake Radio

I have a new album coming out on November 5 via Architects + Heroes Records. Until then, you can listen to the lead track from the album here.


This track will also be released as a single sometime in the future.

Also check out this cool promo video for the album.



Read more about the album at the A+H site.

The Red Slope

In the deep of winter I composed a number of songs intended for an ambient album. They eventually became The Red Slope and you can hear it and download it here.


There was a sixth song that wouldn't fit. You can download it for free here.

Ultimately Always

My latest album, Ultimately Always, is now available as a pay-what-you-want download through Architects + Heroes Records.

Download here.

It's an ambient/drone affair and was made almost 10 years ago. The songs are comprised of even older bits that I re-processed and reassembled.

A CD version of the album will be released next month.

Catching Up With Kemek

Thought I'd take a moment to update everyone on my musical endeavors.

First, I have a new ambient mixtape out, Sometime/Somewhere, featuring tracks from Itsuka, Itsuka Extras and my forthcoming album on Architects and Heroes, Ultimately Always.

You can stream and download at Soundcloud, and stream at Mixcloud.

Sometime/Somewhere by kemek

Sometime/Somewhere by Kemek on Mixcloud

On October 4, Ultimately Always will be released through Architects and Heroes. It's a glitchy drone affair and I'm quite fond of it. This will be followed towards the end of the year with Ultimately Always Remixes, featuring reworkings of the songs by Digital Rust, Zygote, Asymmetrical Head, Borful Tang aka Lord Tang and myself.

I'm also happy to announce that Drift, the 1994 ambient album released under the name Arthur Dent and Deeper Than Space, will be re-released next year via Architects and Heroes. It will be packaged as a double album and include a never-before-released album-length track.

Itsuka Extras Is Out!

Well, it's been a few months since Itsuka came out but have I been resting on my laurels, so to speak? No, I've been busy preparing the release of Itsuka Extras, the companion album to Itsuka.

See, I worked on the Itsuka album over the course of 7 or 8 years and there were a lot of songs that didn't make the final cut. I liked these songs just as much as the ones on the album but they didn't fit the mood as well. Instead of letting them languish on my hard drive I figured I'd join the 21st century and put them out on the Internet myself.

This is the first release since the cassette trading days of high school (Factsheet 5 wut?)  that I've handled entirely myself, and I have to say it's been a lot of fun. From the mastering to the promotion to the distribution, I've done it all myself. (Well, not entirely—the incredible artwork was done by one Marya Villarin.)

The album is available here:

http://kemek.bandcamp.com/

It's a pay-what-you-want deal so feel free to go crazy and make me rich. Or download it for free. I'm just happy if people like it. ^^

Itsuka Is Out!

After quite a long gestation period, my album Itsuka is finally out. Thanks to Muti Music, the album has moved from my hard drive to the Internet. You can find the album on iTunes, or if you're more DJ oriented, you can pick it up on Addictech or Beatport.

Last year I wrote up the back story to this album. I'll reprint it here:

"Itsuka" is the title of my album on Muti Music, and it's a long time coming. I started working on the album in 2004, and contributed to it off and on over the past five or six years. Along the way, the tracklist changed some but the core feeling remained, and that's what I want to talk about.

In Japanese, "itsuka" (いつか) means "someday." All my life, I've been the kind that always looked to the future. "Never to what you are doing," as Yoda said. I like to think of myself as a dreamer, but if you were inclined to call me an escapist that might not be far from the truth too. In 2004, I dropped everything—quit my job, sold my car—and went to Japan. I lived in Tokyo for two months until the money ran out. I had intended to get a job but because I never finished college that was just about impossible.

Because of Japan, something changed in me. After 30 years of drifting through life I finally knew what I wanted. I wanted to live in Japan. But I couldn't. That pesky college degree. So I went back to school to study Japanese. Along the way, I made this album. All of my longing for Japan is in these songs. "Someday I'll be back there." I guess you could say it's a love letter to Japan. Love songs for a country.

In 2009 I gave the album to Muti Music, a label I had worked with back in the breaks days. I had no idea if they would like it, if it would fit their roster. Truthfully, I had almost given up on the album ever coming out. It was such a personal thing, I couldn't imagine anyone else liking it. Listening to it is like crawling into my head. But Muti liked it, and it's finally coming out.

I'm probably more proud of this than any other music I've ever made. I hope people enjoy it.

Lastly, here are the three promo videos I made for the album. Enjoy.

First is "Paper Deer," the lead track. The song was inspired by the art of Midori Harima, who does sculpture with paper and multimedia. Midori graciously allowed me to use some images of her art in the video.



Next up is "Train Song." It's not hard to figure out what this was inspired by.



And then we have "Living Room Floor."

Joining Architects + Heroes

I feel like I'm going from strength to strength these days. Architects + Heroes will be releasing an EP of mine, entitled Ultimately Always. It's primarily drone and ambient. Hopefully I'll be releasing more such music with them.

You can read more about it on the A+H site.

My A+H artist page: http://architectsandheroes.net/artists/kemek/

And in case you missed it, here's an interview I did with the A+H blog.

iDJ Review

iDJ magazine has reviewed Certain Frequencies in its latest issue. It gave it 9 out of 10, which is absolutely incredible.

Current

The last of my solo albums from the Silent/Flask days is now available for sale. Called Current, it was released in 1995 and was one of the last things I put out until my rebirth (ahem) as Kemek the Dope Computer in 2001.

Current is available here.

I'd like to continue putting old releases up. If interest exists, I plan to put up the Arthur Dent & Deeper Than Space album Drift plus some unreleased stuff, and even the 303 Terrorists.

Spaceship Melody Remixes

The re-releases continue with Spaceship Melody Remixes, a 5-track EP of remixes from my debut album, Earth Rise. The chief reason to get this is "Spaceship Melodies" itself, a minor hit for myself and my collaborator, Dreams Without Number aka Dabecy. There's also a version of "Deeper Than Love" done by myself and Arthur Dent aka Borful Tang.

Lots of goodness on this one. Get it here.

Deeper Than Space Now Available

I've decided to make my early albums available again, starting with "Earth Rise" by Deeper Than Space. It was released on the Flask imprint of Silent Records way back in 1993 and has been out of print for many years.

The album is available here: http://deeperthanspace.bandcamp.com/. You can pay as much (or as little) as you like.

I plan to eventually make them all available, including some stuff that was never released.

A Helpful Guide To Better Ambient Listening

First things first: Ambient music can be many things, but there are three things it most definitely is not:

It is not merely techno slowed down.
It is not just a bunch of sound effects records played at the same time.
It is not boring.

If the ambient music you are used to hearing is any of these things, chuck it in the garbage, because it's a waste of your time. Ambient music requires one to listen, and these elements are all shortcomings to actually listening. It is the easy way out. And that's called 'pop music.'

Like Muzak, ambient music creates an environment that you enter while listening. Notice how no other sense is necessary for this experience: no fractals to look at, no patchouli to smell, no bean bags to lie on. These are all superfluous. All you need are your ears and an active, open mind. Ambient music can get you there—minus the jet lag, minus the come down. All it requires of you is to listen.

And when you've turned off the stereo, keep listening. Ambient music is constant. Birds, wind, cars, people—a rhythm of random, natural sounds perpetually performed: the concert of life. As John Cage has said: "Music is all around us, if we only had ears." So listen, listen to your own rhythms: your heartbeat, the sub-bass rumble of your circulating blood, the music bubbling forth in your brain. Don't tune them out because you've heard it before—it's beautiful, and it's free.

Travel deeper than your surface perceptions, listen behind the sounds, around the silent spaces. Beats begin to emerge from the clutter, voices from seemingly unintelligible sounds (my first ambient experience was hearing rhythmic voices from a running dishwasher as a child). And listen actively—we have been conditioned into passive listening, an activity that requires virtually no action. Ambient music can help you fly, but you still have to flap your arms. How hard you flap only depends on how high you want to go.

Adam Douglas, Redwood City, 1993

Brilliance For A Better Past

Brilliance For A Better Future by kemek

In 1994 I co-curated a compilation of Bay Area techno artists for Silent Records. It was called Brilliance For A Better Future and it wasn't a bad little release. I've uploaded the two tracks that I was involved with to the Soundcloud.

This is just a taste of the re-releases of my Silent Records material I've got planned. Watch this space for more info.

dts

Here's An Old One