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Dreams for Benny

by Peter Bull

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Limina 02:31
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A New Day 01:59
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about

Have you ever had a dream? The kind of dream where things seamlessly change from one reality to another or even inhabit two realities simultaneously? Where people, places and objects simply become something else very quietly and suddenly? Well, if you have, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, then all you have to do is listen to this EP!

It all started a couple years ago when I recorded the sound coming from an old wax cylinder being played on my families 100+ year old Edisonphone, which is basically like the better-known Gramophone except, instead of being made by Alexander Graham Bell, it was made by Thomas Edison. The song was a lively Ragtime tune called Benny Be Yourself, which became the sampled basis for most of the tracks. The final track was actually the first one I made when I put a crazy wet, long reverb on the recording and discovered a pretty wild sound. Kind of like prolonged screaming in a wind-tunnel. I immediately knew that I wanted to try to get as many sounds out of this field recording as possible so I set to work cutting it up into sample-able pieces. Later I started adding other samples from some old public domain films and of course my own instrumental overdubs. The final touches were a bunch of samples taken from an old Drive-In movie theatre ad reel I found online as well. Amazing stuff!

The third track, It Seemed So Clear, came from two places. The first layer is the freely improvised bass solo that Came to me after listening to another track from the album that. I had such a clear feeling of the sound and knew I had to record it immediately. On that particular day I had been experimenting using a piece of recording gear (ART Pro-Channel II for all you nerds) effectively as a distortion pedal by essentially abusing it. When I got the feeling that I wanted to record, My bass was already set up for this over saturated, squashed sound. So I turned the gain down a little bit and then just went with it. A couple minutes later the track was done! Or so I thought. I let it sit for a long time before having the idea of superimposing one of my dream logs. Dream logs? yes. Sometimes when I wake up from a particularly vivid or disturbing dream, I will use the voice recorder in my phone to capture it verbally instead of trying to write it down. I find if I have to wake up enough to find a pencil and paper most of the memory has already dissipated. Anyway, this particular dream was one that took place in Sandy Cove, NS which is where the Edisonphone recording was made and also a very special place for me, so it felt like a good choice.

Overall, by the time you reach the end of the album as a whole, or even individual tracks, you may feel a little disoriented. Most of the tracks include an extremely wide range of musical influences from electro-swing to ambient noise and even some Eastern-European style mixed meter dance music. Ultimately, this is a voyage of sound, word, Comedy, and music that must be heard to be experienced. Let the journey begin!

Thank you for listening to and supporting my music!

-Peter

credits

released December 24, 2021

Performed, Produced, Mixed by Peter Bull
Mastered by Sina Momtahan
Album Art by Peter Bull

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Peter Bull Halifax, Nova Scotia

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