Batlantis-An Album by Amplissima

 

Batlantis is the 6th Amplissima album.

Amplissima is a four person audio project. 

Recorded on Saturday 10/12/24 at Maudslay Park, Newburyport, MA, in the Bunker

The Bunker in Maudslay Park is an acoustical dream. In years past it had been built to house orange trees in the winter.

The place sounds just incredible and is a character in every track on this album.

This session was really long. We have about another hour’s worth of recordings to sift through.

The sequencing for this album was pretty easy. We just went from the shortest track to longest. It felt natural.

Amplissima is:

E Dahlfree: Trumpet, overtone singing, duck call, alto recorder, percussion, prepared phone

Tim Mungenast: Acoustic guitar, vocals, overtone singing, and Trans-Siberian Llamaphonics. -Tim had never played acoustic guitar with us at any of our recording 

sessions with Amplissima before and it was a nice change but it is also a challenge to bring that instrument up in the mix with so much power coming from the trumpet.

Dobra Jené Ashentree: Mandolin, one string Cigar box dulcimer, tamborine, shuffling dance, vocals, and general beating on anything metal

Van Wyrdlocke: Voice, bell, circuit bent toy keyboard, kazoo, soupcan microphone, slide whistle

1. Batlantis 2:43 - A rather different track for us. E (AKA Eric) asked us if he could “direct” us and of course we said yes. The results were interesting.

Speaking for myself, I had been listening to a lot of early rock and roll and started thinking about all the strange vocal sounds people would put into these recordings so that’s where I was at. E came up with the title for this one and that led to naming the album. E made a lot of audio captures for this session and one of them is featured in the background here. What does “directing” mean, well he previewed what we were going to do then cued us when he wanted us to start and stop. Lots of fun.

You can hear Eric walking around us as he directs. We don’t try to hide the reality of recording outdoors, we embrace it. Dobra has some fine vocal moments here. Tim has tasty stellar guitar too.

2. Ice Cream Truck vs Giant Singing Goat In The Sumner Tunnel 4:21  -Tim came up with this title. I did a spoken rant, the content of which really didn’t fit with the Amplissima vibe. So I warped it, so that the words just become part of the soundscape. Do you hear dreams when you’re awake? Lots of collaging in this one.

Lots of feedback courtesy of the soupcan microphone. Big time feature of E’s prepared phone later in the track. Gives a nice corroding kick towards the end. You can also hear a circuit bent toy keyboard towards the end.

3. Flamenco Tibetto 7:26 -Great trumpetting by E. A whole lot of bells. Eric singing like a viking. Lots of overlaying on this one too. Dobra’s shuffling dance occurs during this track. Tim and E duel with overtone singing. The angelic dream of Dobra’s singing calms the battle. E does some nice old timey trumpeting. Great booming prepared phone stuff on here too. I give a lot of credit to the acoustic brilliance of the Bunker for the way this album sounds. E leads the way out.

4. Altered Bird States 11:46 -The beginning of this track features some gorgeous guitaring by Tim. Ok this whole track features gorgeous guitar by Tim. Also enjoy the vocals by Dobra and Tim. The first of the two epic tracks.

There were lots of spiders hanging around in the corners of the Bunker. I hope they dug this recording session. Percussion explodes in this track.I am responsible for the slide whistle. If you don’t like it blame me. E used a stick to smash against a pole in the Bunker during this track. E the barbarian! E and Tim nailed the overtone singing.

5. The Countess Waits In Her Crumbling Mansion 12:02 - What is plasmodium? Ask Tim! There’s a lot of layers on this track. Like a psychedelic birthday cake.Kazoos galore! If there were more kazoos in the world, there would be less crumbling mansions. Chaos in composition. Dobra cuts it up on the mandolin! I hear the knocks and you can enter. E’s prepared phone and the sounds of his videos go wild here. Mad sounds spread around you. It didn’t sound like this when were recording this track, but that’s ok, because this sounds unlike reality. Guitar and mandolin locked into grooves on the downslide of the track.

Everything created, produced, and mastered by Amplissima

The song Batlantis was directed by E Dahlfree who did a wonderful job with it.

Here is the first ever video band interview with Amplissima!

Yours in album chat ups,

Count Robot

A dude with a Primus Shirt

A dude with a Primus Shirt

Found myself at a mall.

There he is, a man with a faded Primus t-shirt walking slowly down the hall.

I say to him, “Cool shirt, dude.”

He smiles as every vast wrinkle on his face folds with a crinkle.

He’s probably not much older than me.

That smile still has the 1990’s attitude of someone who saw Primus while they still sucked.

Rock and Roll will never die until we’re all dead.

Yours in in rock and roll,

Count Robot

More- Neurodivergent Orchestra - Alien Sluts Need Snacks Too- 2

 

Yes, I've blogged about this a bit but here's a bit more!

So for those who don't know we were part of a musical/improv/spoken word/livestream inanity with our group Neurodivergent Orchestra. You can watch the show by clicking on the video above.

Here's some more behind the scenes and other related pics.

My rig for the set. I got the idea to use tapes because it felt like 80's alien conspiracy theory stuff. So I made a tape and wanted to use some existing ones that I had. Sadly the tape players all rebelled. Not sure why. I tested them before and after the show and they all worked fine but for some reason during the show they wouldn't play. Alien interference? Maybe!

DNA Girl vamping it up before the show.

Gongs were made to be gonged!

Tim's squeaking pig! Used during the set.

Pek (the band leader) sent us these cool altered photos he made from the set.

For those who don't want to watch the whole show, here's a shorty!

Thank you Pek for letting us perform at these shows. These are some of my most favorite shows I have ever done. Amazingly fun and almost zero stress.

Yours in musical madness,

Count Robot

Neurodivergent Orchestra - Alien Sluts Need Snacks Too

Saturday we did a live stream at Evil Clown Headquarters. 

You can watch the show here!

These shows are structured musical/spoken word chaos.

Here's some behind the scenes photos from the show.

The big screen TV with part of the narrative. We use this for a pre-show discussion.

Printed copy of the script.

Musician fuel or as it's commonly called, pizza. We eat a bit before and after the show.

A pre-show shot of the studio space.

Believe it or not, this was once a coffee machine that has been converted into a wild sound making device. Even though it doesn't give me delicious bean beverages, it gives me delightful sounds.

Synths!!!!!!!!

One of the many stationary cameras in the studio. Sadly the live camera operator couldn't make it.

Gongs, bells, crazy!

Rubber chickens!

Tim! The mighty guitar stylings of Tim Mungenast! A pre-show shot.

Tim's array of pedals.

DNA Girl's orange amp. My amp is to the right of it. Sadly my gear rebelled just at the start of the show so I used almost none of it.

Tim's guitar. Here he is using a screaming goat toy on the guitar. Screaming goat guitar!

The camera switching board.

More stuff in the studio. All instruments free to use during the show.

Drums in the kitchen

Drums must not interfere with a cappuccino! 

And that's it. Hope you dig the show!

Yours in chaotic weirdness,

Count Robot

Next Neurodivergent Orchestra show this Saturday!

 

5/2/26

Start between 7 PM and 7:30 PM East Coast USA Time
https://www.youtube.com/live/Xf2jhfMSjK4?si=cqJspUvakvvLOSVf

PEK - wacky banter, clarinets, saxophones, double reeds, flutes, percussion
John Fugarino - trumpets, flugelhorn, trombone, French horn
Eric Dahlman - trumpet, overtone voice
Count Robot - wacky banter, gadgets
DNA Girl - wacky banter, mandolins, vocals, gadgets
Tim Mungenast - wacky banter, guitar, vocals
Scott Samenfeld - bass
Jared Seabrook - drums

Joel Simches - live to 2-track recording, Real-Time Signal Processing

Raffi Batalian - video mix

Paul Brennan - camera

These shows are all live on demand. Meaning that as soon as it starts you can pause it, rewind it, etc. The shows remain up on youtube once its done so you can watch it whenever you want.

These shows are improv chaos. There is a loose script but we deviate out from there. It's a fun live musical experimental disaster of fun. Part jazz/noise/experimental/beatnik/outsider/insider/weirdness.

Lately these shows are my favorites to do. Low stress, lots of fun.

Yours in musical chaos,

Count Robot

Little Things

 

Sometimes it’s the little things that someone does for you that matter

Vinal bakery/ store rocks

Yours in tasty ice tea,

Count Robot

Echoes from Another Place

 Echoes from Another Place

A write up about the album, Echoes from Another Place by the audio project known as Static Apparitions.

Static Apparitions is an audio project that I work on with DNA Girl from Astro Al. We both have different stage names for this project rather than the ones we use with Astro Al.

So you’re probably asking yourself, “How is this any different than Astro Al?"

Well there’s two key differences between Static Apparitions and Astro Al.

1. While some Astro Al stuff is improvised, 100% of every Static Apparitions tracks are 100% improvised recordings which are then cut and edited to produce the end result.

2. There no lyrics or audible spoken word pieces in a Static Apparitions track. There are some samples and some times spoken bits are recorded but they are distorted so that they just become part of the landscape. All vocals are wordless.

If anyone has a time machine so that Static Apparitions can go back in time and record soundtracks to Italian 1960s/1970s horror flicks we'd be game to take that trip.

Ok, now with all that out of the way, let’s break down this album a bit track by track.

Echoes from Another Place

1. Alien Disruption 4:11 - Some nice swinging guitar from Madame Inconnue on this one. The end is all about signals from the EMF field. For more info on that check below. 

2. Sounds from Another Place 6:23 -Got some dark distorted tones contrasted by the light sounds of a tongue drum. This song is a good example of what we're trying to do with Static Apparitions, create art with collected sounds. I think I named this track but I'm not 100% sure.

3. Space Orb Sonata 5:12 - Madame Inconnue named this one. I think she might have named almost all of them. The Jupiter III analog synth is on this one. You can hear it in some of the "chirpy" synth sounds. 

4. Rising From the Tomb 5:09 -Some fun distorted layers of guitar on this one curtesy of Madame Inconnue. Really good playing my friend.

5. The Musical Diary of Duchess Daphne Dukane  6:59 - Vocals and sounds. I believe this was partially recorded somewhere outside, but I'm not sure where. This is a mashup of a few different recordings. Name of the track is courtesy of Madame Inconnue.

6. Secret Basement Lab 5:11 -This is only track I'm certain that I named. It just sounded like a basement lab in an old school horror flick where the mad doctor is building a monster for science or revenge or both. At least that's what I hear.

7. Raven Cry 5:10 - Some textural guitars and moody synths. Ravens are associated with many things in different mythologies. Why is it a Raven Cry? Great job Madame.

credits:

Madame Inconnue: vocals, guitar, percussion, octave mandolin, mandolin, synth

Baron Vincent Von Lugosi: cassette recorder, sampler, weird sound generator, Jupiter III analog synth, saw, zither, TV/VCR combo, synth, percussion

The cover photo was taken on George's Island in Boston then distorted.

One might ask, how do you play a TV/VCR combo? On Etsy, I discovered someone selling an Electro Magnetic Field Microphone. It's a microphone that picks up electro magnetic fields. Held up against a TV/VCR combo it makes some pretty wild sounds especially if there's nothing but white noise on the TV. It works ok with a tape playing, but doesn't quite have the level of strangeness that the lack of signal to the unit feeds into the microphone.

Here's a link to an EMF mic 

Yours in static based art,

Count Robot