This was originally released on Dollar CD around 2003 and reflects the kind of recordings I was making, both solo and with many others.
credits
released May 27, 2024
1. “What Tomorrow Brings” – words by Briyan Frederick, music by Dick Metcalf (Rotcod Zzaj) and Briyan Frederick. Dick sent a cassette of keyboard tracks for me to work off of. One of those tracks forms the basis of this.
2. “Kite On a String” – words and music by Briyan Frederick. I’m playing everything on this one. This is the original recording done at home using Cakewalk and hand-me-down (“borrowed”) instruments.
3. “Ache” – music by Briyan Frederick. This was mostly made with software called Groovemaker on a Mac. A solo recording.
4. “Rain Come Down” – words and music by Briyan Frederick. One of my personal favorites. I took the original 4-track recording vocals and acoustic guitars into Bias Deck II and added synthesizers and electric piano.
5. “I’m Watching” – words and music by Briyan Frederick. I sampled a vocal phrase of Gregg Allen from the 4-track cassette recording of my song, “I’m Watching It All Go By” against a groovemaker composition. The sax is also by Gregg, lift from something we recorded on 4-track; I’m guessing it’s from my song “My Prayer”.
6. “I Love My Machine” – words and music by Briyan Frederick. An early Tapegerm Collective collab with loops by Scott Carr – Tapehiss, Ghost of the Truthcircle, Kelli Wise – Ciyd, Bev Stanton and myself. The “vocal” was created by feeding phrases into an online voice generator at MIT.
7. “If I Fell Off This Earth Tonight” – words and music by Briyan Frederick, Lisa Moscatiello and Bev Stanton. Another early Tapegerm collab using loops provided by Bev of Lisa’s vocals and cello.
8. “On a Saturday” – words and music by Karen Howe, Allye Baker and Briyan Frederick. My daughter, Allye and her friend were playing at my house on a Saturday. I turned on the recording software and had them come play around on a synth and guitar while making up songs and then I pieced together this track, adding bass and drums.
9. “Television” – music by Briyan Frederick. The source audio was provided on a CDr by the late Ian Stewart of AutoReverse magazine. He offered to send people a CD of audio for them to make something for a compilation. It turned out to be my gateway into loop-based composition which evolved into Tapegerm with a bunch of other freaks via my homemademusic.com website a couple years later.
10. “Say It” – words by Briyan Frederick, music by M. Bowman and Briyan Frederick. Mike paid a visit to my house in Salt Lake while on a ski vacation and we jammed with my housemate Joe Maki for an hour or so. Mostly we talked cassette culture over pizza. Joe recorded the jamming and gave Mike the resulting files. Some time later, he sent me a track he had made based on something from that session. He’s playing drums, guitars, and keyboards. I added electric piano, vocals and the synth solo.
11. “Go Forward” – music by Briyan Frederick with loops courtesy of Linda Smith from her song of the same name. I asked a few of my favorite hometapers if I could sample an album and offer it as a project hosted at my homemademusic.com website. The project eventually turned into Tapegerm.
12 “(When the Joker Laughs) He’s Laughing At You” – words and music by Briyan Frederick. Loops by Dan Gray, Chris Phinney, Bev Stanton, Scott Carr, JP Bergman, ESP and myself. This is a tapegerm track created by comibining 4-track cassette source audio from my song “The Joker Laughs At You” with loops from the Tapegerm pool.
Reviews and Updates
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Confessions Vol. 1 Review
Here’s a review from Taped Crusaders:
BRYAN BAKER, Blind Mime Confessions, Vol. 1;
A set of original and excellent collaborations, for the most part, with a few solo efforts thrown in. Most of the material seems to have come from Tapegerms library of online loops, which Bryan has put to good use. Its a combination, then, of beat-driven, somewhat dancey type tracks, with a few rock and pop songs. And sometimes a combination of both. Bryan seems to have greatly enjoyed downloading comrades music and creating his own out of it. Some of this stuff is great; If I Fell Off This Earth Tonight is stunning, reminding me of early His Name Is Alive stuff. I could handle a whole album of that sort of thing. Say It is a somewhat, to me, 70s sounding rock track, catchy chorus and all. When The Joker Laughs seems like a combination of two totally different songs, for the chorus and the verses, which actually works well, although jauntily. There really arent any duff tracks on this, it seems each track has been hand picked to make up an impressive collection, rather than some good songs padded out with filler. Mr. Baker is a proficient and enthusiastic home-recorder and networker, so anyone into doing their own music would be well advised to get in touch with him. But if your only into listening, hes worth that too.
