Stig profile picture

Stig

..a multitude of sonic diversions..

About Me


THE BEATS BETWEEN THE NOTES BETWEEN THE BEATS
The structures built by the oversigned are derived from and abide by an ancient, forgotten doctrine, that decrees the following five rules for arranging sound:
1. "The computing machine can be told to do things, but the ear loathes the overtly precise. Let your work therefore be 'humanised' before consumption.";
2. "The attention span for instances of aural expression expires after approximately 240 seconds. Let your best ideas come forth within this, the safe area.";
3. "The presentor would be wise to avoid, among other things, consecutive fifths, direct quotation from the creations of others, applying the word 'progressive' to one's work, 'uplifting female vocals', suites, concepts, 'tone poetry', use of archaic structure, polyrhythms, syncopation of any form and certainly all variants of the saw wave.";
4. "The consumor shall not 'travel with you' through stylistic shift. The presentor is advised to create an invisible boundary around a proposed genre, outside of which he shall not stray."
5. "Most importantly, the musical ideas put forth are merely a form of background noise, to be accompanied by a lyrical or spoken narrative at all times. Any dangerous use of the heathen form also known as 'wordless', 'meaningless' or 'instrumental' music requires full written consent of the monarchy or government in question, neglect to obtain proper consent is punishable by cold indifference."

It is in recognition and indeed in spite of these axioms that the music hereunder exists in recorded form.
If Stig is a lone creator and indeed if he even exists, his use of electronics can be seen as a cleverly disguised 'fuck you' to the traditionalist electronic form of intervalled noises for the inebriated non-listener. Stigmusic seems to occupy neither the high brow plateau of unquestionable art, nor the dirty, common world of a kitchen soundtrack to your life. So I guess the biggest question is what drives someone to these lengths?
I don't know.
These are the melodies, countermelodies, rhythms and polyrhythms that constantly phase through my grey matter like a harmonious chronic tinitis. It is a simple method of transferring them from impulse to reality, with all the glorious errors of translation intact.
These are the sounds that pull my strings and destroy my spinal nerves. Or, a documented learning curve. Or, humble sketches of great music to come from an older man of my general proportions.
Of course, they are not suited to alert you to a incoming phone call or sullied with the stench of commodity.
The creation of these humble, yet pretentious noises is precisely what maintains my sanity, they are my fifth limb, my only uncensored conversation.
In this world of endless information, digital distribution, tri-label dictatorship and the death of the attention span, is there room for my music as it currently stands? Probably not. Will stigmusic eventually adapt to be something more pallatable? I hope so. Do we even have the time to listen to voiceless music without the accompaniment of some sort of moving image?
The answer suddenly becomes clear, like a guilty secret let slip during sleeptalk. No.
~ I am seeking sonic collaborators and partners in grand musical endeavours far beyond these sketches. Please, introduce yourself.
--
Aquadrifter (2003)
This project was called forth from the brain due to exposure to so-called 'IDM', which I found irresistably good. A flurry of atonal melodies and rapid hi-hats, with a vaguely conceptual underwater theme, it's quite loud and ironically, very dry for a collection of tracks about water.
'Amphibian' (excerpt)
'Aquadrifter' (excerpt)
'Litmus Checker'
Jackdaws Love My Big Sphinx of Quartz (2003)
'Jackdaws' is a 62 minute piece split into eight sections based on one of only two sentences to contain every letter in the dictionary. The phrase was so appealing, it sparked a mythology about jackdaws and crystal sphinxes, which demanded musical accompaniment. There is alot of Jazz influence here, mainly due to the unusual 9/4 and 15/4 time signatures that form the main themes. It is very percussive, and explores it's main themes in excrutiating depth, through a quite sparse and pretty first half followed by a furious latter and an unusually upbeat conclusion.
'Jackdaws love my Big Sphinx of Quartz' (complete piece)
The Ink is White (2003)
More a document of a period of time than a cohesive project, 'Ink' is diverse in style, with solo acoustic guitar pieces put against a vicious slice of glitchy electro ('pneumonia'), and a piece made entirely from windows text files ('a machine made of paper'). The featured track here, 'The Hopeful Stealer of Desire' is a frippertronics like solo guitar improvisation.
'The Hopeful Stealer of Desire'
Nuances (2004)
The first recording of the three part 'Fractal Patterns' project, 'Nuances' is a series of electroacoustic inspired ambient noise experiments, featuring everything from Shouting Indian Children, Train Stations and Microwaves to People playing old arcade games on MAME and a walk round a student house on a saturday afternoon. The field recordings are underset with keyboard and guitar improvisations based on simple, pure sounds.
'Steady Rise'
'Far Dip I'
'Steep Climb'
'Circular Motion'
'Vertical'
'Far Dip II'
'Steep Rise'
'Steady Decline'
Trapezoid (2004)
'Trapezoid' is the second Fractal Patterns project, the concept being to create four improvised pieces to represent the four uneven sides of the shape. (The british shape, as Trapezoid means a different thing in America). It was recorded by gathering instruments around a single pair of stereo microphones, with the time it took to get to the chair from pressing record to decide what to play. The results were then overdubbed and worked into cohesive pieces. The fourth piece is the most successful, and includes a clapping section inspired by Steve Reich's famous piece and Magma's 'MDK'. This is unusual for a stig project, both in the fact that it is entirely improvised and no programming was used throughout the recording.
Trapezoid I : 'A Perpetual Motion'
Trapezoid II : 'The Pattern of Celestial Bodies'
Trapezoid III : 'Celebration for the Joyless'
Trapezoid IV : 'Only the Twilight could be as Beautiful'
Periodicity (2004)
The final Fractal Patterns project is a clear ode to the Commodore 64's SID sound chip and early computer game music in general. As a child, the primary music I was exposed to was the basic, four channel melodic accompaniment to 8-bit computer games, and that has leaked over into practically everything I have written since. This album keeps a constant 2 beats per second, give or take a bit of digital drift, and the tracks are symmetrical, all lasting either 4 or 6 minutes exactly. The use of polyphony and sample memory was purposefully restricted to achieve the results of composing using very few channels and sounds.
'10 RELUCTANCE'
'20 CONTORTION'
'30 ELYSIUM'
'40 NOCTURNE'
'50 DISSOLVE'
'60 APPARITION'
'70 BEDLAM'
'80 FANFARE'
'90 GOTO 10'
Periodicity for two grand pianos (2005)
Two gentlemen known as Guddal Matte did an album of Genesis songs arranged for piano, and composer Nobuo Uematsu has recorded many albums of piano arrangements of his pieces for the Final Fantasy series of games, both of which inspired this piano arrangement of 'Periodicity'. Periodicity was chosen as it was the project least likely to work for Piano, which made the process of rearranging and in places recomposing the tracks even more interesting. There are a few short original pieces here too, to offset the fact that the periodicity tracks turned out to be quite intense in their piano arrangements.
'Awake in Bed at Midnight' (from 'Reluctance')
'A Logical Leopard Stole the Secret' (from 'Contortion')
'Asleep at Midday / Angels Grow Old Too' (from 'Elysium')
'Periodicity, no. 1'
'Difficulty Breathing' (from 'Nocturne')
'The Secret Stealer'
'A Shining Inevitability Destroyed the Target' (from 'Dissolve')
'Ghosts Travel Light' (from 'Apparition')
Ghosts Travel Light Coda : 'Primary Colours'
'Revolving Platforms' (from ' Bedlam')
'Periodicity, no. 2'
'Only the Smallest Margin will achieve Victory' (from 'Fanfare')
'Qin (from the window at midnight)' (from 'Reluctance')

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 4/22/2006
Band Website: stigmusic.com
Band Members: Stephen Patterson will take full responsibility for Stigmusic, and understands the consequences of his actions.
Influences: Christian Vander, Mike Oldfield, Steve Reich, Dave Kerman, Peter Gabriel/Genesis, Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp and King Crimson, Brian Eno, Joni Mitchell, John Martyn, Chris Cutler, Frank Zappa, Laurie Anderson, Robert Wyatt, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, David Sylvian, Autechre, Murcof, Aphex, Cornelius, Wendy Carlos, Dead Can Dance, Chick Corea, Bob Drake, David Byrne, Talk Talk, Devin Townsend, Steve Hackett, Peter Hammill, Tom Waits, Coldcut, Mansun (mainly their album 'Six'), Japanese Video Game Composers : Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, Mirichu Oshima, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Klaus Schulze, Gentle Giant, Edgar Meyer.. i could go on forever.



The seventeen Stig projects are as follows:

Hemlock.. and other Poisons (1998)

This is the first major stig project, consisting of four muliti-sectioned pieces created with a number of shorter pieces written during the period. The structure is very reminscient of progressive rock, however I was 15 years old when writing and recording this project, and hadn't yet been exposed to a great deal of that style of music. Even at this early stage, these pieces are very indicative of the way I approach writing 9 years later.

'Hemlock'

Dark Therapy (1999)

This two-part track seemed a bit quiet and reserved for Hemlock. It was originally envisioned as the soundtrack to a short film probably about killing moths.

'Dark Therapy' (pt. 1)
'Dark Therapy' (pt. 2)

Overload/Adjustment (1999)

This is the only Stig project that could really be called an 'album'. It was the result of alot of new musical stimulus, including Hip-hop, Breakbeat and House, alot of which I tried to incorporate into this project, with varying levels of success. The album ends with a ten minute 'underture', which was inspired by hip-hop mix albums. However, my interpretation more turned into a short suite with themes from the preceding tracks.

'Exposition' (excerpt)
'Life Signs (first hemlock)'
'Intentions pt. 2' (excerpt)

Childish Thoughts (2000)

The first distillation of a wealth of material written in 2000 going under the name 'Adolescence'. The breakbeat influence is still very prevelant as on 'Overload/Adjustment', but is more successfully worked into the style of writing established on 'Hemlock', albeit into shorter pieces. As was the practice at the time and it's frightening how quickly it went out of fashion, 'samples' and drumloops were used here.

'The Skyline Moves' (excerpt)

Still Hiding Behind Technology (2000)

A second project based on material written in 2000, this is stylistically very similar to 'Childish Thoughts' which is reflected in the album title. An Earth, Wind and Fire track was 'sampled' for the first track here, a practice I've understandably chosen not to repeat.

Axioms (2000)

The third and final project based on the 2000 'Adolescence' material, 'Axioms' was inspired by the concept of a 'remix' not being a remixing of the track, but a completely new version barely using any of the source material, a concept I still do not understand. To me, a remix is a remix, not a rearrangement.

'Childish Dreams'

Kaleidoscopic (2001)

After a three CD wide project of Breakbeat/Electro inspired stuff, 'Kaleidoscopic' was a return to the longform melodic counterpoint put forward on 'Hemlock'. It is a single piece, divided into two parts, primarily focusing on creating texture using multiple melodic phrases, inspired by Steve Reich's 'Music for 18 Musicians'.

'Colour Disruption' (excerpt 1)
'Colour Disruption' (excerpt 2)
'Colour Bleed' (excerpt)

Wasted Daydreams (2002)

'Wasted Daydreams' is a series of dream inspired tracks with diverse instrumentation. It is also the only Stig project to date to feature a 'Song', although it is a cover version of Steely Dan's 'Third World Man' from their Gaucho album. It features two extended pieces 'Throw me Back in the Sea' and 'Problem Attic', both of which continue the melodic layering used on Kaleidoscopic and Hemlock, however here they are offset by shorter, more direct tracks and ambient improvisations.

'Butterfly Silhouette' (excerpt)
'Wasted Daydream'

The Holograph (2002)

Written at the same time as 'Wasted Daydreams', 'Holograph' is a series of short programmed pieces that were purely exploratory in nature, the purpose being to experiment with unusual key signatures and rhythmic changes.

Sounds Like: A twitchy, yet rhythmically constant letch invading the prostitute of melodic counterpoint.

Personal Details :

I'm a 24 year old, left handed gay man with my head wrapped in sonic clouds. A Music Technology graduate and ex-secretary, interests include : Electronic entertainment (video games, not plastic phalli), Film, Theatre, Digital Art, Traditional painting, British Comedy, Anthropology, Taking computers to bits, Late-night lamp-post listening, old guitars, 'found' percussion, among other things. I also quite like music.

----
Status: In a Relationship Here for: Networking, Friends, Music Orientation: Gay Hometown: Newcastle upon Tyne Body Type: Average Ethnicity: Caucasian Religion: Nintendo Zodiac Sign: Taurus Smoke/Drink: Yes/Yes Children: Unlikely Education: Graduate Occupation: Music, Theatre, Sound Income: Disappointing
----

I am currently not involved with any record label and have limited means to properly distribute Stigmusic. If you can provide means to publish my work and would be interested in making it available to the sort of people who would appreciate it's diversity, I'd be delighted to hear from you. You can email me at [email protected].

Type of Label: None

My Blog

From "Weird Al" to Zoot Woman

There are currently 1290 albums in my iTunes library, by 367 artists."Wierd Al" Yankovic5uu's5uu's with the Motor Totemist Guild10ccAdrian BelewAhvakAirAlex De GrassiAlice in ChainsAlison Krauss & Uni...
Posted by Stig on Thu, 24 May 2007 08:35:00 PST

Trollo No. 5 - "The Aquaspirit"

The music is called "Requiem and Lament".If love is faith enough, you can download it here. ...
Posted by Stig on Sun, 29 Apr 2007 08:06:00 PST

Trollo No. 4 - "Through the eyes of the Dentist"

The music is called "The Dentist".You can download it here, if you have enough wisdom teeth. ...
Posted by Stig on Fri, 20 Apr 2007 05:38:00 PST

"for the 8 month period ended 15 February 2007"


Posted by Stig on Thu, 15 Feb 2007 01:41:00 PST

"Tangible Fixed Assets"


Posted by Stig on Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:34:00 PST

"The Peppermint Garden"

$$$$ZZZZZZZOOOO888888DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD88888888888OOOOOOOOOZ ZZ$$$$77777777IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII7IIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII7777$$$$$ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZOOOOOZOOZZZZZZ...
Posted by Stig on Thu, 26 Oct 2006 05:26:00 PST

"The Sour Faced Old Bat"

When I was four, we moved to a house;On a street of scientific law, near a hospital.Next door, at 194, i expected australian people-like mona or kylie or stefan or craig,but instead, shut away, in a m...
Posted by Stig on Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:29:00 PST

Trollo No. 3 - "Zora, Queen of Silence"

The music is called "Worries for the Future".You can download it here, if you feel compelled to do so....
Posted by Stig on Wed, 30 Aug 2006 05:50:00 PST

"The Tale of Lydia Teapot"

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Lydia Teapot. One day, she went into the forest to discover the location of her missing lid. High and low Lydia searched, with frantic unrest, until she...
Posted by Stig on Thu, 24 Aug 2006 03:06:00 PST

Trollo No. 2 - "Secret Hiding Place"

The music is called "Ao Xi".You can download it here, if you so wish....
Posted by Stig on Tue, 22 Aug 2006 04:28:00 PST