“Recaptured” is a series of old content – music, recordings, writings, photos I’ve been coming across in random shoeboxes and plastic crates. (Hopefully) by digitizing/writing this stuff up I will keep it from being lost forever.
In the summer of 2002, I was delivering pizzas…I think. Either that or I was just home from college, idle, waiting to start my sophomore year of college. Doesn’t matter. My friend Colin, who I have been friends with every day of my life, save for one (He was born one day after me, I think in the same hospital) is creative. I consider myself creative, but Colin is purely so. The creative part of his brain is larger than the rest. He’s about 90 percent creative ideas, and 10 percent other stuff. He’s amazing in the way that aggressively creative people are: odd, uncomfortably hilarious, and intimidatingly brilliant. We spent the better part of 6th grade making comedy recordings and selling the tapes in our respective classes. We made 50 bucks…which is about a billion dollars in kid money.
Anyway, in 2002 Colin had just started synthesizing his musical influences (shoeboxes full of old tapes, Boards of Canada, Autechre, old metal) into a project he named either L5d (see the play on letters there?) or Advanced Ants Dance, depending on the day you asked him. He’d pack himself into his parents garage/basement on Portland Avenue in Bloomington, Minnesota for hours with his sampler, an old busted floppy-disk sampling keyboard, his bass, and a collection of unspooled VHS tapes and cassettes with strange markings all over them, cutting…pasting…creating. The results sounded like Madlib filtered through Boards of Canada’s screened-in-porch.
One night in August…for some reason (a birthday?) he had some friends over to his parents house to “play” a little L5d “show” for everyone. It was me – in the early stages of my Palahniuk-reading academic paranoia, his friend Ariya – co-conspirator in their tapedeck-rap project Fumanji, Mark – another insanely brilliant madperson who at the time was studying Remote Viewing, and David – a small, absurdly nice kid they (and me, only once) used to call “Squeaky” in middle school, on account of his abnormally high pitched voice.
At the time I was gently fucking around with my own music, and I was attracted to “found sound”, so I brought my trusty Pressman tape recorder over to record the show. It was loose, but there were some snatches of real brilliance, all drenched in that unbelievably appealing tape-hiss sound that can only come from analog equipment and roughly chopped samples.
I came across that tape recently, and digitzed it to put up here. Because it needs to be heard. In the background if you hear a small laugh, that’s David. Who by that point had transcended the high school bullshit, and had a great crew of friends who loved him. He was doing well, working at Batteries Plus at the time (he was still wearing his work uniform that night I believe). About a year later, he was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I mention this not to add cheap gravitas, but to give him the credit he deserved as a good person. He’s here on this tape, and was really important to the moment. Rest in Peace man.
So check these out, they are definitely worth a damn…If you click “share” you can download the mp3
L5d – 8-20-02 – 1
L5d – 8-20-02 – 2
L5d – 8-20-02 – 3
L5d now goes as Omnii. Check out Omnii’s music here and look out for his completed album soon.
Also, this is Mark’s Myspace. I’ve written about his comics/writings/photography here before, check him out. His stuff is like Adult Swim’s editing floor…the shit that was too crazy for the craziest minutes on a late Sunday night.
Tags: L5d, mark samuelson, omnii, Recaptured
I don’t recall that music being as good as it seems to me now, I like the 1st and 2nd tracks you posted. I say some of Colin’s finest stuff there. I think the handheld tape recording element, adds something for me. Perhaps a backdrop, a red carpet being rolled out, of strictly all digitally composed and zapped music makes the analog tape recording even shinier and enjoyable. It’s like how on the internet, I think there’s a trend among good web designers.. where you’ll see graphics written in pencil or using scanned in copies of tape or paper, or things with real texture.. just to contrast against how digitally flat and zapped it (the internet) is, and you see that stuff.. say a regular piece of paper with the blue lines, and you go oh that looks cool/good somehow.
You are such a great writer, you’re always so overly kind in your descriptions of me.
I would like to submit though, that the remote viewing page on wikipedia is disinformation, I think wikipedia when approaching on classified/secret/controversial/paranormal type things is very dishearteningly consistently disinformation. By disinformation I mean, you have some truth but then really bad omissions and distortions which misrepresent a topic, similar to what is seen on mainstream media tv when dealing with such topics, and I think perhaps wikipedia is seen as how big network tv news is seen as a centralized source of information but on the net, and it’s perhaps tainted/controlled the same way as on TV. It’s disheartening cause if people want information on a topic such as Remote Viewing.. they go google it.. and they get an early result of wikipedia.. then they chew on that.. think it’s bogus fluff, and they lose interest and that’s where their research stops.. when those could’ve been first steps to evolving as a person.
For a page to link to about remote viewing for anyone that is interested, I recommed this: It’s a very good FAQ for people who are new to the topic.
http://www.firedocs.com/remoteviewing/faq016.cfm
I meant to cite the 1st and 3rd tracks specifically, and also say really like instead of just like
oh also thanks for posting these… this was really fun to listen to and read
Awesome. Thank you for sending that link, I will definitely switch it out. That’s exactly what I wanted, just a little knowledge for people who have no idea what remote viewing is.
And thanks a lot for reading, and for the feedback. I really appreciate it. I’m really into this whole analog thing, this artist I’m helping with his web stuff, Jeff Taylor, we had the idea to do “Anablogs” where he actually writes something out on paper and we scan it…I think that’s the next step (for me at least), to take “blogging” off the (as you called it) “digitally flat” web landscape and into a real, tangible, analog format. There is something so appealing and almost addicting about analog things, especially in a digital context…its like finding water in a desert.
Check out Jeff’s blog here (with the anablogs)
http://jefftaylorblog.wordpress.com/
And also, this rap blog does some cool stuff with digging up old analog stuff
http://www.cocaineblunts.com/blunts/
I’m really psyched I was able to find that tape of Colin’s stuff. I remember being really intrigued by it, but looking back, I realize how far ahead musically he was. And still is. Its cool to see how his sound has grown. He just told me that the occasion was him leaving for Norway, which is interesting because he came back with that proper L5D album finished, which is still great, and I hope to post that whole thing as a kind of continuation to the story…Anyway, I actually have 2 more tracks I can put up from that night too. I will do another post soon, with the rest for download. I also really look forward to continuing this recapture thing. I have found some interesting/fun stuff in my archives.
Again, thanks for reading man, means a lot
“I think that’s the next step (for me at least), to take “blogging” off the (as you called it) “digitally flat” web landscape and into a real, tangible, analog format. There is something so appealing and almost addicting about analog things, especially in a digital context…its like finding water in a desert.”
This is cool, and EXACTLY, agreed. Though I’ve never really been when it comes to music one of those digital hating analog purists (they and such fervor I think have kind of ran dry mainly I think out of numbers, the average artist today knows little outside of the digital computer soft synth world where likely they got there start, and the soft stuff has gotten to be so resoundingly and unimaginably capable of so many things, aside from doing analog) but back like 10 years ago there was more a siren song from them on the net,… like NO to samplers, soft synths, or PCM synths (what kind of like your basic 90s 100 preset Casio does, or a Trinity emulating an instrument).. and obviously this music is digital based with samplers.. it’s just that final analog portable tape recorder treatment, kind of gift wrapping to it, which kind of gives it that appeal you articulated.. but more so maybe, just that kind of final treatment and recording I think marries well with the specific type of music being made. Also I think that L5d kind of stuff maybe just sounds good done live, kind of improvised, and more imperfect.
Thanks for changing the link, and you are a really good writer. Real ability there. Colin and I both agreed on that in Facebook correspondence about this blog post.
i really think the 3 tracks you uploaded are the good part of the show, it gets kind of hard to listen to after that. my sober, sugared up mind started meandering at that point, so maybe this is left best as it is.
but if you can point me towards an easy file sharing site i can send you the mp3s of the L5d LP and “Peace EP” cassettes. i can also just mail you a CD with the “Omnii” LP when thats done. there is only one song left to smooth out.
Colin, use Mediafire.com to upload files.
Damn, I miss the San-Com days. Good times. L5D was awesomesauce.
Looking forward to that Omnii LP.
Do it….
I miss Sick Liquids too..
r.i.p. san-com
http://shop.cafepress.com/sk/SAN_COMshop/s_san-com_666
Such bad design….:(
COPPERPLATE LIKE WHOA!!!!
#typographyfail
#designfail
#friendsequalwin
HAHAHAHAHA #truckerhatfail
The fucking san-com trucker hat. Wow.
I also dug sick liquids, but only the tracks colin made on his own….the ones we did at my house in Eau Claire? Man…I really had no idea how to record vocals…or “rap”. It was a learning experience definitely.
One of those sick liquids songs was so god damn great…i need to dig that up. Whoa just found it. Numbers 3, 6, 8. Amazing. And the last one with the singing.
Also, I still can’t believe that about David. He was a very gentle kind of human being and I only wish I had hung out with him more. I recall he was picked-on in school just for being misunderstood, as many of us were.
He’s definitely missed.
David was a great man.
I was thinking today in disappointment, as Colin touched on, how you, Ryan, failed to document.. or touch on how much sugar and candy Colin was eating during the performance for whatever reason. I think he had a cup of sugar, literally a cup with sugar in it, that he’d take pulls from.. then candy too. It doesn’t surprise me it got overlooked, don’t think it registered really with anyone.
David was my only friend for the first part of fifth grade. he wore megadeth shirts and would tell me how someone in his family used to let him shoot assault rifles.
he was really cool.
years later he was “zombie-boy”, one of YRU-Up’s favorite callers.
And colin, definitely use mediafire. its the greatest. Also, I will send you my address to mail me the Omnii disc. I’m lookin forward to it.
Oh Man, I miss YRU-Up so hard. Drew weren’t you on there for a brief time? Or was I just on drugs?
That and Dung Heap were classic cable access B-Town days.
Drew, do you remember our awesome time in Mr. Marble’s shop class? I think it was Mr. Marble. I remember getting in trouble for filing off a lock from one of the locked lockers. I also remember discussing Moonspell’s “Wolfheart” album with you.
I also remember being part of the YO-YO club…oh man..I was a nerd. Well, I’m still a nerd.
Also, Ryan you should respond to my damn email.
asshole.
i forgot about the whole “zombie-boy” thing. brings back great memories. i couldn’t say enough kind things about David, he was the most loyal and sincere person i have ever been lucky enough to know.
it’s nice to hear that anyone likes ’sick liquids’. i’m a little embarrassed about my endeavors in rapping.
my first band “pottychair” was featured on the Dung Heap several times. Mark (the other half of pottychair) made a facebook club in tribute to them.
[...] as I was digging through tapes, the same time I found the L5D tape, I found this [...]
[...] while back I wrote a post about my friend L5D playing live in his parents basement. To recap, L5D is my friend Colin Swenson. I’ve known him my whole life, but even if I [...]