three easy steps to digging up and reanimating your ass, only to rock it into the ground once again

All of a sudden, while thinking about my musical journey over a drink tonight, I get this strong urge to resurrect my noise/power electronics-funeral doom project Atreus. Early on it was a raw black metal thingy, but I had a real change of heart and went from 280bpm to 80bpm and decided to try my hand at something different. Of course, at that time I was spending a lot of time making noise for my Subcomandante Insurgente (noise/power electronics) project so I had the noise part of the album pretty much settled.

I had to rely on ReFX’s Slayer VSTi for the guitar sound, as back then I didn’t even own an electric guitar, nevermind a recording interface for it. But I messed around with effects and stuff trying to get it to sound not blatantly synth-like. I guess I managed to do it, even though I didn’t actually get it to sound realistic. Wasn’t really my intention anyway.

These days, though, I happen to own an electric guitar which can definitely be used for the project. All I need is an audio interface, and, conveniently, there’s a Line 6 Toneport UX2 for sale for around RM600. Not exactly cheap, but it’s cheaper than a new one. And it’s pretty much brand new, too.

Thing is, I don’t have RM600 on me. Not at all. I could try and ask my dad for some money (again), but just thinking about that makes me feel… bad? I’m not entirely sure myself.

I’ve also been pondering getting a MIDI keyboard to use in Toni! This Is Sal!, primarily with a view to playing live one day. I also get the feeling that playing my synth lines with an actual keyboard will actually be quite fun. And then there’s the option of knob automation, which would be really nice.

Still, I’d need a laptop to actually play live.

This afternoon I was leaning more towards getting a MIDI keyboard (Behringer UMX25 or an M-Audio Oxygen 8, perhaps?) but tonight, faced with a strong desire to terrorize ears with noisy and “crushing” doom metal, I somehow think the Toneport would be a better buy. What I really think would be awesome, though, is the Line 6 Toneport UX37. Audio interface and MIDI keyboard, whoa yeah!

Although I don’t think I’d be able to play guitar while pressing keys on the keyboard. I think getting some sort of MIDI controller (sans keyboard) would suit me well enough, just to tweak some knobs while playing (live?), like feedback on the delay or gain on some distortion plugins.

Also, for the curious ones, you can get the aforementioned Atreus album here. 2 good ratings out of 3 reviews, which is, to be honest, fucking awesome. Quote-time!

Industrial doom at its bleakest and ugliest..not to mention slowest. Sounds like a funeral procession for an ancient robot race in the far, far future…on a distant sludge infested planet.

Very trance inducing, gets under your skin…slowly…and stays there.

Mostly instrumental, but it works great that way.

and

This is a brilliant example of heavy, crushing funeral-doom metal. The incredibly distorted guitars create dense a wall of bass-heavy noise. The songs never breach anything more than mid-tempo and serve to create a sound that is akin to having your head torn apart audibly, in extremely slow motion. This is recommended to people who like bands such as Khanate, Sunn o))) and Esoteric (the founders of funeral doom).

I would definately like to hear more music from Atreus!

Those two comments made my day, let me tell you that. Zaraza! Fucking hell!