About the music

Here are descriptions of each of the tunes, for those interested in such things, like e.g., me.

A quick note about gear

I'm not a gearhead at all. As such, my studio setup is terribly un-hip and low-tech. I use a 12 channel Behringer board into an Echo Mia sound card that is housed in an old PIII 550 MHz PC. My amp is an Alesis RM300 and it powers Event 20/20 monitors (passive), just like everybody else. I use really old versions of Sonic Foundry Vegas and Soundforge along with whatever free DSP/FX I can pilfer for recording/treating/mixing/mastering duties. My keyboard is a Roland A90-EX, which I bought because it has 88 nicely weighted keys and gorgeous piano sounds. I have a cheap Martin acoustic guitar, a Fender Mexi strat tuned C-D, an old beast of a guitar named Moniq that I've frankensteined together which is also tuned C-D, and a seven string Schecter tuned A-E that I use for all the Null Device stuff. My amp is a bone-stock Peavey 5150 (the old version) half stack. I have no MIDI stuff, no tone generator, and no drum machine. My mics are all Shure 57s and 58s, although I have a PG52 that I use for recording bass and kick drum parts. I don't own a bass or a drumset, so I borrow those whenever I need them.

And now, the songs.

LeStat in Cuba

The HALO compilation track, obviously. While hanging out at Eric's place once, I became obsessed with the album cover of that one Senor Coconut CD with the badly-dressed Mexican guys on it and decided that I wanted to write a sort of badly swank Cuban-sounding thing that would sound like that album cover looked. I'm pretty sure I missed the mark, but I love the track anyway. I'm also somewhat obsessed with Goth culture in general and thought that wouldn't it be cool if there was some sort of uber-goth ultravampire goddess chick who was like the girl vampires went to when they wanted finally to die? I'll admit that this idea didn't exactly spring Athenially from my brain, but it's what I eventually arrived at. I only used the vampire LeStat's name 'cos I think it's a perfect name for a vampire, and made for a catchy title.

Beauty

This was the only Dark Clan track to ever get any sort of airplay anywhere. Matt Fanale somehow got ahold of it and gave it some spins at Club Inferno in Madison, WI, and apparently it was well-liked. According to some reports, the song would cause a rushing of the dance floor by a decent-sized quantity of goths. I regret I was never at the Inferno to witness this, relying instead on eyewitness reports from friends of mine. The fact that anyone would dance to anything I would write makes me ecstatic, so that the fact that goths (whom I sort of adore) were at one time dancing and swooning to my music pretty much takes the cake.

Melt

Judas Priest remix || Original by Stromkern

Ned asked me to do a remix for Come Armaggedon. I didn't make the album, but still had a blast doing the track and figure it's at least worth putting on this site for everyone's downloading pleasure. This was particularly fun as Careen, my vocalist, is a jazz singer by trade; it was great getting her to sing over an industrial track.

Reis Glorios

My cover of a 14th-century Alba, or Dawn Song, as originally written and sung by a long-forgotten trouvere. A heart-wrenching story about a troubador keeping watch while his compatriot makes love to a faithless countess in a tower high above. With the dawn comes his rival, but he ignores his friend the troubador's entreaties to leave from below, much to his friend's deep dismay.

Gothicke Nocturne

A song about loss sung by a regretful vampire. Dedicated to the memory of my father, Charles Frances Clark, who died in may of '97.

A Heartbeat Away

A newly-unborn vampire lies in his casket deep in the earth, awaiting the arrival of the vampire that gave him his death to make the transformation complete.

The Mojo Song

I have a huge weakness for unison guitar/synth lines, which explains my continuing love for the first three Dream Theater albums. (After those records they got too wanky even for me.) This song is just supposed to inspire positive vibes; good mojo.

Vitriol

The result of a challenge: While sitting in the studio, I once asked myself how long it would take me to make a song using only samples that were currently on my hard drive. Two hours later, I had this. An interesting side note is that some of the vocal outtakes are from ch0rck pre-Stochastic Theory. He was fiddling with something on our old studio computer and the outtakes were left hanging around so I figured "Hey! Fair game!"

Rise

Amanda Poulson is a friend of mine who I met while we were both attending the UW School of Music together, she was a vocal performance major, I was a composition major. Amanda is a broadway singer who has also appeared on rattbelly albums, and who had a role in musical I wrote back in college. She is a total professional and a dream to work with. This song was inspired by something I saw while walking home on a beautiful, crisp, autumn day. It was one of those Rilke-ish moments I'll cherish forever.

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