Saturday, October 27, 2012

new release: Lee Rosevere - Fall of the House of Usher


For this Halloween, we're pleased to present a new original score by Lee Rosevere written for the 1928 silent public domain film "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Melville Webber and J.S. Watson Jr, based on the poem by Edgar Allan Poe.

This early and fine example of avant-garde cinema is a visually-rich film, and offers many possibilities and challenges when it comes to the music, especially since it doesn't follow conventional storytelling techniques.

You can watch the film with the music below, or visit the website to download the film and/or the score.

 

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

ISS Stacks

Well, blow my lips off!

A little over 24 hours ago, Christoph Malin posted a video made from NASA footage of the earth at night (some of the same footage appears in one of our own videos), featuring Lee's song "Eileen" from the Music for MOBA album.

However, this is not your average time-lapse space video - the images are 'stacked' - and it's been watched at Vimeo more than 160,000 times, not to mention a nifty little Wired.com article - thanks Christoph!

Monday, October 15, 2012

New release - Jared C. Balogh - Between Equinox

Happy Puppy is pleased to present another collection of humanly-impossible-to-play compositions by the prolific Jared C. Balogh.

These cerebral but very musical songs fits right in with his Rhythms of Life album, previously also released on Happy Puppy, continuing his synclavier-esque modern classical material.

This new album features some of his earliest works; "Break In The Action" is listed in the song notes as being recorded in early June, while "Quick Steppin' Q" goes back nearly three years, played by an imaginary avant-garde jazz duo.

Over 74 minutes of enjoyable and thought-provoking music, and we hope you enjoy it and graciously thank Jared for sharing his music with us. Available now for free download!

For more on Jared's music, visit him at his website, facebook or twitter.

Friday, September 21, 2012

2 new items...

Lee's track "Eileen" seems to be a big hit over at Vimeo... the song most recently appeared in Evan Burn's wonderful short documentary "The Junk King", which has received 20,000 views in just 2 days.

We're super-chuffed to be a part of the latest remix EP by Sweden's #1 pop band Acid House Kings! Lee did his best Phil Collins-esque production work - you can get it at iTunes, or stream it below to listen!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

new album playlist: Beyond the Goal

Possible hockey lockout gotcha down?

Back in 2008, the Corporation that Broadcasts throughout Canada held a contest for a new hockey anthem to go with their very popular hockey TV show. They lost the original rights to the iconic and well-known theme, and so asked Canada to write a new one.

There were over 15,000 entries.. and most of them are lost to time, which I think is a shame and I would like to see them remembered and preserved.

The Corporation that Broadcasts throughout Canada took down the website a few years ago, but with a little help from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, I was able to look up original contest entries that were posted on the site.

However, they didn't store the mp3 and video files that people submitted on their own website. They used off-site storage... and the files are still there!

It's impossible to collect all the songs... each entry was given an ID number, but you don't know who the artist is, or what the song is called, unless you cross-reference it with the Wayback results... and they didn't capture every page, but I managed to create the following "album playlist" from what the Wayback gave me.

I actually collected a 'personal' CD worth of anthems, so I do have more songs than are listed here that I quite liked, but unfortunately I never saved the original ID numbers, so I can't find them now... and I cannot re-upload them without the permission of the songwriters. Most cases, all I have is a name and a city, which isn't very helpful in tracking them down, with the exception of a few.

So instead, I'm linking to the original files - you'll have to rename the file yourself if you want to save it (every file name gets tagged as "31").

It includes some well-known Canadian musicians like Gowan, Moe Berg from TPOH, Carly Paradis (who played piano on the "Moon" soundtrack), Myles Goodwin from April Wine, Steve Eggers from the Canadian pop/rock band The Nines, and many more you've never heard of.

Also included is Logan Aube's "Hockey Scores", which I highly recommend you read the story behind.

Get them before they go!

Sunday, August 19, 2012

New release: Peter DiPhillips "Omphalos"


Presenting a debut release by Peter DiPhillips for Happy Puppy: Omphalos.

Peter, who also goes by the name slowdazzzle, creates dark and spacey electronic soundscapes highlighted with minimal but effective melodies... definitely of interest for fans of atmospheric soundtracks.


Many highlights, but we particularly enjoy the synthy-calm "Tranquillamente" trilogy at the end, which pretty much sounds like what its title implies.


You can find other releases of Peter's on his Soundcloud and Bandcamp pages, where he recently posted the sequel to this release, Omphalos II.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

new release: Origami Repetika - Computer Time


After releasing his first single on Happy Puppy last year, Origami Repetika is back with his first mini-LP for us.


The man behind Origami Repetika is Adam Sigmund, who is a member of the Origami Republika collective, and now is also a member of the South Jersey SoundFont Collective (SJSFC).


There's lots of bright and sunny sounds in these bouncy tunes, and would probably do well if you were looking for chipmusic to exercise to - case in point, the song "Sunny Morning Exercise Club".


Share and enjoy.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Drones To Make Dinner By

Hello and yes, July is nearly over and we haven't done much. But things are in the tubes... two new releases coming very soon, and we're now taking submissions for the first in a hopefully-continuing series.


Now accepting submissions for a new series in compilations of original material, in the spirit of the "Music To.." or "Music For.." series of albums released in the 60s.

"Drones To Make Dinner By"!

Requirements:

1. Record an original drone track (or something drone-y sounding)... something that might be good for dinnertime. We're looking for new, previously-unreleased material.

2. No profanity or adult subject matter please.

3. You can make it as long or short as you like, but no longer than 10 minutes.

4. We like quality, so send either FLACs or MP3s encoded no lower than 192 kbps.

5. Upload it to dropbox, zippyshare, yousendit, etc and email me the link to happypuppyrecords@yahoo.com

6. Please include a short bio if yourself/band (3 lines max) and link(s) to the website you'd like people to visit to find out more about you.

7. Choose a CC license for your tracK ** VERY IMPORTANT ** It's not a demand, but we'd highly suggestion this one:



8. Deadline for submissions is September 30, 2012

Please note there is no guarantee your track will appear on the compilation, which will be posted on Happy Puppy Records and Free Music Archive for free download.

Any questions just email us! Thanks for your consideration.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

New release: Maximilian Torsten - Namoon

Happy Puppy is proud to announce the re-release of a very rare LP from 1972 by unknown German electronic artist Maximilian Torsten.

Originally a privately-pressed vinyl record, Namoon is an ambient and minimalist sonic treat composed of two long songs, split up into movements. Recorded in his basement studio with home-made equipment, Max created the music during late-night sessions from 1970-72 inspired by his heroes Jon Appleton, Tangerine Dream, Silver Apples, early Kraftwerk and White Noise.

Less than 100 copies were made of Namoon, given to friends and family. Due to his extremely introverted nature, he never sent any copies to radio stations, magazine or record stores.

Fast-forward to 2010.... after meeting online in a forum dedicated to early 70s electronic music, Happy Puppy's owner Lee Rosevere shared original music back and forth with Max, introduced him to the world of netlabels. In turn, Max introduced Lee to Max's library of original unreleased albums - all recorded as a hobby - just gathering dust on his shelf.

Luckily, Max still had the original master tapes for Namoon, and thanks to him, we are able to make the remastered album available for free download on its 40th anniversary. It is our hope to bring you more of his music in the future.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

new release: Dudley Whitemud sings Aqua's Aquarium


We're big fans of the program Amateur Hour, heard on CKUW out of Winnipeg, hosted by Kent Davies (you should consider a donation to their fine station).

A few months ago, Kent had Joe Stover on his program from Cuif Media, a underground collective of artists from Winnipeg in the late 90s to mid 2000's.

At the end of the show, they played one of the most popular items in the Cuif Media library: Dudley Whitemud Sings Selections From Aqua's Aquarium.

Since Happy Puppy's own Fudge had recorded a cover of "Barbie Girl" in surf style, we know that Aqua were capable of writing some really great melodies that could be heard past the dance-pop production.

So we were very curious to hear this album, featuring acoustic folk-country renditions of Aqua's debut album. After the broadcast, we contacted Kent and Cuif Media to see if we could re-release this album officially.

Big thanks to Kent who puts us in touch with Dudley (aka Brock Unger) and provided us with a copy of the album for release here on Happy Puppy, and also to Brock and Cuif Media for giving us permission. Free download!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

new release: Lee Rosevere - Time-Lapse: Volume 1

Ever since Vimeo added Lee's music to their library for people to put in their videos, a lot of them seem to feature time-lapse photography... everything from Aurora Borealis, Dubai over 28 hours, and even slo-mo muffins.

This inspiration has resulted in a new series of albums that will be focusing on "slow-motion" music called Time-Lapse.

This first release in the series features synthesized-versions of some of Lee's favourite popular classical pieces that are in the public domain. Download it for free, in either 320 mp3 and lossless flac.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Slipping: Skate's Impact on Egypt

Brett Wiese Saunders documentary Slipping: Skate's Impact on Egypt uses music sourced from the Free Music Archive for a soundtrack, including tracks by Lee Rosevere and many others.

Brett is looking for donations through kickstarter to get the doc on DVD, paying for production costs and also passing a portion of the funding onto the musicians. We'd appreciate if you would consider helping fund the project, and you can also download the soundtrack from FMA for free.

Monday, April 9, 2012

New album release: Many Moods of Bob Purse


I love collecting song-poems (song-poem you say? read more about them here), as does Bob Purse. Not just song-poems, but Bob is a music collector of the strange, the odd, the outside. And not only has he collected for years, he shares a lot of it on the infamous WFMU Beware The Blog, as well as his own blog.


On the occasion of his 50th birthday, he posted some of his original material on his blog that he had recorded privately over the years. They came from a cassette he originally shared with friends and family back in 1997 called The Many Moods Of Bob.


After hearing Bob's songs, I was very interesting in hearing the rest of the tracks, and I contacted him with the idea of releasing the entire album for free download.


What follows is a truly fantastic DIY album, up there with the likes of R. Stevie Moore, the weird 4-track stuff by Ween, etc. Not only does Bob has a knack for writing off-the-wall tunes, but he's also covered a song-poem, a handful of obscure commercials, and a couple of parodies, recalling my younger-days of hearing this kind of stuff on Dr. Demento ("Bad TV Acting" was even played by Dr. D on May 16, 1999).


The album comes with Bob's personal liner notes, containing his commentary on each track, available in Word format and also in full album artwork for easy printing.


Time to dim the lights, pour a glass of your favourite beverage and enjoy The Many Moods of Bob Purse!

Saturday, March 31, 2012

new EP from new artist Toxic Chicken


One last post before March closes, and it's a new release from a new artist for HP: Toxic Chicken!

Mr. Chicken has released many lo-bit albums on many netlabels, and he's worked closely on many different projects with Mr. Adam Crammond including the only lo-bit radio show/podcast that I know of This new Simple Life EP of Toxic tunes is available for free download. BOCK!

Monday, March 12, 2012

New interview with Lee at Songs and Sonics blog


(that's a picture of the Leebot, btw)

Thanks very much to Jeff of The Simple Carnival for a recent interview done with Lee, giving a little background into the technical production behind Lee's music.

Unfortunately, Jeff has shut down the blog, so archives are not available... but we've saved a copy:

Interview: Lee Rosevere

Ambient songwriter • producer • engineer • multi-instrumentalist

In what ways does the place where you live or places you have lived affect the music that you create or your taste in music?

Most of my original material is instrumental, just because I enjoy playing with sounds much more than ‘having something to say’ with words.

When I lived with my family, I had a whole basement to myself with my trusty rusty 4-track tape recorder… which meant I had the space and the privacy to bash on a *real* drumset, set up massive tape loops across the room, experiment with running a guitar through a old home-stereo speaker with a pencil stuck in it and then mic’ing it (had to turn it up really loud to get a signal, but it sounded great, almost like a real amp), and record some truly embarrassing mouth-noises that humans sometimes call ‘vocals’.

After I moved out with my wife to our tiny apartment, the area where the kitchen table should’ve been became my 4×4 workspace. It was a big hassle to even set up a single microphone, so it was just easier to compose electronically on computers.

Then, as my old 166-khz computer couldn’t handle the projects anymore (plus there was no way of getting the files off it) and newer computers got faster, I got into more ‘sound-processing’ as a method of composing music, which is most of what I do now.

What’s the biggest challenge for you when recording?

Writing melodies! Seriously, always trying to do something different, and not fall into ‘traps’ of similar sound-manipulation techniques.

Working in the genre of ‘laptop-composing’, I’ve noticed that I don’t like rough edges, I like to smooth out everything, which is the exact opposite of the current fashion of electronic music making culture (glitch, noise, etc).

I’m never sure if I should break out of my comfort zone and leave some of the things in that I would normally take out. But then again, it’s how I like things to sound! Did I mention I’m a control freak and I love reverb?

Plus I’m using CoolEdit2000 for all mixing (the old version of Adobe Audition) which only has 4 tracks to work with at a time.

What music are you listening to today?

Always listening, sometimes to discover new music (difficult in popular music) although don’t think there’s anything wrong in listening to old favourites.

I just bought 2 CDs by Canadian jazz group Uzeb off CDbaby (loved them since the mid-80s, their albums were always hard to get), I’m collecting some albums of Ligeti’s music to listen to later, and whenever I don’t know what to listen to, I put on KPM library music or a 2-CD compilation called Get Easy of late 60s sunshine pop.

I usually load entire albums onto my mp3 player (not an iPod) and if I hit shuffle the first 3 songs are “Melancholy Me” by Jackie Trent, “Pearl of the quarter” by Steely Dan, and “Any other way” by William Bell.

Are there any special mixing tricks you used in your featured song?

“The Machine That Won The War” is one of the newer ones (off the Music Inspired By The Writings of Asimov – free from bandcamp!), combining many different techniques that I’ve messed around with over the years.

The bass rhythm was done in real time, but the majority of the parts were recorded without listening to the main track and then manipulated to fit in afterwards. Plus I wanted to make a song with the cheesy Simmons-electric drum sound!

Sometimes I would play along to the main track, get a little bit of a synth line or guitar part that I liked, and then chop it up, stretch it, shrink it, loop it, reverb the heck out of it and then sync it back into the track to see what it sounded like.

Many years ago, a big revelation for me was the way Frank Zappa created some of his ‘guitar solo’ songs – the accompaniment and guitar solo parts all constructed from completely seperate recordings of completely different songs (dare I say he invented the mashup?). It doesn’t have to be in the same key, or even in the same tempo!

The idea that a riff or a beat doesn’t have to stay the way it was recorded opened up a whole way of non-linear recording and composing, not to mention the added ability to stretch or shrink any sound (including sound effects).

Sunday, March 4, 2012

King For A Day - Volume 2!


We didn't expect it would be a near-full year before the second volume in the XTC-fan-tribute King For A Day series would be released - but it's here - available for free download (or get ALL 130+ covers on the CD-R for super cheap! Details on the page).

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Sirona Records 300!


Hot off the press! Arnaud Barbe, who runs the Sirona Records netlabel, just unleashed his 300th release, Sincerity Is The Key: a virtual box set of containing over 7 CDs...9 hours of free music.

Exclusive tracks from familiar names like c4, as well as recent HP additions Origami Repetika and Jared C. Balogh. Lee contributed a previously-unreleased turntable piece called "The Screaming Tunnel". Way to go Arnaud, but 9 hours?!

Friday, January 27, 2012

New release: Music inspired by the writings of Isaac Asimov


In possibly his most nerdy move yet, Lee Rosevere's latest project is music inspired by the writing of Isaac Asimov, known for his many science-fiction stories.

Each composition is named after the corresponding sci-fi short story (sorry you'll have to visit your library or download a complete collection of short stories to read the originals, copyright infringement and all that).

Similar in style to the three installments of the Light Years albums (I, II and III), the music is reminiscent of unofficial scores for non-existent sci-fi movies. It isn't essential to be familiar with the Asimov stories the songs are named after, but it does enhance the listening experience. Lee's comments on each track are available in the liner notes below.

Artwork: Front | Back | Inner Liner Notes (doc)

Stream album | Download album

Tracks: (320 kbps)

1. Multivac

2. Dreaming Is A Private Thing

3. The Machine That Won The War

4. It's Such A Beautiful Day

5. Eyes Do More Than See

6. The Dead Past

7. Gimmicks Three

8. The Ugly Little Boy

9. The Last Question

10. Nightfall

Video: "Le Voyage Dans La Lune (The Machine That Won The War)"

mp4 | ogg | wmv



Cover photo by Andy Morris (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Hello 2012...

Happy New Year!

Things are jumping already, as we've got a number of releases ready to go... first up, a new artist to the roster Jared C. Balogh, and his experiemental modern-classical release Rhythms Of Life, similar in style to the Synclavier work of Zappa. Free download!


And Lee has joined up with the new Disquiet/Junto audio group, started by Marc who runs the influential Disquiet website. The first 'assignment' for the group was to record the sound of ice in a glass and make something out of it... we recommend checking out all the interesting results, but this is what Lee came up with:


More soon!