This week's track started out of an impulse to do something sparse and improvisatory like the last couple of Talk Talk records, but inevitably I made it denser. I'd started with a sparse syncopated drum line that didn't make it to the final mix, but the guitar parts are in response to that.

Saturday brought us the awful news of Tom Verlaine's passing, so one of the guitar parts has a heavy vibrato in tribute. (Tom's playing is a fundamental influence for me; I've been a listener and fan for decades, and I've been fortunate to attend several performances over the years as well.) RIP, Tom.

Guitar: inevitably, it had to be the Jazzmaster-shaped PureSalem Mendiola.

No inline effects, but there's a room-sized convolution reverb on everything, and the usual Wide & Warm audio effect rack for compression/eq.

The title comes from the galaxy NGC 474, which has dramatic glowing shells that might be tidal tails.

This one started with a sparse and syncopated rhythm I imagined, and grew a bit organically from there: first vibes (removed) and PureMagnetik Berlin electric piano, and then PureSalem Mendiola guitar lines (straight into the Focusrite). Finally, a pass with Epiphone bass. My timing is very loose on this one.

There's the usual processing here: Drums are the 64 Pad Kit Jazz with Humanizer. Bass gets the usual EQ-8 rolloff. One guitar gets high-pass Auto-Filter with drive. Sends: one echo and two convolution reverbs (one large, one small). Wide & Warm audio effect rack preset on the output.

The title comes from NGC 89, a peculiar spiral in Robert's Quartet.

Another busy week, including a show using one of my Max/MSP patches, so here's a little dark ambient track making use of the same patch and similar improvisational methods. (The original input is just a sine wave, going through ring mods, pitch shifters, and delays, all of which have some level of randomization.) As a slightly different approach, I also put on a drum rack of Analog-synthesized drums. Bit of convolution reverb, delay, and Full Chain Master as well...and you have this steady-state kind of thing. My younger son suggested the title, because it sounded to him like something malfunctioning. (It does!)