a speckle of a jump of a love of a life

Unquiet CD now available

2012-01-19T11:40:00.000-05:00

Why I decided to bother making these cd's I am not entirely certain, but now that I have I am extremely pleased with them. This cd contains Unrelated Passages and Quiet Instructions on one disc. I hand printed the recycled cardboard sleeves and printed the insert on vellum. I was going for an early 90's Thrill Jockey meets Drive-In Records (the seminal Michigan space rock/indie pop label) aesthetic. I feel like I succeeded in that. This run of cd's is limited to just 25 copies.

These will be available at upcoming shows or you can order one from me. They are $5 postage paid. If you wish to order one contact me at hifienvelope@gmail.com

Sloppy Kisses

2011-12-26T22:50:00.000-05:00

Over the X-mas weekend my friends Timothy Murray and Anna Wallace have released some music via Soundcloud with their new group, Sloppy Kisses. If you love thrifting, John Waters movies and phasers, this is the stuff for you! Anna's voice is like a lounge singer crossed with a theremin. Tim and I have played in many bands together and he has played in the Hifi Envelope in the past, so you know he's gonna come correct with that bass and omnichord. Some dude called Ryan is holding it down with some fun, tight electro-drum kit drumming and nice clean production. These cats can swing. Check 'em out.

http://soundcloud.com/sloppykisses

Surface Music Re-issue

2011-12-22T20:24:00.003-05:00

It's almost X-mas and I wanted to put this out there before the end of the year. Looks like I'm just squeezing by on this re-issue, but at least I'm getting it done. This way I have all of the cd-r's that I put out years ago available in a digital format. There were a couple of other releases, but I do not plan on making those available. I think that what I have available for download via bandcamp is a good representation of my output as the Hifi Envelope. Now I can put a little more effort into fully realizing the songs that I have written since 2009 that I have performed live with, but not had the energy or focus to try to properly record.

Though it is fairly mid-fi in terms of fidelity, Surface Music represents a big step forward for me. Up until 2000 I had primarily worked on a tape four track with outboard effects and a sampler to record and compose. Sometime that year I started playing around on the computer making beat sequences with free trackers I found to download. In 2002 I was introduced to a couple of programs that really changed how I made music. The songs on Surface Music are the results of those changes. Through adapting newer technologies and applying what I had learned playing drums in Noetry and bass(among other things) in the French Horns, I was growing my ability to map out a piece both dynamically and melodically.

Originally this was released as a cd-r in 2004 on Lostgate Backgrounds. It is released here with an extra song that was from the Party Music release from 2005 that will not be re-issued. "Fond Belt Memory" was written and recorded with Timothy Murray in 2003(of Orlando bands Noetry, Temporally and Telethon) one afternoon while we were waiting for friends to pick us up to go to a Belle and Sebastian concert. Since it was recorded at the same time as the rest of the songs on Surface Music, I though it would be fitting to include.

Download Surface Music here: http://hifienvelope.bandcamp.com/album/surface-music

The Incomplete Works of The Hifi Envelope

2011-10-07T10:48:00.000-04:00

I originally released The Incomplete Works of The Hifi Envelope in 2003 on my own cd-r label, Lostgate Backgrounds. It was a compilation of songs culled from various cassette releases and other demo cd-r's that I had passed out to friends between 1997 through 2002.

I have re-issued it on bandcamp here:
http://hifienvelope.bandcamp.com/album/the-incomplete-works-of-the-hifi-envelope

Abandoned Drive-Ins

2011-10-06T21:08:00.000-04:00

Several of my songs are being set to some footage of abandoned drive in theaters in Florida. This film was shot on Hi8 by Alex Ojeda in the late 1990's and is being transferred and edited by Aaron O'Laughlin. Aaron has made a youtube channel to document its development.

Needless to say, I am super excited and grateful to have the opportunity to be part of this project.

More Unrelated Passages

2011-09-03T17:50:00.000-04:00

I made some post cards to spread around as part of my super low budget/low intensity media blitz and this is the backside. You can find them on the fridges of select friends and family of mine or go to Hyde and Zeke's or Wayward Council in Gainesville. You will also find some hanging around Stormy Records in Dearborn, Michigan pretty soon, as well as which ever hipster record store my buddy in NYC puts some in. There are also magnets! Send me a message if you want one for your fridge!

Bukowski

2011-08-23T00:23:00.000-04:00

If you know me well, you probably know Charles Bukowski is one of my favorite poets. Here is something I found on Bukowski.net:

The Damnation of Recognition

The damnation of recognition:
this is where even
genius sometimes
fails
and talent always
whores out;

oh, boys, be careful:
it was not easy
getting there.
and there's no getting back;
remember what you've
carved in cold places,
and know
that the gods were good,
and it is not
the living crowd
of now
that decides anything:
themselves,
or least of all,
you.

Bandcamp site up with three new releases!!!

2011-08-09T09:27:00.000-04:00

I set out intending on mastering and organizing the songs for Unrelated Passages, but in the process of doing so found a good deal of songs I thought were decent enough to share. As time progresses, perhaps this will prove to have not been such a great idea, but I am not one given to self revision. These are the documents. Judge as harshly as you like. However, I hope you will spend a little time with them. Get to know them with all of their imperfection and subtlety, in so much as they have to offer. Let them fill some small silence in your day as you put on your make up, as you drive or bike to work or school, when the sunlight filters into your room in that perfect way, when you cook some dinner, as you fall asleep.

go here for music:
http://hifienvelope.bandcamp.com

Unrelated Passages, et al

2011-07-30T16:33:00.000-04:00

I will soon release Unrelated Passages, as well as a couple of ep's; one of atmospheric guitar sounds and the other comprised mostly of noise. These releases come about as a result of a couple of months worth of organizing files from various hard drives. Most of this was recorded years ago and forgotten due to a computer meltdown. Unrelated Passages is a compilation of songs recorded between 2004 through 2009. A collection that came together very slowly as songs were birthed. Only now have I found the time to organize these songs in an order I find acceptable. All of the songs were created in different places on different equipment at different times, but the songs seem to come together to form a cohesive listen. You can judge for yourself as soon as I make it available for download, which will be soon. I have tentative plans to also make the releases I put out on cd-r years ago available for download.

e.e. cummings

2011-07-30T10:18:00.001-04:00

My daughter and I on a recent trip to the library found a book of poems by e.e. cummings titled Hist Whist and Other Poems for Children. Contained within we found this resonating little gem(reproduced exactly):

the little horse is newlY

Born)he knows nothing,and feels
everything;all around whom is

perfectly a strange
ness(Of sun
light and of fragrance and of

Singing)is ev
evrywhere(a welcom
ing dream:is amazing)
a worlD.and in

this world lies:smoothbeautifuL
ly folded;a(bre
thing and a gro

Wing)silence,who
is:somE

oNe.

And the dust begins to settle....

2011-04-30T14:16:00.000-04:00

  The past few months have seen a lot of change and have been super busy for me. As of today, I am married and my wife has graduated with her PhD. Now life can assume some new formulation of normalcy as all these sweeping events have past.
  On our way home from our honeymoon, Jacqueline and I bought a kalimba. Not one of those shoddy gift store types that amount to nothing more than a glorified noise maker, but a real, playable instrument. By the time we were back home, I had extracted a lullaby like phrase, which I promptly began fashioning into a song. Upon playing for it my daughter, she dubbed it a "long lasting rhythm". Kind of a cool thing for a six year old girl to say.
   Since returning from my honeymoon I have been motivated to make music now that I have some time to devote to it. With a few new songs and a couple of old ones, I am in the process of assembling a new set for the Hifi Envelope. Currently, the line up consists of myself only, but I am confident this will change. I also hope to record a song or two in the coming weeks which I will post here for your auditory pleasure.

A New View From the Same Window

2011-02-03T19:44:00.000-05:00

Happy Chinese New Year to All! To those of you paying attention I thought I might update you. The Hifi Envelope has, over the holidays of 2010, taken a turn. We were running at a steady clip as a rock band there for a bit with five members, sounding amazing and generally having a great time. Alas, great times must end. Steve is busy doing whatever excellent shit it is that Steve does, Shannon is immersed in dissertation defending/job seeking as she prepares to embrace her well deserved PHD, while Adam, Charlie and Steve F are working on a new group. I have turned 34 years old today and I am engaged to be married in April. Hence, I am super busy.

We wrote some great songs together. A good bit of them I wrote, but a majority were the result of genuine collaboration. As time grows between us it will be harder to come back together to record those tunes, but it is my sincere hope that we record at least the best of them to preserve this chapter for ourselves mainly, but also for our friends and anyone that may have come to our shows that enjoyed our music. It's bittersweet for sure, but I've been around long enough to know that things, people, feelings, love, laughter, whatever; it all comes and it all goes. There's always more just around the corner waiting to be discovered or created and as I turn the page on a new year, a new life, I look forward to what is yet to come. Maybe some of you will stick around to see what turns up next. I can say it will probably be worth while.

-Brian

12/4/2010

2010-12-05T19:55:00.000-05:00

how that ones goes (live)

2010-11-24T10:39:00.000-05:00

how that one goes by hifienvelope

live at wayward council, 09/02/10

2010-11-23T18:11:00.000-05:00

Skeletron Ball - "Mills and Anderson"

2010-11-22T21:32:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago Charley, Brian, and I played as a three piece at Skeletron Ball 2. An onlooker was nice enough to record one of our songs.

from Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse

2010-09-22T15:04:00.000-04:00

I recently came across a passage in the afore mentioned novel by Mr. Hesse that was particularly exciting to me as it clearly communicates something I have felt, but could probably never fully realize with language myself. I find it also to be quite fitting in the context of what we do as a band and the subject matter of most of our songs: love. This is the opening paragraph of chapter two in Peter Camenzind, by Hermann Hesse. This was his first novel published in 1904.

"As for love, I must confess to having retained a youthful attitude to it all my life. For me, the love of women has been a purifying act of adoration, a flame shooting straight up from my melancholy, my hands stretched in prayer toward the blue heavens. Owing to my mother's influence and my own indistinct premonitions, I venerated womankind as an alien race, beautiful and enigmatic, superior to men by virtue of inborn beauty and constancy of character, a race which we must hold sacred. For, like stars and blue mountain heights, they are remote from us men and appear to be nearer to God."

Thanks, Hermann.

-Brian

covering Bonnie Prince Billy

2010-09-06T00:51:00.001-04:00

The Way (Bonnie Prince Billy) by hifienvelope

live at wayward council, 09/02/10

2010-09-05T23:15:00.001-04:00

-Adam

Wayward 90210

2010-09-03T10:36:00.000-04:00

The elephant is slow to mate

2010-08-24T22:46:00.000-04:00

We recently adapted a DH Lawrence poem called "The Elephant Is Slow To Mate" into a song. This video of us in our practice space was graciously shot by our friend Spence. Many thanks to him.

-Brian