Messages from the Past
In February 1999, my world was about to change. My mother was sick and spending time in and out of the hospital, stricken with lymphoma and nearing what were her last days. I spent a few days feeling scared and lost. After all, I had just lost a man who I had considered a step-father for nearly 10 years only a few months before. The thought of losing my mother was devastating.
So, as a project to keep my mind off of what was going on, I decided to record an ambient experimental piece of music. I setup my computer to record and add a delay to whatever I decided to play on my guitar. I didn’t listen to what the computer was doing until after I had “performed” the piece. Once I finished, I let the computer continue “composing” the piece for another four minutes.
Once I had determined the tempo of the loop, I then pulled it into Mixman Studio to create the bass and beat parts. The last part added to the piece were the answering machine messages. I don’t remember why Jeremy left me that message, but it was hilarious! I added the second message about “not feeling so good” and then recorded the messages with a microphone.
I made this piece of music available on a website I hosted around the time called YL-Net. It has more recently been available on my MySpace page. This version sounds better and features updated artwork. I also changed my name on it to use my middle name instead of my last name. So, here it is…the first, but yet old, release by Neil Owen! 😉
