»

[Faile]

Yes. I'm very worried about sharing my own music, but here, for your enjoyment (haha, if only), is a link where you can listen to my songs:

Here: Parasol Star
It's only hi-fi streamable at the moment, or you can download the songs. So yeah, now you can really tear me apart. Hohoho.
It's a rough version of the forthcoming E.P (i.e these are all home recorded demo versions). So yes!
Comments? Kittens? Paws?

xx

[Hylas]

These are really cool! My fave one is "Time". Is it your singing what I hear? An eP! Great! Great! Congrats!

[Faile]

Aw thanks! Yes, that is my singing. For the first time ever, you can hear my (awful) voice! Thankyou for listening! Yes, the ep should be out in may, hopefully, depending on recording and feedback on these tracks. If they get slated by people, I'll retreat under my rock again.

[Hylas]

Are you a single-man-band, or whatever you call it, or will you have other people paying with you for the EP?

[Faile]

I wish I knew. At the moment I'm prepared to be recording it by myself, but I do have people who may play on it if they sort themselves out. I have two arrangements for every song ready. Or I may play the other instruments and get a session musician friend I know for the drum tracks. It's all quite crazy!

[trunks69420]

i am currently downloading these all.. .because my streaming efforts are not goin to well... but from what i heard of the first lil bit before it started i really like.. if i have to.. i'll double post when they finish and such.... but i just wanted to say.. really great puttin this out there.. i wish you the best

[kupoartist]

I like the tune to Gospel... but it becomes majorly distorted towards the end. The same could be said of a lot of the tracks with these piercing guitar sounds... it's often hard to hear lyrics and easy to hear bad distortion. Assuming that it isn't intentional, it's presumably down to the equipment and it's not something that should be worried about, so that means it's great . Gospel seems more upbeat (I mean a lot more up-beat) than the rest of the tracks, and I probably like it more for that reason (I'm a rather upbeat person right? ^^). The music to all the tracks is strong.

I don't want to sound rude by saying this... but. Umm, 40 seconds into "The Diary". The lyrics kind of sound like "I send you my Diarrhoea" and I'm guessing that probably isn't intentional. Possibly something to do with recording equipment again, but perhaps the note shouldn't be held? Anyways, accepting that one instance and other times when lyrics are sometimes hard to hear because of distortion, the lyrics are a strong point of your songs. The singing isn't exactly sparking with electricity, but that isn't the point - the feeling is there and that's what is important in this kind of music. Of course, i'm a poor judge because my tastes (or lack thereof) are probably nothing like yours and I'm not a huge fan of this type of music. Futhermore, I feel that anyone with the guts (to not only perform something but to show it to people they don't really know) deserves some shining feedback. Well Done

I was trying to work out where the sample at the beginning of [i]Time[i] was from... Blade Runner, right? In a way, the quote doesn't really fit, because of the themes of the film it is taken from... but that's only one total Nerd's perspective on things. And the words in isolation fit well.

And is the band name anything to do with the game "Parasol Stars"? A Friend has that for the Amiga... mmm... nostalgia...

[Faile]

Man, thats a proper critique! I've never faced such before! Arrgh! *runs to take tracks down*. No, I'm kidding, the songs shall have to stay.
Eek, I suddenly have a strange urge to justify myself. First of all thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.
The distortion (whether for better or worse) is intentional. I run my guitar through all sorts of exotic boxes to produce some of the tones. I guess a theme in what I "do" is the creation of noise, sometimes atonal. I do like to hide my vocals at times too. But those are both valid criticisms! It's very rare for me to share much of the body of my music, so this is somewhat new.
As for the diary, hahaha, you're right. Somebody else said this to me when he came around to my flat to hear the songs, but he was American so ignored him (just kidding, my American friends). I guess the lesson here is to never ever sing any vocals when you have a cold. Obviously, I'll have to re-record the song and it really is just a rough idea for now of where I'm at. I can only assure you the lyric is and i will send you my diary on that last day. Perhaps I'll change it to 'the journal' to avoid such linguistic problems!
You've picked up on my intention to hide the words wherever possible. I have to say this is an intention as I don't have the youthful faith I once had in the 'quality' of my lyrics. In fact, I've grown somewhat angry at them recently, so I do have a tendency to hide them away behind noise.
Kudos for spotting the quote! Again, that's only really there at the moment (as if we have a chance of getting that cleared), it's more the line thats captivated me for years. I guess in my mind it connected with the 'theme' of the song as it were (you'll have to work that out for yourself though). And again! Kudos on spotting the origin of the name, stolen and somewhat altered. I'm such an amiga kid, yeah!

You have to believe me that it's very hard for me to take myself so seriously and talk about these songs as a body of work or art or similar. I'm having to force myself to do this. But please don't think I'm overtly pretentious or arrogant!
I really do appreciate all of your comments!
xx

[Uchiha Sasuke]

I dunno man. Being a musician myself I am somewhat disappointed in the turn out. You seem to lack consistancy espically when establishing a simple rythym. I don't know if this was done on purpose or what but there seems to be a lot of mistakes. Now you might of been recording this on the fly, but still man if its your music you should not have a problem playing it. Your tone seems to be suffering to IMO. Atleast listening to it, I don't believe it goes with your singing. Plus some of the distortion is just not needed. Many times it can get tedious and almost annoying, espically when you play in the higher ranges. And also I don't know if this was intention or not, but none of your songs have any structure. They almost seem like ideas tossed together. I dunno if this is your way of being original but I dunno it just doesn't seem to work for me. I mean at first I almost got a Mogwai, Sigur Ros type impression but then it just got to far out. Also the songs lack power. Most of the music I tend to listen to engulfs me with passion and feeling. It could just be your way of singing but I don't gather the same feeling.

I know your goal are high in the music world. Atleast thats the impression I always gathered of you, but I don't know if this is going to work for you now. Atleast the way the music world is now. You might beable to make it as an independent but that might be about it. I don't really know your views on mainstream but if thats what you were planning on shooting for or atleast becoming a successful musician, try writing music with more flare, or something that is more catchy. One more thing, have you looked into better production? I don't know what your using to record or mix but it seems like you might be suffering from it. You might want to look into that in the near future because it could make a world of difference, maybe.

[Faile]

First off, I've thrown some 4-track demo things on there, just for variation.
Thanks for commenting, again I feel as if I should justify myself. I wouldn't go as far as to call myself a musician. The term is a bit of a stretch. I'm just a boy and a guitar sadly. I've just gone back and had a listen to check I uploaded the correct files, because I'm not overly aware of any mistakes I've made in my playing. The only major mistake seems to be my inability to sing the word diary clearly (now removed from the site until I re-record the vocal). I can only presume you're talking about some of the scales in Heroin (Heroine). I can only assure you I'm quite aware of what it is I'm playing and what I'm producing. I know it sounds lame to hide behind the phrase "but it's meant to sound like that!", but it's the truth (for better or worse, hohoho).
As for my songs lacking structure? I feel that's actually a rather cruel comment. They all have beginnings and ends. They start and finish. The track 'time' even has a middle. I'll explain why my songs sound this way; I'm incredibly incredibly incredibly bored of radio-friendly rock and pop, polished beyond anything. I'm sick of verse, bridge, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, solo, chorus. I don't want to play songs like that myself, as pretentious as it sounds. Sadly, a part of my education taught me that the notes you're not playing are as important as the ones you are, and that really stuck with me, so I've always tried to experiment with noise, using the feedback and distortion (that a few people seem to dislike) as another instrument. I guess I can only apologise for this, it's just my own taste. Its been born from listening to recordings by artists such as Radiohead, Pavement and the Smashing Pumpkins, not to mention the Jesus and Mary Chain (avoid if you dislike feedback) and other bands that have tried to push the sonic boundary just a little. I use the same reasons to justify my 'tone', it's certainly something I've spent time perfecting, using a number of analogue stomp boxes etc.

As for the music being somewhat cold, well I can justify that well. All of the tracks (barring Gospel) have been written and recorded in the months following the incredibly horrid and depressing breakup of my relationship of two years and all the fall out from this event pretty much broke me. I lost a great amount of my enthusiasm for life. I'm glad this comes across in my vocals in way, it's a good document of how things are (hopefully soon to be 'were'). In short; I guess I just don't want to write things with 'flare' or power or that are inspirational. There are many people that can do that. My musical ambitions are limited to just wanting to make noise and have a few people hear it, if it makes you feel cold or god forbid, unhappy, then that's just as good as being inspiring or filling you with power (at least in my book). My dreams of rock stardom died a few years back now, when I realised the state music was in. Since then I've gone somewhat underground in my ambitions!

Not that I'm disputing your opinion, not at all. I'm grateful for your taking the time to listen and reply. I just feel that perhaps we may be on two different wavelengths regarding musical taste.
xx

[Uchiha Sasuke]

^ Trust me man as far as music tastes go, I listen to anything. I know where your coming from with your argument on the whole sonic boundary, but it seems like your just trying to push the envelope a little far IMO. Also sorry bout the whole relationship gig, but you can benefit. Any feelings you have from that should help you fuel your writing. I mean when I usually feel bad everything comes out. It doesn't really have to be about the situation or what happened. Just let the feeling take you and write!!!

[DSgamer]

no comment this is just me being stupid i did it in like 10 minutes trying to be cool (my horrible master of puppets riff) but yea poop

www.myspace.com/diegoandtheblowfish

add me if you love me

[Meiko]

They sound good to me. I like the distorsions and all, gives them a particular feeling, some kind of metropolitan melancholy. It's true that some parts of the lyrics are hard to understand, but you said they're sort of demo stuff so it's probably gonna be better in the final version. Good luck with your ep!

[DSgamer]

faile dude, i really dig your stuff

[Reid]

I liked "Cathedral" the best of all of them. It's very ambitious stuff, I just couldn't take to your voice to be completely honest. However there were parts of "Cathedral" that gave me goosebumps. I know you want to completely avoid traditional song form, but I think your best work with it was definently that track. On the whole, it's good though.

Faile, I signed up for uberlabel.com so I could post a bit of stuff I have. I can't, for the life of me, find where to upload a title image for the custom website though. I have everything else just about uploaded, however . . . so I'll have the link later tonight.

EDIT: I listed to gamer's link too. It sounded like it "Eruption"-light at first and your riff was pretty neat. Kudos on the Super Mario as well.

ANOTHER EDIT: Nevermind. I found where to post a title picture.

LAST EDIT: Disregard everything above. Here's my link:
https://www.uberlabel.com/music/bands/408/

All of this is extremely rough and without vocals. It was recorded at my brother's apartment back in the summer in one day. "The Grass Song" was a something we jammed on during the day and ended up recording in one take. It sounds pretty painful at times because the tracks got messed up with timing and it has zero effects on it. All of these are meant to have vocals as well, but we were lacking a mic when we recorded. Anyway . . . there they are.

[DSgamer]

heh i decided to make my own uberlabel thingi as well here's my link
https://www.uberlabel.com/music/The%20Blowfish