The Me Is

The Fake Infomercial Challenge by virt prompted participants to sell a product by way of music and a message. bjkmenu asked his audience if they had tried “Jacobsen Pork Rinds” to which they replied with a resounding “no”. coda promoted his foley-recording business with a dense portfolio of sound effects at a million-dollar value. Flik gave a convincing narration to his ad for the PubeDragon personal hair groomer, bookended by a soap opera. Inspired Chaos kept it short and simple by asking “are you tired of doin’ stuff?” and providing a concise answer. mad pitched a “super hyper” microphone of some sort, detailing the technical specifications and running out of material toward the end.
 

nobody must have tried “Abberall” before selling it, seemingly bouncing off the walls as he described the product. Prince of Darkness warned not to shake a baby, and instead urged customers to buy the Baby Shaker 9000. surasshu started by asking a common questions about toast, complete with a sad trombone cue. virt himself entered with an infomercial about Sticky Icky, a substance that may or may not be illegal to possess and sell. Finally xaimus served as a spokesperson for Nut Rivers International, saying “I don’t know about you, but…” and suddenly realizing that he actually doesn’t know about you.

For JHCompo on Tuesday I selected a “Fruit Paradise” theme that resulted in varied interpretations. Suggestions of how to tackle it included "a field of oranges", "a field of habaneroes" and "a bunch of gay dudes". Following my introductory narration, coda’s “doggleberries” laid down fat electro with tinges of a bygone chip age. Scootabag wondered whether his paradise was real or a mirage, using a Rhodes-centric backing for support. Evil Shrubbery stumbled upon the fruit of the gods as well as plucked acoustic bass with a series of drum fills. 

The temptation rose for Duosis incorporating chopped orchestral samples, set in bed of flanging and breaks. housethegrate evoked memories of Super Mario Sunshine, particularly in the use of bongos that sound like fruit being dropped into a basket. mu chose to “swim” in a sea of bright synthesizers elevated by piano and guitar chords. SonicThHedgog loaded up Fruit Farm Zone, Act 1 propelled by brassy riffs and a fair amount of distorted guitar. At the end of the listening party, ProjektZero made his return to JHCompo with an improvised love song containing plenty of groove.

 

Thursday’s OHC had a minor typo in “The Distance” theme description: “theme is” was typed as “the me is” which caused me to stumble on mic when reading it. Arcana is bound to get sued by George Lucas for tinkering with his intellectual property, although Lucas has done a lot of that on his own. CJthemusicdude opted to cover one of DDRKirby's past entries, taking the arps on a similar compelling journey. LuketheXjesse took his guitar and his laptop on "The Long Road Ahead" laden with metal. General Mumble sifted through ambience for much of his tune, and then met up with a funky beat. sci dusted off an old record and put it through the sampler-o-matic for a dance session. Forty-Two had his microphone just close enough to the "End of the Tunnel" to capture his mellow composition filled with piano and woodwinds.

Scootabag showed his way around a repeating chord progression topped with extensive keyboard soloing. Jakesnke17 traveled to "Trazodonia" for a field recording of local sounds, then took a moment to write some trip-hop over it. DDRKirby(ISQ) dripped into a soundscape broken up by staccato chiptunage. Shadix traversed a landscape of layered chordal instruments and effective dissonance, but decided against walking into Mordor. munchi dedicated most of the allotted time chatting with his brother; the piece manages to resemble a song despite all the things that could have gone wrong. Finally MandraSigma slid his un-tiss track in, but nevertheless missed the planet speeding away from him.