koan sent. let's each do a piece based on the koan, then remix. after the piece is finished we can talk about how to go about remixing the pieces. until then meditate on the koan til next week, then execute.

I was going to do something like this but thought it might be a little weird. here are my picks anyway:

(alphabetical)
beastmode
boomlinde
cooshinator
dataline
frostbyte
fullautostop
lomz
mattnida
nwspr
paper buildings
protman
samuelbruce
seagull chainsaw
starpause
thursday bloom
tristan louth-robins

I like the majority of the pieces though, these are just the ones that stuck out to me right away

I tend to conjure my material out of thin air, but I have no idea how that would be quantified in an occult sense. the ones that you listed that appeal to me are zen, i-ching, and taoism. I just got a book on i-ching, and this is a pretty common "occult" practice, so maybe that would be a way to go. plus it would get me to start reading the book

sounds pretty interesting... I think if anyone is turned off by chiptune is the overwhelming artificial sound of it. nice challenge to combine that with more natural sounds....

also jazz chords are fun to play... making up chords is usually what I do. some more interesting shifts is always one of the toughest things to work on, the best ones at least in my experience come out of nowhere. I'd like to work on shifts as well, gotta add that to the list.

I found out about this only about 4 hours before the deadline, and luckily I like to record a lot after new year's. my band recorded on new year's day, and then a few days later I recorded a rather minimalist (for me) composition. the band uses lots of layers and I tend to do that in my electronic music as well, so this was a nice change of pace. the recording actually turned out pretty quiet, that was a little bit of a concern. but that allowed some of the background noise of the city outside to emerge (what you hear at the beginning of the track; the guitar drones emerge from the noise floor). turned out pretty cool, just did some edits to remove some noisier parts that didn't go along with the rest of the drones and used the compand vst plugin along with some eqing and threw a little reverb on it, as well as an analog mastering plugin that I like to use. was a pretty simple project for the first week, since it was produced live using two mics and two amps with the guitar placed precariously on top of the smaller amp (vox) and pointed away from the other amp (marshall).

I have a few different projects from different music genres. prior to 2012 my electronic music was under the pseudonym sitari: http://sitari.bandcamp.com now I have decided to break the project into 3 different strains, considering it was sort of throw everything into the blender stylings. My big influences for that are some of the more obvious electronic music acts which are considered classics now: aphex twin, autechre, amon tobin, meat beat manifesto, scorn, dj krush, as well as industrial music when I was younger (I was in an industrial group to start out my musical journey). after that band I started my own electronic music sounds, and I've been playing guitar about as long as I've been sequencing. always wanted to be in a band that is more in the heavy vein but that came later. I tried to start several bands in my 20's but nothing really shaped up other than a show or two at someone's party. I continued doing electronic music all that time so I didn't get too frustrated. I did about 8 shows or so as Sitari around Chicago. my 3 new electronic projects... one is analog synths and guitars, trying to emulate my bloody valentine and all natural lemon and lime flavors and also synth drone based music. another project is utilizing only vinyl samples; and the last one is only computer created and will attempt to be as futuristic as possible. as far as in a band format, I played bass for a metal band for a year and a half and we played out pretty often. I got burned out on that since the band was limiting my creative input and it was tough work, and my ears needed a break. I am now in an mostly all improvisational experimental jazz and rock band called ISLAND. it sure sounds like a jam band, but I don't like that genre. so I like to call it improv psychedelic soundtracks (I also work on video and try to sync the two up). the influences for this project being very open; but I try to go for a miles davis bitches brew meets nels cline singers jazz guitar controlled by the melvins in a dub studio, or something to that effect. it also has been compared to omar rodriguez lopez's solo stuff, and I think at times sounds a little like the boredoms newer works. so to not ramble on too much, I'm into just about everything except for pop music. I love experimenting with sounds and it is the most enjoyable artform imo.