Ending 2024 with the release of two new albums of my music: all new Karma Coins and Best? an anthology of past gems! Both available on vintage cassette tapes!
I’ve been working on the music for Karma Coins for more than a year. In March of 2024 I was fortunate to play a few of the songs for more than 300 people at the WGXC/WaveFarm fundraising concert at the Greenville Drive-in. I opened for Matmos and Negativeland and it was a great night. Lots of good feedback for my set. Now I’ve finally finished mixing all 16 tracks.
Karma Coins title come from the warped idea that there is somehow a karmic bank account and if you do good things your account is added to, and if you do not do good things, the account is subtracted from. Then at the moment of death the account is added up. Depending on the amount of good karma you have saved gives you better placement in the afterlife or rebirth. Depending on the amount of bad karma debt you owe gives you minimum or maximum sentences in numerous hells.
Actually this is not the way Karma works. The word “karma” translates to “action” in Sanskrit. My Zen understanding is that karma “good” and “bad” is being produced all the time when we live in the delusion of being separate from each other, the great earth and all beings. This being so, the ancient Zen masters hoped to end the production of all karma thus ending the troublesome cycle of birth and death. Is it possible to create no karma coins at all? I think it is possible.
The music in this album is me just making the music I make, because I can’t make anybody else’s music, although sometimes I wish I could. I decided to look back to my fun 2017 “Beep Type Music” is some way, but also keeping the experimentation going like in “Box with Tubes” from 2023. There is no success or failure in this endeavor.
There exists an endless possibilities of juxtaposition. What would happen if? Maybe something! Maybe nothing! Time and concerns dissolve while I’m playing with sound. At this point in my music “career” I truly have no goal, so here I exist.
Best? is an 30 minute anthology of music from my full length albums from 2007 to 2023. My guess is that when someone reaches my album page on Bandcam.com and is confronted with so many albums they will not know where to start listening. So I have made this easy way to get to know my music. I had to decide which tracks would best express the albums. I’m not sure I made the right choices so that is why I added the question mark. It would have been easier if some of the tracks were “hits” but unfortunately this is not the case. I am also releasing a cassette tape of the album recorded on vintage (old-used) tapes that I have been collecting. They sound pretty weird but it adds to the fun. On the A side of the tape I am including my new 2024 album “Karma Coins” Thank you again for supporting my music! I really appreciate it.
I’ve created a 60 minute cassette that features Karma Coins on one side and Best? on the other side. The albums are recorded from computer onto vintage old cassettes using my excellent (recently serviced) 1988 Sony TC-WR11ES Double Cassette Deck. Some of the plastic boxes are are scratched and worn, while others are in good condition. How great is that? The sound quality varies in an interesting quirky way, adding to the effect of my interesting quirky variable music. It is a recycling and music merch promotion in one! Of course I designed the marker drawing cover art and have signed each one on the inside cover. Save old cassettes and enjoy Rodney Alan Greenblat music at the same time! You can purchase the cassette on my bandcamp page or right here on my website.
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