Much more straightforward(not to mention mellow) than the last several posts, this one combines few elements to make something I find quite pleasant.

The lead melody was originally concocted with lyrics in mind; however, they’ve never left the confines of my brain.  About half were since forgotten anyway.

Karl D – Afraid of What You’ll Say

“Love Theme”, like several songs I’ve produced, was inspired by what I imagine I might have written for a film score.

Karl D – Love Theme

12/26/09 – Whoops, forgot the download link. -KD

This EP is quickly evolving into a series of experiments on the tempo of the remixed tracks.  The Modify Your Mind EP changed the remixed songs dramatically, but without much change to their tempo.  The first song remixed for this new EP, “The Exchange”, gained around 50 BPM in it’s remix.

“Evening” is a fascinating track to me in it’s original form because on different days, it sounds different to me.  Some days, it sounds fast and vibrant, others, slow and paced.  “Evening” loses 15 BPM in this mix(down to 110 from 125).  This remix is decidedly slow and chilled out, and generates a much different listening experience.  Although the original “Evening” is meant to be enjoyed much later in the evening, the “Sunset Mix” is meant, as the title suggests, to be enjoyed closer to dusk, cold drink in hand.

Karl D – Evening(Karl’s Sunset mix)

After a few days of inactivity with this particular beat, I found myself thinking about the melody at a much slower pace.  I slowed it down significantly and changed the tune from what would have likely been kind of a incoherent turnoff to a pretty effective, creepy sounding downtempo track.

Similarly, I intended for this tune to be a little more difficult of a listen.  The tension manufactured by the dissonant chords is meant to be somewhat uncomfortable. The piano is one of the only consonant sounds in the mix.

Although I hope none of the music on this site evokes any kind of response similar to watching “Funny Games”, I hope you can appreciate this track’’s significance in it’s own “ugliness”.

Spending as much time as I did reading the book, it became a natural source of inspiration for me.  Unfortunately, this inspiration came about in the form of terrible recurring nightmares about Hell, damnation, and the Devil.  A day came in about 2001, when I was just getting into music production, that I was able to focus all of this emotion into a song that I called “Why I Hate Dante”.  I finished the song in an afternoon, and I don’t remember doing much of it.  Looking back, creating the song was somewhat of a mystical experience for me.

This song remains to be some of my best work.  It has a strong trip-hop groove that evolves throughout the song until it finally reaches critical mass and turns into a thrilling drill and bass monster.  This is one of my longer works but I guarantee the tension justifies the entire length of the track.

This new dub tune is still uptempo and modern enough that we can call it dubstep.  It started with the childlike keyboard sound throughout the track.  However, along the way I became tempted to turn up the “whiteboy reggae dial” to 11, which brought in the piano elements.  Overall I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

This post concludes volume 2 of the Random Beats series.  You can now download all the mp3s for this volume in a ZIP file in the downloads section.  Volume 3 will start soon!

Although this may not meet the strictest definition of what binaural beats are , the technique was used in creating the sliding bass sound.  The left and right channels are detuned against one another just a little bit so when you listen to this (on headphones only…otherwise you just won’t get it), what your brain hears is really the difference between the two sounds.  I find it fascinating, and I wanted to bring this into a track.

I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… you’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

-Keanu Reeves, The Matrix

This is one of two new songs that will be released for free in the Downloads section as part of the forthcoming  Existential Funk: Remixes and B-Sides EP.

Before there was Existential Funk, “Things You’ll Need to Know”, or randombeats.com, there was Red Time.

Red Time started as a dream I had in 2002.  I can still recall the dream very vividly, and it had to do with moving backwards in time somehow.  I knew this was called “Red Time” because someone in the dream told me.

In the dream, I heard music.  The very next day, I put that same music into a song.

Karl D – Red Time Original Version

In the small circle of friends that I distributed my music to at the time, this was one of the most popular songs. The concept was just as popular.

I hoped to one day write a short story, as well as a film based on Red Time.  In the time between 2003 and 2004, I worked almost exclusively on the soundtrack to the film.  Because the music was so important to the idea of Red Time, I wanted the soundtrack done first.

Sadly, with a budding “real job”, my time for screenwriting went way down, and the project never really got started.  However, the soundtrack was nearly complete.  I nearly released it as a full album(despite the film not being complete), but I felt that it was too short.

Because of the new format of randombeats.com, I felt now was the perfect time to let this “in to the wild.”  The album is slow, melodic trip-hop mixed with house and breakbeat.  While I was telling people about the project back in ‘03, the multi-talented Matt Wilson of screen and stage volunteered the following illustration for a cover.  I felt it summed it up nicely.

Click on the image to download the entire ZIP file of Red Time: A Movie Not Yet Made, including the original and remixed versions of the song that started it all, along with 7 other great tracks.  The full download will also be in the Downloads section.