DOWNLOAD HERE

LISTEN HERE

 

Our friends at Cult(ure) Vault recently interviewed us on-air for their radio show, Tryst. It was a shite-load of fun, and you can listen to the whole thing HERE. If you're even a little curious about how Kicksville works, or you're just bored and want to laugh yourself silly, check it out. Thanks to Clay and Rayne from Cult(ure) Vault for having us on!

 

The Horror, episode #8 from The Singles - Season 2 is available today! And in keeping with the stimulus plan we announced last week (reposted below for anyone who missed it), you can download The Horror for FREE!

 

Read on for this week's liner notes....

Halloween in June??!! Strangely enough, Kicksville has a deep connection with the haunted house industry thanks to City Council member Beaker Parpovich. Along with Bad Boys Scenic Design, he runs Terror on the Fox, one of the country's largest and most recognized haunt attractions. The Horror was initially written as a background piece for Terror on the Fox - it's not exactly your usual horror-flick music, but we think it's pretty creepy in its own way.

The Music

Advanced Recording Techniques 201: Fun with parallel compression! Program (or play) a short drum loop. Route the signal through a bus, and insert a send to a second bus. On the second bus, insert an effect made by SSL called the LMC-1 (you can download it for free HERE). The LMC-1 is a software emulation of the listen-mic compressor from the SSL "E" series consoles, and it does horrible yet somehow beautiful things when you run anything percussive through it. [Not that we normally suggest listening to Phil Collins, but one of the most famous examples of this sound is the drum part from his song, "In the Air Tonight".] Anyhoo, now that you have your drum lop going through the LMC-1, crank up the one giant knob on its interface until that loop has been squashed into submission. Now, send both mix busses to your master so you're blending the abused signal with the un-effected sound. Mix to taste, and now you should have a drum sound that is compressed beyond recognition, yet lively and full of nice happy transients too!

Citizens
cover art: "The Death of Melody" by Tone Deaf
Conrad St. Clair: bass, keys, guitar, programming
Mike Stehr: keys, programming
Lou Caldarola: drum kit
Beaker: guitar, percussion
Andy Ewen: vocal samples

Over the last week, a few of the City Council members flew out to the studio for an extended writing/recording session. Since so many people have asked us about our writing process, we put together a few short video clips from the studio. You can watch the clips on our Youtube page HERE - and yes, we are serious and seriously goofy at the same time....that's what makes it fun around here!

In light of the still-struggling economy and its effect on all of you, we've decided to implement our own musical stimulus package. Starting with this week's release, we are instituting a "pay what you want" policy. You can download the tracks for free from our website or HERE, but you do have the option of paying whatever you think they're worth through our secure Paypal link at kicksville.com. We've been pressuring our label to go this route from the beginning of Season 2 - we just want you all to hear the music, and since we're pretty much pinko commie bastards, this seems like the fairest way to go about it.

For those of you who have already bought tracks from Season 2, email us at info@kicksville.com and we'll make it up to you...we promise! For each song you paid for, you can have your pick of any track in our catalog for free, including unreleased stuff if you already have everything else.

Next week: Flavor Bar