After finishing my dissertation in 2008, I needed to work on a track that was pure fun. No delusions of profundity, just a fast track exploring some of the techniques I had uncovered while working on the last few projects. It’s almost like a study - when a painter paints a bunch of faces before painting the big scene using all of them.
Incidentally, it was programmed at a few festivals. Namely the Spark Festival in 2009. The track is free to anyone that wants to make a video for it - email sales@janthonyallen.com if your interested.
In the summer of 2009 I was in residence with the fantastic champions of new music Zeitgeist. As part of their “composer workshop” series, me and a few other composers (Abbie Betinis and Justin Merritt) had the opportunity to work with Zeitgeist and write a new piece for them. The catch was, we had to write it in 3 days.
I ended up with 2 short pieces. One entirely acoustic, and one entirely electronic.
I spent my first session with them just recording their studio (Studio Z). They had just moved in to this cool new space, and were in the process of remodeling it. Perfect for someone like me that likes to sample all kinds of banging on things. So I wrote this little piece using only sounds gathering from knocking on the walls, floors, coffee makers, trash cans, and whatever else I could find of their new studio.
Thing. It’s a track called Thing.
“Thing” is the working title I gave to the track while I was playing with it. I gave it to Andrew Linde at modernsextrash to write some lyrics, and see if he thought it might be a good fit for modernsextrash. The band liked it, and recorded it. They added some cool things to it, and gave it a nice production.
I asked them to come up with a better name, but it seems nothing can top the profundity of “Thing.”
This is a track from my old friends modernsextrash. I occasionally contribute to some of their electronic stuff, and this track is a remix of their “Rx Nation.” I essentially took the female vocal in the song and threw everything else out. Added my own beats, piano, and synths to it in order to focus on the “hazziness” of the subject matter.
After finishing my dissertation in 2008, I needed to work on a track that was pure fun. No delusions of profundity, just a fast track exploring some of the techniques I had uncovered while working on the last few projects. It’s almost like a study - when a painter paints a bunch of faces before painting the big scene using all of them. 
In the summer of 2009 I was in residence with the fantastic champions of new music Zeitgeist. As part of their “composer workshop” series, me and a few other composers (Abbie Betinis and Justin Merritt) had the opportunity to work with Zeitgeist and write a new piece for them. The catch was, we had to write it in 3 days.
Thing. It’s a track called Thing.
