[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9kjKwrUTqc?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]
So while we came to the conclusion of our “original” re-heated Christmas content on Christmas Eve, we still have our spree of similar proportions from last year. We dug up a pile of seasonal loaders, lits and works of ANSI art from our own ‘90s artpacks in chronological order, but the secret was that it was all in the service of drawing more attention to the re-release of the never-heard-much-in-its-original-format music disk The Bells Of Yule, which finally in 2014 found the audience it so richly deserved.

This was the same motivation behind our cooking up these five ten-minute music videos we shared with you this year, an enormous promotional effort (with, I think, lesser primary success) behind spreading the word about old tunes from 1994, but fortunately it was an interesting exercise regardless.

And now we have ten artefacts to use to promote its enjoyment for Christmas 2016! Two more and we can do a genuine “12 Days of Christmas” run-up! (Sit down, Catholics, I know that the 12 Days actually come AFTER.)

So if we’ve worn down your resistance to hearing new things (or, actually, incredibly old things), know that you can enjoy listening to all five movements of the Bells of Yule suite right here!

[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/177307886" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

prostheticknowledge:

Little Drummer Toy

Online musical sequencer from Ableton lets you create musical tracks with a minimalist seasonal arrangement.

Make a festive jingle out of the available shapes.
Some of these might be played by someone else – a collaborator from around the world.
For the best musical experience, use the latest desktop versions of Chrome, Firefox or Safari.
     

Try it out for yourself here

H/T: @notational

In time for Christmas, here’s a cute and fun seasonal musical sequencer!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU266CumO7E?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]
Happy holidays, friends! Here it is, just in time for Christmas, the final instalment of our 5-part music video series for the 5 movements of the Bells of Yule suite of computer music, composed way back in 1994 as 4-channel .MODs on an Atari ST! (Remastered in 2014.) To provide period visuals, we’ve dug deep into the annals of seasonal computer artwork from the public domain and the computer art underground! Suiting the extraordinary dark tone of this fifth and final movement (suitable for the darkest time of the year – at least, here in the northern hemisphere), we saved all of the grimmest “bad Santa” pieces (boozing, smoking, six-shooting, tripping balls) popular in underground circles… but it proved inadequate even scrolling at modem speeds to fill the song’s runtime, so we also drew on a wealth of hitherto-untapped RIPscrip vector graphics, nearly all by the astounding Outworld Arts, as well as a tremendous selection of whimsical teletext advent calendar works by Illarterate (who you saw in MIST1015) as well as a handful by Raquel Meyers (ditto) and Simon Ferre, among others.

This suite of video experiments has been our main project since MIST1015 was released, diverting most of our discretionary time and energies from such competing activities as blogging the compelling contents of MIST1015 and telling you just why it was all so fascinating, but rest assured we’ll be getting back on that horse at our earliest opportunity… after a brief respite and resolution of a couple of remaining loose ends for 2015. Until then – happy holidays and Merry Mist'mas!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fApZFio-aTo?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]
Now you’ve had a chance to enjoy Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 … we’re definitely rounding the bend of the old candy cane here, and approaching the fifth and final movement of our 2015 music videos for our composed-in-1994-remastered-in-2014 Christmas music disk The Bells of Yule.

The thing about these music videos, you may have noticed, is that they draw on period textmode visuals from the ‘90s computer art scene to illustrate what the sights would have been when the sounds were also like this. Helps to establish the context for an overall computer art milieu, if you will. Every video has had its own themes for the visuals – finally here in part 4 we begin exploring longer-form works of wintry ANSI art from the computer art underground – less ancient history, however much most of it may still be ancient history … just, y'know, less ancient. At this point, some of the pieces may even date to last year or even last week! But regardless of the actual age of the pieces, they still reflect an antiquated art practice. You can still find people weaving tapestries and smithing horseshoes, but … y'know, historical re-enactment in the present doens’t cease to be historical just because it manifests now.

This concludes our confused pseudo-philosophical digression into the nature of time. Now enjoy our music video and stay tuned for the final movement tomorrow, just in time for Christmas Eve! Merry Mist'mas – share and enjoy!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-D0j-awns?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]

On Sunday, you saw part 1; yesterday, you saw part 2… today, we bring you part 3 of the 5-part Bells of Yule holiday suite of period (1994) computer music, illustrated with fellow traveler pieces of textmode artwork from the Public Domain and the underground. Today’s video especially places an emphasis on a handful of animated ANSI art screens – or ANSImations. Stay tuned for the final two videos as we continue marching along on our Christmas countdown! Merry Mist'mas – share and enjoy!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9NRRadx-zY?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]
You probably got the general idea from yesterday’s posting of the first of our five holiday music videos, but if you missed it and don’t feel like following that link, in a nutshell: in December 1994, we released “the Bells of Yule”, a music disk featuring a central 5-part suite of seasonal .MOD music composed on an Atari ST. It was sent to all of the BBSes, and when they dried up, it disappeared, seemingly forever… but in 2014, Cthulu made his personal copy available to the composer, who had since lost the originals, and in a remastered form, they were sent out back into the world once again, greatly fortified with other holiday computer compositions.

Now it is Christmas 2015, and we are following up this Lazarus-like feat from last year by making music videos for each of the five parts, one daily in the run-up to Christmas Day. We have drawn on the rich history of computer art, public domain and underground, to provide a wintery potluck of hundreds of pieces of thematically-appropriate fellow traveler works in a textmode, low-resolution idiom; part 2’s visuals draw specifically on brief, single-screen (or “25-line”) pieces of ANSI art – full attribution of the participating artists (and gosh golly, there sure are a lot of them) can be found at the end of the video. Merry Mist'mas – share and enjoy!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d5gbddtQcg?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=281]

Last year, we shared a number of posts commemorating minor holiday celebrations we had made in our computer art idiom during our original, 4-year run from 1994-1998, culminating in the re-release of the long-lost “Bells of Yule” music disk, remastered, enhanced and considerably fortified for a total 1h45 runtime.

One thing that I thought would have been “nice” would be to provide relevant visuals, but what with all the time I spent drafting infofiles that fall, the time bank was empty when the right moment came along to promote this music disk… so we went without for one year. But we did not forget!

Now, a year older and seemingly no wiser, we have raided the collected vaults of the history of textmode art, public domain and underground, ASCII, ANSI, ANSImation and more, ferreting out literally hundreds of brief holiday-themed works of visual art with which to present you a vintage slideshow, the best and most fitting possible accompaniment to the 5-part “Bells of Yule” suite composed in Winter 1994 on an Atari ST.

We’ll be sharing one instalment daily for the next five days; today’s features a focus on FidoNet/UseNet style ASCII art, notably focusing on the works of the disappeared ASCII master jgs (Joan G. Stark), with a cameo appearance by ldb (Laura D. Brown). Merry Mist'mas! Share and enjoy!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)