THE BEAST: NEW FILM SOUNDTRACK RELEASED TODAY

Today I’m releasing a collection of soundtrack work compiled from my original music and sound design for “Nowhere Left to Run”-- a dreamlike, post-apocalyptic experimental film by Felipe Mafasoli. This collection reconstitutes the raw materials I generated and documented for the film, layering them into a new configuration for an experience facilitated exclusively by listening. Click on the link below to hear it.

HEAR “THE BEAST” HERE

The collection isn’t concerned with COVID-19 specifically-- I created the soundscape for the film in mid-2019. But the 2020 edit and mix process has proven serendipitously appropriate for a polarized interval of both stillness and frenzy, reflection and panic, of a simultaneous longing for the social and the solitary. Mafasoli requested a soundscape with an elegaic quality, a memorial to a world lost forever. I have no idea what anyone else will take away from this collection, but to me it sounds like memories preserved in amber, shot through with the glitches of operator error.

These tracks coalesce around two disparate elements: 1) iterations of a fragile melody evocative of a lost past, and 2) a shifting landscape sourced from analog synth overtones, glacially swept into horizons of reverb and shifted pitch. Mafasoli wanted the soundscape to include incidental sounds of what life used to be like pre-apocalypse, so it made sense to incorporate field recordingse of outdoor environments from my neighborhood years ago and from a city street downtown, where I documented my performance of the theme on a piano placed on the sidewalk for people to play in public (the recording also captures wind, passing vehicles, and snatches of overheard conversation).  

Stream for free, purchase if you like. For May and June of 2020, all profits will benefit The Food Group, a Minnesota food shelf.

More music + sound by Mike Hallenbeck for experimental film

More original music by Mike Hallenbeck for narrative film

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MORE WORK UNDER THE “ARCHIVE” MONIKER

I’ve put out several “musique plastique” releases under the name Archive over the years— more recently appended with my given name, given the number of other artists out there using the same nomenclature. Searching for previous releases is making me realize that some things have gone missing, and I’ll have to re-up them! But here are some tracks to give you a taste in the meantime:

Silent Night (Shepherds Quake) (Dark Winter)

That Will Be All (from the “Music in Black & White” release, Dark Winter)

Eventualities: Voice (extrapolated from vocal performances by Bryce Beverlin, Insides Music)

Eventualities 02: Guitar (extrapolated from guitar performances by Charles Gillet, from The Material (Insides Music)

Living Daylight Savings Time (Insides Music)

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BIRDSONG (MUSIQUE CONCRETE)

Finally taking advantage of Nuendo’s sampler track, which has been sitting unused in my DAW for quite some time now. For a test run I used a birdsong sound effect, loading it in so that each key of my MIDI keyboard played it back at a different pitch, and in no time I threw together some simple musique concrète. It’s pretty rough, though I did add a little reverb to smooth things out a bit. There’s some weird digital-y stuff going on in the high end. So if dissatisfied with this post in any way, you are welcome to apply for a full refund.