Ape Pop by Ape Pop

https://youtube.com/channel/UCM9spLaydjmNJAjA2eLo91w

"This section sounds kinda groovy. What if the bass took over? Back off the guitar and drums and it’s a bass feature. Super groovy...but maybe a pad would help keep it more interesting? Mother 32, we need you. Ok, tonic drone...ooh, that LFO rate is already complementing it's also completely out of sync with our established band tempo.

"Obvious...recurring wave pulses...cliche much? Maybe try a more stealthy Moog reveal? And the newly introduced fuzz texturesevolve like everything else around it, right? Nothing more obvious than useless drone stuff on the tonic! Unless of course we’re doing house music which we most certainly are NOT. Now we’re getting somewhere.

"How bout messing with attack knob? Ooh, rhythm friction with the drums. I like. Now, let’s try elongating pulse width. Subtle strangely it doesn’t seem to keep my interest anymore. Should I step away for a coffee warmup? Nah, keep on it. I know sweep the cutoff frequency and find the sweet spot...got it! Little more resonance now, oh not too much or it all vanishes. Tone is nasty but the tonic isn’t interesting at all, let’s run down the keyboard and find an unusual note choice. A#?? Ooh, I’m getting a vibe...Not sure what key we’re in...do we care? Combined tambours creates wondrous chaos! Don’t even think about the glide...there isn’t a recall button. Manual knob moves, remember? Add in a dash of pinkish noise to dissonant pulsing wave drone and ...Oh, but now I’m completely overtaking the featured bass. Support the conversation, not distract. Ok back off decay, a tad faster on LFO rate and tuck the volume some. Working. But...just not evolving enough.. might need to automate volume and low pass after the fact. Ok rewind playback adjust center frequency...slowly...now we’re going somewhere. Haven’t even glanced at VCF mode...let’s switch it...high pass...nah. I could add more noise and pulse width. Bad move. Go back. Okay less noise but I’ll leave the pulse width. Sure wish I could automate the Moog moves...Nah much groovier performing synth knob turns. Volume, on the other hand, has to be automated. All right backup one more pass..."

The horror. The horror. How did an innocent country rock drummer become a prisoner of the digital cage, the infinite possibilities of modern recording, of faux immortality? Will this music ever escape flourescence into the broader digital cage of our collective comfy sweet delicious doom?

Flashback to precovid innocence, October 2019:
Shawn Nourse is fiddling with microphones over his drum kit fiddling with magical recording plugins blinking and winking on his computer screen. The plugins are bemused. Paul Lacques fiddling with settings on primitive pedal board tuning primitive Telecaster. Rick Alonso fiddles with nothing, sits ZenLikeWithElectricBass. Rick has studied with Max Bennett. He needs nothing.

The three are sitting close in Nourse By Northwest's cozy tracking room, Studio AB+. They're comfy in the BroZone. Road rats they are, victims of countless cross country runs in Yukons and buses and the occasional luxury flight to the Coast or even the Continent. A civilian would be cowed by the close crack of a snare drum or a bass drum thudded at eye level. Musician style deafness is a plus, really. Who needs modern background noise in crisp SurroundSound?

Foreground noise is their trade, and the three want to make a new noise. They've been hired guns for straight ahead rock, slightly adventurous folk, retro country, the dreaded singer songwriter, the ukulele emo ectomorph on acid, the ephemeral combos winkingly called bands or projects in L.A., where laidback isn't just a myth and nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.

This trio are Californios, not fully malcontented to ever leave their smog enhanced paradise, and aware of the chaparral, Topanga Shale, and live oak particulates flowing through their veins. Site does send sound, and this is the sound of Southern California, stretched and poked full of holes with shiny strange light shining through shiny.

Studio 2019: red light virtually blinks roll digital 00:00:01 Shawn Rick Paul exchange Sergio Leone glances shrug someone jumps the gun they're off. They play work invent sweat retune ignore tuning involuntarily drop beats and reserve flammadiddles spread across kit and kin bass gets rude guitar wahs fuzzy and dang if some magic doesn't happen. Stop digital 00:17:34 ready go 00:22:46 stop till three hours of MuzikWhileUWait lie waiting to be dissected.

And dissection did indeed do dope damage. Eight instrumentals have emerged, dripping megabytes and blinking innocently 1 0 1 001 01 0 1 0 1 01 01 01

Let us introduce you to the mad scientist who put down the drumsticks and picked up the virtual scalpel, mangled various synths, and alchemized explorations into songs, intentions into synths, sections into statements:

If Shawn Nourse were 20, he would be hardwired to his computer in a $1700 Herman Miller Aeron Chair with adderol morphine drip, and dream of music software in brief moments of slumber. Sadly, Shawn is a working drummer, and has to pack his drums into his spartan nonsport futility vehicle (unpleasant), drive through post covid rage engorged LA traffic (truly unpleasant), and unpack and set up those damn drums again(ah hell, it's meditative). Will there be steaks, respect, top shelf delight? Do you know who I am? Do you know I've played with Dwight Yoakam, traveled and gigged and jammed with Garth Hudson, Flaco Jiminez, Billy Gibbons, Earl and Chris Scruggs, Albert Lee, Dave Alvin, at the Ryman, the MGM Grand, Stagecoach, for the crowned heads of Europe?

No? Cool, where's the freight elevator?

Shawn labors over a hot DAW deep into the nights. Bassist Rick Alonso designs imagery. He knows to stay out of the way.

Guitarist and fellow road rat/sideman Paul Lacques thinks he is a producer, and has indeed been blamed for a number of projects--I See Hawks In L.A., Double Naught Spy Car, The Underthings, and lots of indie country rock. He's also WorkedPlayed with Bo Diddley, David Lindley, Stan Ridgway, Nels Cline, Sheiks Of Shake, Mike Watt, Stew, Burning Spear, Toots & The Maytals, Joe Baiza, Ben Vaughn, Dave Alvin, Bernie Leadon, Chris Hillman, Leslie Anne Warren, Lucinda Williams, Sylvia Juncosa, Polka Freakout, Alex Meixner Polka Band. One man's obnoxious is another man's brimming confidence.

But OpinionatedPaul is CowIntimidated by Shawn's suddenly exploding studio magictouch, the LushLayers, the SynthsWithPurpose, the Nay2Nay SayersHatcheting of the meanderingmuse, the concising of 29 minute jams into 11 minute Journeys. He shuts up, as Shawn delivers eight finished tracks and,yea, seven videos that haunt the music, haunted by the music, and might haunt the viewer stumbling on this most uncalculated and commercially suicidal collection.

And voila: Ape Pop's debut instrumental trio album. Can you dance to this? You can certainly drive to it.

Ape Pop is three studio musicians (Dwight Yoakam, Bo Diddley, Netflix, I See Hawks In L.A., Stan Ridgway) tweaking improv sessions into memorable instrumentals. A mashup of jazz fusion, garage rock, space jams, americana, and synth pop. Invented on the spot and then we apply science. We tentatively believe in science.