Sean Ongley

Category: Audio

  • Peridot EP

    Peridot EP

    Presenting my newest single “Peridot,” released to all streaming services under the pseudonym SYMMTR. Actually it’s an EP. And really it’s a double EP. Here’s what happened.

    These songs were basically finished by winter 2022. I did further mixing and stuff, but it was complete enough that I made remix packs and distributed them to several producer-friends. The plan was to release a two-song EP with a remix for each.

    I received more affirmative responses than expected, so I was hedging my bets that multiple remixes would be turned in on time and from that I could release two EP’s spaced out by one month.

    I released “Topaz” with remixes by All The Stores Are Closed and Matchewey, because they turned theirs in promptly.

    Alex Hansen sent a compelling short remix for “Peridot,” but the others did not come through, so I decided to go ahead with just the one. All is well.

    “Peridot” was produced in Logic Pro, using a lot of vintage emulation instruments like the Mellotron and Roland 808, as well as real analog sounds from my ARP Odyssey. Alex tells me his remix was made with micro-samples entirely on his iPhone.

    SYMMTR is a thin mask. I don’t really hide behind a pseudonym to be anonymous, but invited the universe to give me a name for electronic, beat-driven music, and that’s what I got.

    I want this project to continue to be collaborative, even though it’s essentially a solo project. Working with these guys for remixes was cool. We didn’t go back and forth at all, I just accepted their outputs, which I think is how remixes usually work.

    I enjoyed all their tracks and truly appreciate their participation.

    One takeaway from this is that (like a band) giving your song over for others to interpret means they have the opportunity to see it totally differently, and that can be better, worse, or just different. I want to embark on direct collaboration, so that artists actually contribute to SYMMTR tracks, not just remix them.

    I don’t know if SYMMTR will ever form as a band, but I’m open to that too.

  • 2009: The Lost Album

    2009: The Lost Album

    Presenting the long lost album produced with Josh Hanson, in the year 2009, titled 2009. Truth be told, it was published once before, but I took it down, remastered it, and got in touch with Josh again to discuss having it up permanently. We needed to clear up a few things about its release.

    The music is different, something that only Josh could have initiated. Step 1: Josh transfers 4-track cassette recordings onto my Pro Tools 5 rig. Step 2: I remix those soundscapes and contribute additional tracks. I shared my progress but he didn’t interfere, and eventually we met for the third step of mastering.

    Josh used his own modular analog synthesis rack to record into the Tascam Portastudio. I used my ARP Odyssey Mk2 and Roland Vk1.

    Mastering took place in KBOO studios using Adobe Audition software, version 1. That software did pretty well, even though it was a destructive process, meaning you reshape the digital waveform over and over, rather than running it through real-time plugins, or better yet analog audio equipment. You are stuck with each step rather than tweaking settings on the fly.

    Once the album was mastered, Josh had ideas about how it should be released, there was a specific indie record label that he had in mind. And we didn’t have cover art. Originally I named our “band” Paradeux, and the album Animitta. It was pretentious honestly.

    Something about me back then was extremely impatient and would jump the gun, forcing others to respond, rather than patiently communicate and compromise until a final product is achieved.

    This impulse to just get things done be damned the quality of presentation led to a deep frustration between Josh and myself, because I took the music and made a quick and crappy header and posted it to Bandcamp.

    If we were trying to get it out through a label, we can’t have it available already. As a result, the release went nowhere. He didn’t promote it and we didn’t talk for years.

    So, one day I decided that I wanted this album on streaming services, so I emailed him. By this time, we were not in a feud, in fact, he was over it. But I like resolution, and closure.

    So I asked if he’d be cool if I released it, and this time, no band name, no solo tracks (we both had one solo composition on the original release), that we’d agree on all details in advance. He said yes. So I remastered it and sent the copy to Josh and there were no problems.

    The album artwork is very simple. It is an iPhone image taken of a glass sculpture by the artist who made it: Heidi Schwegler. This would be in Joshua Tree, California, at her materials lab.

    The music is an aesthetic journey that evokes surreality, and personally I see images of desert landscapes, ocean coasts, deep skies, dark caverns, machines, and stuff I usually relate to when I’m on mushrooms.

    This music might be heavily THC-induced (at least my contribution) but I wasn’t doing psychedelics at this time.

    Heidi’s glass sculpture blends into the ocean blue sky against a desert landscape, white puffy clouds, and this weird squirrel head on a rock, I felt like this photo (that to Heidi was just an instagram post) relates to most of the aesthetic of the album. And nobody had to lift a finger to make it into a cover.

    I tried putting text over the image and around the white border, but none of it looked right. So I left off the text, especially given that this is a streaming copy, and listeners see that information. If I print an album, I can do any number of things, including the use of alternative artwork.

    The album is now available on all streaming services. It can also be downloaded from Bandcamp. Please add it to your collection or pay for a download.

    This music is also available for free streaming without an account at thru.media/2009-album. This is a value-for-value music album.

  • Meet SYMMTR

    Meet SYMMTR

    SYMMTR came to me by intention. I didn’t want to think of a name to publish electronic music under, I wanted to arrive at one. The name had to stick under heavy rains of doubt. There’s no perfect name, but it’s not just arbitrary.

    Sym is a Greek prefix meaning together, or in union. A great example is symphony, meaning sound in unity.

    “Symmtr” is always auto-corrected by the computer to symmetry. Dropping the e and the y emphasizes the word meter, so it means literally meter in unity. Being a lot of MIDI driven music, it’s like a symphony of meter that becomes sound in the computer.

    The phrase “precarious symmetry” was floating around my head when I decided to take on a name for music.

    Throughout my life, I’ve floated the balance of precariousness with shit working out as if by some divine symmetry. That is also a lot of the music I make. Projects like Death Worth Living were unstructured improvisation, much like my life, the music somehow comes together. Sometimes it’s messy and displeasing, but it’s life.

    Although SYMMTR is much more structured and is built in controlled computer software, there is still a huge improvisational element to my process. That’s when it feels the best.

    I previously posted Sonny’s Plan on Bandcamp, where I discuss how I produced each track, but the purpose of this post is to discuss the introduction of a new artistic identity.

    Aside from my 2009 release with Kelly Slusher as Imra, I’ve never published to streaming services until now.

    The story of SYMMTR really begins after Imra. I also produced an EP of Kelly’s music while we were taking a break from Imra. That break became permanent, but so did my interest in computer driven music. I learned a lot from the catalyst of Kelly, so I wasn’t about to let go of my experience gained using Ableton, Reason, Cubase, and Logic. Most tracks include some performance from the Arp Odyssey, but mostly, it all is generated from stock software.

    The first SYMMTR LP Sonny’s Plan represents this slowly formed identity between 2010 until 2020. Most of the music that I have made in life is without clear meter, performed and composed in the same instant, it is “experimental” and “avant-garde.” This content is a departure from that, and in a sense, more experimental to me personally.

    Every song on this LP was put out originally in a half-hearted way, as a SoundCloud drop, or Bandcamp, without much regard for cover art. There wasn’t a serious intention, I was just anxious to get songs on my profiles. I grouped these together, in every case possible going back into the sessions to revise the mix, before remastering every song together.

    The second release as SYMMTR was produced in 2022, a single/EP called Topaz. This includes two remixes, one from All The Stores Are Closed, the other from Matchewey. They could not have taken more opposing directions, the prior going full force Jazz House style, and the latter going Down Tempo.

    The next slated release is a sister single/EP set to have two remixes as well. I am still waiting on the second remix for that track.

    Building a remix pack and making it accessible to fellow producers was a valuable experience, something traditional to the electronic music scene, and I look forward to doing more of that.

    STREAMING AND DOWNLOAD LINKS:

    Apple Music

    Spotify

    YouTube Music

    Bandcamp

  • Curators and Artists of T:BA Festival 2009

    Curators and Artists of T:BA Festival 2009

    KBOO Air Signal Audio from Art Focus 09-01-09

    In the weeks leading up to the 2009 iteration of the Time-Based Art Festival annually produced by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), I was given a chance to guest host an episode of Art Focus on KBOO, September 01, 2009. Host Eva Lake gave me a chance to program my own show. I ran with it, packing in guests.

    Featuring the guest artistic director at that time Cathy Edwards and monologist Mike Daisey on the phone, visual artists Fawn Krieger and Jesse Hayward in pre-recorded interviews, plus staff curators Erin Boberg and Kristan Kennedy in the studio, this moment is kind of amazing.

    The first segment introduces the festival with Cathy, Erin, and Kristan. I bring in Mike, and the discussion gets underway. Around 20 minutes, I cut to a produced segment with Fawn and Jesse, their interviews stitched together with a brief music concrete piece built with field recordings at The Works, the combined art exhibition and temporary night club space that acts as a centerpiece for the festival. The final few minutes are given to pontificate on contemporary art.

    It was fun to listen to this again, even though I cringe at a few things. The funny thing about community radio is that hosts have minimal media training, and I mean that in both the technical sense and in quotes, “media training,” a euphemism for polite, energetic, palatable behavior for the audience.

    There is a moment when everybody is going on about Philadelphia Live Arts Festival (now Fringe Festival). Inwardly, I’m freaking out because I lost control. Without media training, I crudely redirect the conversation back to TBA. Okay, it was fine.

    As a result of what I felt to be aggressive behavior, I started doing the now ubiquitous vocal fry thing. When the microphone picks up your voice in every detail, it’s easy to slip into. I just think it’s a bad habit that became popular.

    Whenever I did these live day time talk shows, I felt pressure to be far more professional and palatable than I was on my late night shows, but really I’m a basket case behind this calm demeanor that I manage to project.

    I overcompensated by packing in guests. Thirty minutes with Mike Daisey talking about TBA alone could have been a great show.

    Somehow, I expected to bring Oregon Painting Society on despite having these wonderful guests in the studio and on the phone. That would have been saturation. Thankfully, they never showed up, or there was a miscommunication, I cannot recall, but I mentioned it at the end of the show.

    To reflect on the oddness that the most comparable event to TBA just so happened to be in the city I now live and love, Philadelphia, and that I forgot about that, shows there’s weird symmetry to everything. Portland was where I discovered myself as an artist and media producer while TBA played a meaningful role in that. I haven’t felt similar until the last year in Philly.

    The years that I spent attending and covering the festival from 2007 to 2015 were very special to me. I don’t know what word to describe the sum total of education, mind expansion, creative inspiration, and social gratification that I derived from it, but it’s rad.

    I remain in contact with Kristan a little bit via Instagram. We have reminisced on the fact that I got to experience those formative growth years, the good old years.

    When I found this audio and wanted to post about it, I asked her about Philadelphia Live Arts and she pointed me to this 2013 article by Philadelphia Dance. It was basically a rebranding strategy tied to the development of a new performance venue owned by the same organization.

    My understanding is that much like FringeArts is the same but has changed, Time-Based Art Festival has taken a different shape with institutional change. I am sure that during covid there were substantial adaptations to old ways. Coming up on 20 years, I would love to attend to see for myself. That said, I haven’t been to Fringe before, so it’s in the bucket for the future.

  • “Somos Cumbia”

    “Somos Cumbia”

    “Somos Cumbia” is an original song for the Somos Artesina short documentary.

    This is one of the easiest, free flowing pieces of music that I have ever composed. I called it “Somos Cumbia,” because it is for a short documentary called Somos Artesina, which I also produced.

    The film is about a Colombian couple in Philadelphia called ArtesinA. Cumbia is a Colombian music form influenced from immigrants the world over and has extended to every corner of the world. The title translates to, “We are cumbia,” because we all have access and the right to this musical form. It is a lot like jazz in that way.

    ArtesinA is an art project and a startup brand. Learn about them by watching the film here.

    Also, I made a music video using b-roll film.

    Music video for “Somos Cumbia.”

    All of this is my comeback to THRU Media. That was the magazine that I launched in 2016, which you can learn about here. The magazine is still dead, but the media channels are reviving slowly.

    As for this song, I had completed editing and mastering, but I needed to add in/out music. I am not the type to run a music bed throughout. It’s lame, in my opinion, however, given my limitations in terms of licensing music, I cannot really do it anyway.

    There used to be the Free Music Archive, but that was bought from the non-profit radio station WFMU by a for-profit company called Tribe of Noise. I don’t know how that is legal.

    The real problem is that none of that music is free anymore. Free to listen, sure, but who cares? Now you have to pay substantially to license the music for your short, no budget film.

    That is why I decided to produce my own music for the picture. I heard the cumbia beat in my head, it’s a standard form, so that was easy. I laid that down first, followed by bass, and then the accordion. The synth track capped it. It all flowed so naturally.

    I was also very sad when I wrote this. I was powering through some real disappointments, some rejection. It has that sad sound, but also happy. I’m just happy to channel my issues through work, I love music more than anything, so it always improves my vibe.

    That’s the song and the story behind it. Thanks for listening.