After all these years, I still haven't found an easy way to describe Essential.

This song was made to be used as a rap beat. From 2004-2006, almost every instrumental song I made was constructed with that purpose in mind. But I soon discovered that most of my original instrumentals were a bit too intricate and busy to make good backing tracks for hip hop tracks. So I started treating them like instrumentals, meant to be consumed without vocals.

Essential is maybe the best example of my musical evolution from that time. The drums were crafted to hit heavy and deliver knock. The bass was meant to growl. Then the synth and guitar were added on top to give the rhythm section some flavor. But somewhere within that process, melody and structure took over.

So I ended up with a hybrid of electronic drums, raw slap bass, heavy synth, and flamenco guitar. Sometimes I wonder if the combination of those disparate styles makes this song sound as if it were built from the kind of pre-recorded loops and samples that come default with music creation software. However, nothing could be further from the reality of Essential. All of the instrumentation you hear are original performances, consciously written for this specific song.

Essential on YouTube...

...and Essential on SoundCloud.

You may have listened to Essential before. It's the end theme on the AudioShocker family of podcasts. And eventually, I did record some rhymes over it. But that song isn't done yet... so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut until it's ready to drop.

Finally, if you were wondering, the answer is yes -- the title "Essential" is inspired by Marvel's Essential comics reprints. At the time I made this song, I was reading Luke Cage v1 and X-Men v5.

NEXT TUESDAY: A personal favorite of mine that was written and recorded as an Xmas present for my girlfriend.

There's something very unusual about Bacon -- it was written and recorded in about 45 minutes.

Most of the songs on Brilliant Shower took hours to compose and perform, evolving with every new layer and morphing into something far different than what I'd originally intended for them.

Bacon, however, was written on a lark and recorded in a pinch. And it came out sounding exactly like I'd intended.

Intermission!!! For your sharing pleasure, here's Bacon on YouTube...

...and on SoundCloud.

Okay, back to the history of this song. My friend and co-creator of the AudioShocker, Neal, was visiting me in Pittsburgh. We wanted to lay down some tracks for my offensive hip hop project, the Unlicensed Attorneys at Law.

Improvising, I was playing my acoustic guitar while he was coming up with goofy innuendo for the hook. I wrote the riff for Bacon, while he came up with the idea for a "pork and beans" themed chorus.

I busted out my drum machine, added some quick keyboard bass, tossed in a couple of acoustic guitar tracks, added some keys and percussion and VOILA! The track was complete. It was just that quick.

Consequently, this beat has been used for the past two UAL releases, the 20 Minute Sex Soundtrack and The Bacon and Eggs EP (both very NSFW). Also, an alternate version of Bacon will appear on my next album, 7 Star Sky Flash Kick.

NEXT TUESDAY: Super synth meets smooth acoustic guitar and thick slap bass.

She was hosting a program called Modern Donkey on 90.1 FM KZSU Stanford. If you live in the Bay Area, then it's on your dial. Otherwise, you can listen live online.

Anyway, the theme for Dr. Wormwood's radio show was album openers, and she was asking people to send their feedback. So I recorded a quick mp3 of my thoughts on opening tracks. And as I was prepping to email it, I remembered something -- I'd just posted an album opener of my own on Tuesday!

So I attached my thoughts on openers and my own opener, After the Wink, to the email. Less than one hour hour later, I heard this on the KZSU live stream:

Thanks, Dr. Wormwood!!! You're the best!

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the entire Modern Donkey radio show yesterday, and I highly recommend that you listen too. It airs every Wednesday from 9AM-12PM PST on KZSU. Here's that link again!

It's been eight months since I halted my (somewhat) weekly Nik Furious music posts. But now the jams have officially returned!

Let's kick off the celebration with After the Wink, the first track from my instrumental album, Brilliant Shower:

Up until now, my free music downloads were strictly limited to my mixtape cuts (a.k.a. songs with samples in them). The only way to get my 100% original instrumental music was to buy Brilliant Shower from iTunes, etc. But as I explained a couple of weeks ago, I've taken Nik Furious off of those sites and now ALL of my original songs will be available here on my blog.

For the foreseeable future, all of these new Nik Furious posts will also contain a YouTube video of the song:

...and a SoundCloud version:

Well, at least until I get sick of embedding both of them

OKAY! Now let's talk about After the Wink. It was originally composed in 2004 as part of a 10-minute soundtrack for a student film of the same name by Claudia Duran and Jonathan Martofel.

We had a bit of a miscommunication somewhere along the way... they were expecting a plain guitar soundtrack, while I was aching to experiment with synth-heavy electronic sounds. I'd only recently begun producing hip hop beats, and I was hype to fuse my new hop hop style with my experience in performing rock music.

They hated the result. I wasn't sure how I felt. At the time, I guess I hated it too. At their request, I went back in and redid everything as a single track of acoustic guitar. And the electronic soundtrack was scrapped.

About a year later, I was going back through some of my shelved recordings to mine them for beats (or, at the very least, ideas). I relistened to the entire electronic After the Wink soundtrack. Of the 10-minute recording, a single minute stood out. I decided to hack off the dead weight and VOILA! This song was born.

Genre-wise, I think it tends to confuse people. It's not exactly rock. It's not exactly electronic. It's certainly not funky like my most of my other songs. And there's no way it could sit comfortably alongside my hip hop productions. No, it's a beast of its own and I love it for that.

NEXT TUESDAY: A song written and recorded in 45 minutes becomes a Nik Furious funk classic!

Why sad? Because this is the final Groundscore song I have to share with you!! Also, because this is a sad song.

See, back in 1999, there were sad teenagers across America who were starting to spend a lot of time gelling and brushing their hair. They didn't completely connect with the goth mentality, nor did they entirely reject the peppy energy of punk. No, they were proud pioneers were a new breed... a blend of hard rock and emotion... they were the forefathers of emotional rock! Which later became known as emo.

Anyway, point is that we did our own proto-emo thing with Zach's New Song. Zach was always a hopeless romantic and it was only a matter of time before he busted out the acoustic guitar and tempted the waterworks with an original tune.

On this song, Conrad plays drums, I play bass and keyboard, and Zach plays guitar and sings.

If we had to do this one over again, I would make the vocals louder in the mix. Sometimes they get a bit swallowed up by the instruments.

So... that's it for Groundscore! Sometime in the near future, I'll post all of these songs as one .ZIP for you to download. Thx for listening and taking this trip down memory lane with me. And if you're aching for new music, then you'll be glad to know that I'll be back soon with some very special Nik Furious news.

The basement reference in this song is very literal. Conrad's basement was the home of Groundscore. It was our practice space. It was our hang out space. And it's where we recorded this song.

We regarded this song as our "single" -- if we ever had the chance to put one out, that is. We thought it was the most well-rounded and attractive song in our set. In retrospect, I'm not sure that it's any better or worse than our other tracks... just a bit more of the times (late 90s pop punk before the emo explosion).

This song is notable for being our one truly collaborative composition. Typically, we worked in a more individual fashion, bringing pre-written songs to the table and tweaking them for the band. Upstairs, however, was written collaboratively -- appropriately enough -- upstairs in Conrad's bedroom (our secondary hang out spot).

On this recording, Conrad plays drums, Zach plays guitar and sings the choruses, and I play bass and sing the verses and bridge.

Honestly, my vocals kinda suck on this. Zach should have sung the whole song. I'm not tone-deaf, but I have an extremely difficult time making my voice replicate the notes I hear. I spent a lot of my youth in musical theater and experienced all kinds of vocal training, and it's never made much of a difference!

As for the lyrics themselves, I'm still quite fond of them. I think they have a nice degree of ambiguity, along with enough recognizable phrasing to make them both familiar and strange at the same time, leaving lots of room for personal interpretation.

Next up is the final Groundscore recording, our most emotional outing... a track titled "Zach's New Song."

...we're going to the prom with your mom! Actually, driveways are really relevant to this song because that's where I came up with the concept and most of the lyrics.

We used to hang out in Conrad's driveway a lot. Which is odd considering that the place where we lived was cold for eight months out of the year and Conrad's driveway was also a steep hill.

But back to the song! It was originally titled "I Went To The Prom With Your Mom" and later shortened to "Prom Mom." And as the years have past, it's become progressively more lude and rude.

Groundscore was the first band that played this tune, but not the last. In fact, I've played this song pretty frequently over the past decade or so, most notably with Dirty Weekend (check out a lyrically NSFW performance of it here).

On this Groundscore version, Conrad plays drums, Zach plays guitar and sings back up, I'm on bass and lead vocals, and I also play the fuzzy guitar solo.

I love playing Prom Mom and I think it's a lot of fun. In fact, I've been playing and recording it more consistently than any other song I've ever written. Here's a solo acoustic version (also NSFW) from a few years ago.

EDIT: And I almost forgot... today is Conrad's birthday! Happy bday, Con!!!

Next up is Groundscore's signature song (and the only one we all wrote together)... a little ditty called "Upstairs."

Today's song is an ode to Jamie, Conrad's sister. You might hear the lyrics and think that we hated Jamie, but nothing could be further from the truth!

In fact, Jamie was awesome to us! She used to drive us places, let us use her stuff, invite us to hang out with her older cool friends, and she was super supportive of all of our insane creative pursuits.

So what did we do to repay all that kindness? Conrad wrote a song called "Pigface" and we dedicated it to her.

Conrad's on vocals and guitar, Zach's on bass, and I'm on drums.

Structurally, this is a really interesting track. It's a fusion of a bunch of Conrad's inspirations at the time, from punk to metal to classic rock to oldies (around 0:25 we quote an old rock n' roll tune... I forget the name of the song).

As Groundscore songs go, this is one of my favorites. I like the heavy garage sound, Conrad's guitar work on the breakdown (especially the opening riff at 0:50), and I've always enjoyed my raw drum work from the same section.

EDIT: Conrad adds, "Now I should say this, the song isn't necessarily ABOUT my sister, we were hanging out when I wrote it. So I guess it kind of reminds me of her? I should have written a cooler song...."

Next, I share my perennial teen anthem, "I Went to the Prom with Your Mom."

In fact, this completed version of Da Bounce has heretofore only been heard on earlier episodes of the Naked Jews podcast.

However, I did post some stages of this song's construction as a part of my abandoned Building Da Beat series on the AudioShocker. There's even a special scrapped version of the track with a ton of crunchy electric guitar on it.

This song will be included on my upcoming album 7 Star Sky Flash Kick. I'm only a few songs away from being done with that collection of tracks, so hopefully I'll release the full thing around the end of the year.

ALSO:
- Da Bounce on SoundCloud
- Da Bounce on MySpace
- Da Bounce on PodOMatic

As a teen in the late 90s, there was no way to avoid the nu-bubblegum pop fad. Xtina, Backstreet Boys, Mandy Moore, *NSYNC... you know the names. And foremost among them was Britney Spears.

While Groundscore was a pop punk band, I didn't have many punk music influences at the time. I was more into classic rock and funk music. To me, punk was just slightly better than most top 40 radio.

At some point, I became fixated with the idea of covering "Oops!... I Did It Again." I guess I found the idea of a guy in a punk band singing the same words as a seductive pop diva pretty hilarious. And I still do.

Zach and I both sing this one (I'm the one that's really quiet in the mix). Conrad's on drums, Zach's on guitar, and I'm on bass.

Next week In 2.5 months, I share Conrad's tribute to his sister titled "Pigface."

I've always had a penchant for story songs -- ya know, tunes where the lyrics have a beginning, middle, and end. My Best Friend's Mosh Pit is the story of one punk's transformation from n00b into hardcore.

Truthfully, I've never really been that into punk music. Even when I was writing and recording these Groundscore songs, I think I spent more time listening to James Brown and Billy Joel than the Gotohells or NOFX. But punk rock is the kind of music my friends wanted to make, and it was lots of fun to play, so I made it too.

I'm singing and playing bass, Zach's playing guitar, and Conrad's on drums. To me, that always felt like the most natural set up, though I really enjoyed playing drums with these guys as well.

But wait! This track isn't completely rooted in punk... the name of the song and its final refrain are inspired by The Cars hit My Best Friend's Girl. (As if that wasn't already painfully obviously...)

Next week, I'm proud to bring you the only cover song ever recorded by Groundscore... a hardcore version of "Oops!... I Did It Again"!

My first exposure to Mandy Moore was in 1999 at Fantastic Records outside of Rochester, NY. I used to go there to pick up old vinyl for $0.50 a pop (back before I knew what crate digging was).

Fantastic used to put promo freebies in a basket next to the exit, and one day Conrad and I came across a curious cassette single by an unknown artist named Mandy Moore. The most fascinating thing about the single was that it came in a flip-top box just like a pack of cigarettes.

It wasn't long before Mandy was on TV singing her single -- Candy -- and reaching into the hearts of pubescent boys across America. I didn't have cable back then so I never saw Mandy's music video for Candy, but I know it inspired Conrad to write this song.

On this one, Conrad's singing and playing guitar, Zach's playing bass, and I'm playing drums.

And if you're wondering, the answer is yes -- those pictures are of a still-wrapped copy of the Candy cassette that I've saved all these years. I'm not sure why. I never even listened to the song until today when I found it on YouTube.

BTW, if you watch the music video, prepare to get creeped out! Moore's only 15... which wasn't weird back when Conrad and I were 17, but nowadays it makes me uncomfortable. They've got her saying some pretty suggestive stuff while she's staring longingly into the camera. (EWW!)

But don't worry -- next week, I'll take a break from bubblegum pop stars and give you a good dose of old fashioned teen punk with "My Best Friend's Mosh Pit"!

But if you're not on PodOMatic and don't give two shits about the site, it's all gravy cause you can listen to it right here:

But if you do dig that site, you can friend my Nik Furious PodOMatic profile. Hell, while you're at it, go LIKE Nik Furious on Facebook too!

Anyway, back to the music. For those of you who don't already know, Proton Cannon is my rock-themed mixtape, packed with lots of punch and crunch alongside my usual cosmic metronome funk. I think the mix really hits its stride around 12:23.

Long before I ever made instrumental music and hip hop beats as Nik Furious, I was part of a teenage pop punk trio. We originally named ourselves Bambi Lives, but had an identity crisis along the way and changed our name to Groundscore.

We called ourselves "the rotating power trio" because we'd switch instruments during our performances and recordings. My best friend Conrad Knapp played drums, guitar, and occasionally bass. Our new friend Zach Wendell was a mega guitar whizz who sometimes switched to bass and very occasionally drums. I played bass, drums, and a tiny bit of guitar. We all took turns singing (but Zach was the best).

However, on this first of eight songs I'll be sharing with you, no one sings. In fact, this was the only instrumental track on our eponymous self-produced debut album. At the time, we called it "Nick's Instrumental," but I've decided to rename it "Bambi Lives" in honor of our original moniker. Give it a listen!

Though it's obviously not a substantive song, it's a teaser of things to come! As for the credits, I know Conrad is playing the drums, and I think that's me playing bass. Guitar is where this one gets a little tricky because this was just a practice track during our recordings. It could have been anyone one of the three of us!!!

Anyway, be back here next week for a Conrad Knapp ditty about love, loss, and a cheesy 90s pop star... a song called "Mandy Moore"!!!

If you're a regular Nik Furious follower (do those even exist?), then you already know that I've been slacking on putting together the final post for my Piece of Cake mixtape... and posting the Stick Cats theme song is no exception to that slackening. Point is, I'll get around to that post eventually.

Anyway, speaking of Stick Cats, I'll be posting a new strip tomorrow. See ya then!

EDIT 05/12/11: I forgot to post the lyrics! Here they are:

CHORUS
Stick Cats
They're running around and they're doing stick stuff.

They're the Stick Cats
They're kickin' some tail and they're looking real tough.

They're the Stick Cats
Their bodies are sticks but their heads are cats.

They're the Stick Cats
Don't make 'em mad cause they just might scratch.

VERSE 1
Marmalade, she's a real tough kitty.
She's got a big sword and she'll cut you with it.

Steve, he does stuff too!
We're not sure what it is but it seems like it's cool...

VERSE 2
Octo-Kitty is a scary beast.
The Stick Cats wanna kill it 'fore starts it's feast.

There's a tough fight with no end in sight,
But Steve and Marmalade are gonna do it right.

Well... that's a wrap for the Piece of Cake mixtape. Next Tuesday I'll post up the entire thing for download. After that? Well... uhhh to be honest, I'm running low on mixtape material and I haven't been doing a lot of new instrumentals lately. So I'll just have to wait and see what happens!!!

I would call this a 100% Nik Furious original save for one fact -- I didn't play the drums! I had an assignment in one of my audio production classes, and Try This is the result of that. The drums are sampled from a gospel song I mixed for said assignment, and then I added my own keyboards on top.

If ya dig this, listen to my 100% original album, Brilliant Shower, for free.

Well that's what this beat was for me. I wanted to take the sample just slightly off of its original course and tweak it until I thought the progression was smooth and sleek. Did it work? You be the judge.

What about a title like "St. Nik's Sack of Beats"?

In fact, as far as I know, I'm the only person that likes this song. So give it a spin and see what you think... am I wrong?

Savage samples voice and song from narrated sports footage. I love those old dramatic re-narrations of football and baseball games, and I like the unconventional quality of this sampled audio. I'm also very pleased with the drums on this one.

Basically, what I'm saying is I LIKE THIS SONG.

Well, actually, it's the other way around -- my mixtapes after named after War Machine's quotes from Marvel vs. Capcom, and then I chose a track on each mixtape to represent the title... but that's neither here nor there, really.

This is one of the few mixtape cuts I WISH I could take full credit for! Alas, it uses a sample for the excellent melody and mouth noises (I guess it's beatboxing... though it's more like Bobby McFerrin-style a cappella). I chopped, looped it, and added some drums. Nothing special, mind you, but I think the combination is fantastic.

Personally, I think the re-imagined part is hot. It's got great energy and mood. As for the "remixed" section, well it's definitely funny. It's got that going for it.

Like I mentioned last time, most of my mixtape instrumentals are made as backing tracks for rap songs. The reason why this beat includes the entire one-sided cell phone conversation from the original is because the rappers wanted to fill in the other side of the conversation in their version.

I recommend you do the same -- fill in your side of the phone call while you listen. I promise you'll have fun.

The structure is pretty straight forward too. The "no one else can touch my..." line acts as the hook and the strictly instrumental sections are verses.

When I started building beats, I was making them as backing tracks for rap songs. It wasn't until friends of mine started listening to the instrumental versions more than the rap songs that I realized the instrumentals were really a draw of their own. So that's why a lot of my stuff is built with an alternating verse/chorus structure like this one.

This song is probably the most disco-ish beat in my catalog, which, honestly makes me proud. I grew up jamming to disco music and I learned a lot from the way instruments were layered by disco music producers.

The voice in this song is saying something... I think in the original song, the guy is singing "That's jealously!" But I prefer to hear him saying "That's what I say!" 1) Because it makes no sense in context because this is an instrumental and he's not saying anything. And 2) because I think that phrase has a nice ring to it.

Take this beat, for example. It's one of the few beats where I built all the loops around vocals. In the hook, the voice says "I want to do something freaky to you" and in the verse it says "Ooohhh so good to have you back!"

When Kelly Thompson contacted me about making an original track for her new podcast, 3 Chicks Review Comics, she expected an instrumental song like my other podcast themes (for the AudioShocker and Comic Book Pitt, natch).

I suggested the idea of shouting "3 Chicks" in there and she liked it. But when I came up with the idea of adding a verse to it, I decided to keep it secret and surprise Kelly with it when the song was complete. When it came time for the unveiling, Kelly dug the rap and told me she'd save the vocal version for special occasions.

And today just happens to be one of those occasions! 3 Chicks Review Comics Episode 005 [link coming later today!] was the right time to let the vocal version loose... and now I'm thrilled to be able to share this version of the theme with you.

If you like this 3 Chicks theme, check out my original instrumental album Brilliant Shower.

EDIT: You can listen to the extended version on Facebook.

Anyway, I like this beat a lot. The original was easy to work with and I'm happy with the way I chopped it up. Not that I would hold this up as my finest production, but I'm satisfied with the humorous result.

I like the energy of the beat and frenetic feel of the synth in this song. It's like the solo melody wants to jump out and slap you, but the rhythm bounces it up and down too fast for the notes to actually connect with your face.

But... the song IS a cover (that's why it's on the mixtape, after all!). So who knows the name of the original?

Truly a soft rock sample if there ever was one.

I put together a continuous mix of the tracks from the Superior Tech mixtape... a little something I like to call the Superior Tech Mixtape Mix (I'd embed it here except that the PodOMatic player width is a little large for my blog AND it autoplays).

So hit up this first of my Mixtape Mixes and lemme know what you think! I've discovered that PodOMatic is a fantastic community of proactive musicians and DJs, so it's worth popping by the site anyway. And of course, if you sign up, swing by the Nik Furious PodOMatic profile and friend me up!

But Sold Out is a little bit simpler than my usual production. Well, in theory. But I remember making it years ago, and it took me forever to find the right cymbal crash sound.

And check out my new PodOMatic page! I've got a kickass Superior Tech mix posted.

I'm still trying to settle on a name for the instrumental version of this song. What I do know is that it'll make it onto my next album, 7 Star Sky Flash Kick. I made a semi-vocal version for Kelly Thompson featuring Juicy shouting "3 Chicks!," as well as a special surprise by myself. BUUUTTT I'm not going to reveal said surprise just yet -- so keep an ear out for when I'm ready to put it out there. It's pretty sweet.

In the meantime, you can listen to 3 Chicks #1 on PodOmatic (most likely a temporary home) and then go leave a comment on the 3 Chicks #1 post on CSBG (after you leave a comment here, that is!!!).

And I love this beat cause it's so different like that, but I sorta hate it cause it's not the type of music I would personally listen to very often. In retrospect, the whole thing is very inspired by the sound of the song Twilight by Frankie Beverly and Maze (even though you might not be able to tell it).

I liked this track so much that I actually went back in and recreated the sample about a year ago. This is the older version including the original sample, but you'll be able to hear the 100% original version of this beat on the new Unlicensed Attorneys at Law album, Public Offenders (coming soon!!!). Not to mention that it'll also be on my own Nik Furious album whenever I get around to releasing the new one...

Well, whatever. It rocks.

But it's still got charm to me. It captures the energy of the original sample while adding some more dance-ready drums to it. And, believe it or not, part of the percussion is inspired the drums from the theme to COPS. Seriously.

This is one of the few times I successfully sampled a song with that 60s r&b sound. It's tough music to cut up, similar to hard rock, because there are rarely peaks and valleys in the sound wave. But I like a challenge!

Sampling rock is totally different than sampling r&b or soft rock or something with a more mellow tone. The drums create bigger peaks and valleys in the sound waves of softer songs, making the music easier to cut. Rock, on the other hand, takes a lot more effort to make seamless snips between separate sections.

This is also the beginning of a recurring theme for this mixtape -- Proton Cannon's big rock music influence. Whereas Superior Tech has much more of an eerie groove to it, this collection of songs has more of a heavy head nod thing going on.

Whatever, though, cause I love this beat. That's why I made started making 'em in the first place! Taking the part of a song I like, giving it stronger drums, and looping the good stuff. That's boogie magic.

I think it does. And it's a hot beat. But because it was made with vocals in mind, I don't think I varied the structure enough to make it a real gem. But listen and let me know what you think -- you might love it just the way it is.

To me, this mellow product has a bit more reply charm than the original. Though it's not nearly as moving or memorable as its predecessor, I think it's got a great vibe.

This beat was a bit of an experiment for me. I utilized two drastically different sections of the same sample and turned out a combination that communicates a whole other attitude than the original.

The product is moody, powerful, and even elegant at times. A fine tribute to my adored Windrider, if you ask me.

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

Brilliant Shower Tracklist:
01. After the Wink
02. Bacon
03. Essential
04. In Vert Head
05. Invisible
06. Purple Suite
07. RAW
08. Remix the Phoenix
09. Speechless
10. Street Drums
11. Summers
12. Uncanny
13. Wallcrawler

If you want to get a feel for the full album without listening to the whole thing, here's a 6.5 minute sampler featuring 30 seconds from each of the 13 songs:

It's got a wild funky synth sample with pounding energy, and that's great. But the drums... the drums are killer! Yeah, okay, they're my drums and I'm a bit partial, but they're killer nonetheless!

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

Personally, my favorite part of the song is what I call -- for lack of a better phrase -- the "trips," or rather the moments when the beat does little skips at the end of a phrase.

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

In terms of musical memory recall, I'll always remember when I made it because the drums on this track were heavily inspired by Big Boi's "I Like the Way (You Move)."

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

I'd had the drum loop in my files for a while and never used it. But I suddenly felt the muse one Saturday, I wrote a bassline, and the rest just fell into place.

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

Those are words that describe other songs. However, this one is pretty good too.

Don't forget to buy my album, Brilliant Shower. It's 100% originally awesome. (And this song isn't on it!)

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

Now go check out my instrumental album, Brilliant Shower. It's 100% originally awesome.

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

Sometimes when I make beats, I mentally link them to certain artists. To me, Lightning Storm sounds like something Ciara would use, especially after she put out "Oh." Anyway, check out my album, Brilliant Shower. It's 100% original and sexy.

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

Whatever. Just go check out my album, Brilliant Shower. It's 100% original, unlike Superior Tech.

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

Since it samples, Diamond's not on my album, Brilliant Shower. But a ton of great original beats are on there, so check it out!

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

Colossal's not on my album Brilliant Shower because it's not 100% original. But a bunch of other good songs are on there! Check it out.

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

I am SO proud of Century. It happens to sample one of my all-time favorite themes, but does so by transforming the sample rather than simply building upon it. The sample has been slowed and chopped to create something completely different, and... in my humble opinion, completely awesome.

Okay, now go buy my album Brilliant Shower. It's awesome, too.

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.

Armor has gone by many names over the years. But whatever it's been called, it's important because it's the first sampled beat I ever made.

It's also going to be the first song I'm posting in a new weekly music series. I've divided up my beats into 13-track mixtapes, and Armor is the lead track off on Superior Tech (once all the tracks are up, I'll post a .zip file of the whole mixtape).

While you have to buy my 100% original music from my new album, Brilliant Shower, I'm giving away all the tracks from Superior Tech (and my other mixtapes) for free.

This new weekly series is a continuation / relaunch of the Beatcast, a podcast series I used to run on the AudioShocker.

Linkage: You can download the full Superior Tech mixtape here on the blog and check out my Superior Tech playlist on YouTube.