Brilliant Shower artwork by Shawn Atkins

Invisible is one of the oldest songs on Brilliant Shower. It's also the first time I ever sampled myself.

Invisible by Nik Furious [ 2:29 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I wasn't a music major in college, but I was fortunate enough to get into some advanced sound recording classes. The techniques I learned have been invaluable to me as both a musician and podcaster. (Thx, Riccardo Schulz!!!)

I'm not a great drummer by any means, but I can hold a beat. We needed someone to play drums for one of these classes, and so I volunteered. I played a few different beats, nothing spectacular. And when all was said and done, I got to keep the recordings of my performance.

INTERMISSION! Invisible on SoundCloud.

A few months after I graduated in 2004, I pillaged all of my old recordings to try and find the best songs I made while I was in college. After the Wink was one of those. Try This was another. And in the process of drudging through my old stuff, I found the ProTools files of my aforementioned drumming.

I tried looping full bars of my drums, but I couldn't get anything that sounded tight. So I went through and I sampled individual hits. One tap on the high hats. One on the snare. A couple of kick hits. And then I proceeded to lay out the beat in ProTools just like I was using my drum machine.

Nowadays, I understand the concept of sequencing (despite the fact that I still don't do it... nothing against it -- I've just never tried it). Back then, I had no idea or otherwise I would have tried out something like that.

Anyway, I did things the hard way but I built a drum beat I'm still proud of to this day. Obviously, I also laid down some bass and synth at some point... which, if I recall correctly, happened months later when I was living in Brooklyn.

Invisible is currently the theme for the HyperComboCast, a fighting games podcast I co-host on the AudioShocker.

NEXT: 9.5 minutes of purple.

Brilliant Shower artwork by Shawn Atkins

There's a special connection between the title and duration of In Vert Head. Can you figure it out?

In Vert Head by Nik Furious [ 4:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Regardless of the little secret reference in there (which, ironically, is not a personal reference... I put it in there for someone else), this is probably my favorite song I've ever recorded. I feel kinda stupid saying that because I tend to think it's best when an artist lets their music speak for itself. BUT GODDAMN IT I LOVE THIS SONG!!!

Anyway, that someone else I mentioned is Justique. This song was made as a gift for Xmas 2007. It's probably the most fun I've ever had recording a solo song, and I think that both my love for Justique AND the fun I had recording it really shine through in the performance.

In Vert Head on YouTube...

...and In Vert Head on SoundCloud.

I'm sure you've had your fill of me going on and on about how much I enjoy this track. SORRY! It's hard for me to contain my enthusiasm for it.

Oh, and before I go, I should mention that you may have also heard this song as the theme to the Sequential Underground podcast on the AudioShocker.

NEXT: The first time I ever sampled myself.

Brilliant Shower artwork by Shawn Atkins

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

Essential by Nik Furious [ 2:37 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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.