Samuel berney, the band

hi, we are Samuel Berney, the band. We are plural even though we are singular; bands are plural. We have two full albums out, and have part of another out. They are licensed under Creative Commons License as seen below.

Our music may be found on last.fm here and our band’s myspace page here.

Our music is all recorded by ourselves at our house using our lousy lofi recording equipment. We capture the fuzz of our server and the mp3 files destroy the rest of the quality. These are all recorded using the “play through other tracks while recording new one” feature of audacity.

Here are our albums, songs, and song descriptions, and links to download them (they are free under the creative commons license shown at the bottom of the list):

Hmm

1. Hmm — Non-lyrical: violin and voice: Dark. Inspired by GYBE.
2. I, Me, I’m Awesome — Same but Darker, more layers, more strangeness; includes keyboard typing as percussion, and super GYBE-like-ness.
3. Ooh-ahh-ha-ha — violin and voice with non-singing lyrics: much Lighter. Some lyrics inspired by Josef Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
4. =C; Italy; =C — Like above, no lyrics. This sounded Italian to me, and I was torn between naming it the smilie it evoked and “Italy” for its sound, so I did both.
   
5. Hats off to our Musketeer — This is a filler track. I had plans for it but oh well. This is a remnant of the first song I ever attempted to write.
   
6. Turn on your Cell, R.S.V.P. ASAP — Continuing the Lightness, but with a steady beat this time that’s hopefully more prevalent than previously. The end is lyrical but the lyrics are fluff. The phone rang while I was recording so I was reminded of “Pick Up the Phone [and answer me at last]” from The Notwist.
   
7. Just Don’t Question Dumb Things — This track sucks, it only exists because it kind of Reflects How My Mind Felt when I recorded it. It kind of has lyrics.
   

Unknown #14

1. Hi — Lyrical, Lightish, guitar, violin; lyrics written after finishing a 100 page poetry project and they have a bunch of dual meanings. One of the Two tracks on these first two albums that you are most likely to like.
   
2. Other — Non-lyrical. This is Violin driven and very Dark. Ignoring the lag, this is my first use of my amplified clunker violin (essentially electric). The tune is a few bars I developed on the piano and wrote down on paper in treble clef for violin.
   
3. Unknown #14 — Similar to above, but improvised rather than written. Music theory begins to make an appearance in my mind. I rather like this one, although it is Dark and electric.
   
4. Dischord — Similar, very Dark. I finally managed to get an equalizer and effects machine working on my computer, so this is still electric and odd. Has lyrics–my poetry read in my voice through a voice modifier.
   
5. Tremolo In The Rests — Violin and partially-lyrical voice–slightly Lighter. I generated pulses of tone to keep time to see if I could counter lag and it worked pretty well. I wrote out the chord structure for this rather than improvise of the seldom writing out of a score. I muted the other tracks so I was recording blind and had to hope my chord structure wasn’t awful and that I wasn’t off by a measure or beat or whatnot. Actually very self-explanatory, the lyrics are basically this same explanation.
   
6. Is Northwest or La Guardia Worse? — Violin: Light. I wrote this five part score on the airplane during 40 minutes or so of delay. This is my first real score that sounds any good, although it’s 25 seconds and unfinished.
   
7. Someone I know — Guitar, Lyrics, Violin. This is the best song I’ve ever recorded, I believe. It consolidates some basic chords I practiced on the guitar and has me playing them with a metronome. I wrote down some short lyrics and and did a track over with my violin.

April and May, Time of Flowers, Disillusion, awful weather, and sadness

1. Right Now — Guitar, lyrical. This is a quick 10 minute guitar and voice recording I did while my friend Joe was brushing his teeth and I was waiting for him to get done–it’s not too bad.
   
2. Right Now Version 2 — He took too long getting back. This is another version.
3. What more is there to say? — Guitar and Vocals.
4. You could say this — 20 minutes of piano and violin. No lyrics; that’s part of the irony.
5. Can you see the eyes - Intro, Restless, and Tragedy(!) — Guitar and Vocals. (Completely, except for the background track which I decided not to delete including goof-off noises and an electronic keyboard I was using to get my vocals in tune and just having fun with inbetween times.) I wrote some essays on how people’s eyes stuck in my head as being piercing or disliking or trying to be piercing or especially piercing, and how it was a window into everything in their head which they were trying to get out of you; it’s a reverse effect. But, this sounds soooo awesomely awesome because all the guitar is in A minor with some B diminished chords, and the vocals are in G major in the last 2/3rds of the song. I thing this is rather awesome, I worked on it all day putting it together, and got melodies from the last week on the piano (ported to guitar).

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Cancer

1. Win — Ingredients are as follows: electric bass, electric-acoustic guitar, electric-acoustic violin, kazoo, harmonica, tambourine, and win. First I decided I would use the cool electric bass drone I was playing with today when my stupid amplifier wouldn’t work, and then I just added everything. Made of win, recorded 07-08-08 –> 08-08-08, this is the 1-888-WIN-WINN song, then.

This work by Samuel Berney, the band is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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