If you notice between the last mix and this one was a five-year gap, six years from the last Libations and Oscillations mix. It’s not that the duo of Tonebreaker and Noctum split, or that I attempted to “retire” from music again. It’s just that sometimes life happens. During lockdown orders in this extremely unusual year, Tonebreaker reached out to me with an idea. A mixtape to raise funds for charity. I was completely down with this idea. The charity we found was Music by Black Composers, a project of the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation.
On a personal note as we explored this mix we also decided to lay the Libations & Oscillations moniker to rest. So much had changed since the last time we touched that moniker. This time we released this simply as Tonebreaker and Noctum.
Music is one of the tapestries by which humanity tells its stories. From Congo Square in New Orleans to CBGB in New York, personal expression and culture have always been socialized to a soundtrack. As contemporary electronic musicians ourselves, we wanted to raise money for this charity to honor the rich and diverse musical roots that came before.
Libations & Oscillations - The Cracked Chronometer
Typically during the burning of an effigy at a burn event there is no music. Not that it’s a law written in stone but it’s something that people had come to think of like a tradition. At the request of the effigy designer, Dottie Spearman, we challenged this line of thinking. Several things happened here the first being one of the most complicated mixsets either Tonebreaker or myself have ever put together and an L&O Cocktail at the end. Which is one of the strangest things I’ve ever put together. However, I still love it for it’s dark and cinematic feel.
In this tale, Dr. Dirigible (Tonebreaker) and The Outlaw Saint (Joseph Noctum) have affixed an ancient Duergar chronometer to their airship, the S.S. Discord. According to legend, this device will allow them to sail the temporal seas firsthand. However, upon entering the tesseract, the chronometer cracks and sends our band of ne’er-do-well’s skittering through the fabric of spacetime. The resulting adventure through past, present, and future is transcribed in sound for your listening enjoyment. We used all of our skills mixing, sampling, remixing and producing this arrangement to make a cinematic tour that spans a myriad of musical styles. Marrying the world of acoustic and electronic music, we hope you enjoy this auditory accompaniment to the stunning visuals, performances, pyro and ultimately, our 2012 burn
Joseph Noctum - Pyropolis 2011: The Bad Boogie
The second in my Pyropolis series. This time instead of looking to my past I had by this point had set up a new live performance method. Instead of DJ’ing with vinyl, or USB’s as I had learned for last year. Now I was armed with a laptop, and MIDI controller to string together a DJ set with more control over the tracks, EQs, and FX than ever. While the sets were live and raw and filled with additional live chops and layered effects I would still make a studio version for release. Not the same as the live version but a pleasant memory for those who were there. This mix also includes two of my “Calculated Crunk” mash-ups I was known for during this time in my performances.
Trey Turner & Joseph Noctum - The New Sound
Ok, this is just a fun mix. It holds the test of nearly a decade and still sounds great and new. Trey Turner approached me with a concept for a CD to pass out at the upcoming Flipside. He already had a start with a fantastic set of tracks and sound clips from The Mighty Boosh. (I mean… Noel Fielding, how could I not be on board). All Trey really needed was someone who could add to the “leftfield-ness” and eclectic tone of this mix. So I was instantly on board and it was a hit. I still have one of the albums in my studio, with the ridiculously good artwork created by Cate. This mix still holds a special place in my heart, and if I never need to be in a better mood, I can always pop this on.
Libations & Oscillations - Bridge Burner
This is the second in the Libations & Oscillations mixtape saga. Tonebreaker and I both decided to play our various sets at various sound camps throughout the Flipside event. The close however was a joint L&O set that we performed after the effigy burned at the Amalgam Coast camp. Well, here it is... Another twisted construct from us to you. As always we have a story to go with the audio. This one starts in the waste of a crushed empire and ends elsewhere. We are but the poets who tell the story in between.
Joseph Noctum - In The Pink
This was a piece of the live set from one of the legendary parties at the Pink Palace. With a later release on nurevolution studios podcast who hosted the music for the night. I figure a full explanation isn’t needed. We’ll just go with the write up from someone in attendance.
”One night a group of cyborgs took over the Pink Palace and turned it into a cabaret. Their demands were to dance and be entertained, otherwise, they would enslave the human race. Joseph Noctum arrived armed with two hours of calculated crunk and made them dance as if he was their positronic programmer. In the end, they danced until he trounced their blinking monocles right onto the dancefloor. This mix is offered in testament to his heroic actions that night, for he may have saved humanity that day… but only for the time being.”
Joseph Noctum - Peace Love Crunk
This was the first mix I did with the nurevolution studios podcast in mind for the release. Between hanging at the local burns, and playing parties together at the legendary Pink Palace in Austin I found an influence to really lean into the breakbeats and to take it even further with the midtempo glitch that was the undercurrent of both EDM scenes and the “burner” scenes. I even finished this mix up at the nurevolution studios with Trey Turner. I was used to clean, studio-produced house tracks. The fun new world of digital meant that some of the most creative glitch tracks weren’t always mastered with more than some compression.
Joseph Noctum - Changes
Originally released in late 2004 / early 2005 this mix was a point of stepping outside the box. No longer was I just a Deep/Progressive House DJ, but this was stepping out into other genres that would pave the way for sounds today. We have remastered this mix to bring it up to today’s dancefloor standards.