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.
LoveBytes Vol. 5 - Submission + Surrender Mixed by Libations & Oscillations
Fifth volume in the new LoveBytes mix series ..." the evolution of a relationship. a journey through love."
We were contacted by Ideal Noise to be a part of their new LoveBytes mix series. This series tried to explore the theme of "Love" by reflecting and exploring different phases it may go through. Each stage (or theme) was guest mixed by a different well known or up and coming DJ/ Producer hand-selected from an international roster of hottest names in today's bass-heavy sounds. We were selected to be 5th in the series with the phase of Submission + Surrender as our theme.
Vocal Production & Mastering Vital (Jeffrey Evans)Vocals, poetry/ Spoken words by Zefora
Libations & Oscillations - Young & Beautiful
This is a live set for a private party that was never really made for release. It was made for the magic of one night. In October of 2013 a Great Gatsby party happened and it was the social event of the season. Everyone was there dressed to the nines, cocktails, and cigars between the pool and rotunda. Hors d’oeuvres of canapés, crudités, and patisserie by the grand foyer. A photo session in the drawing-room, and plenty of action in the ballroom. The creation of a proper mood for this event was crucial and began with crafting a new cocktail (mash-up) of Lana Del Rey’s song from the Great Gatsby soundtrack. Everything else was built from there using lounge, future jazz fusion, and a touch of hip hop. The cocktail was released on November 5th of that year but the setlist was lost to a cocktail napkin and found again inside a smoking jacket. Eventually to be released as a full the full mixset in Feb of 2014.
theWaxhole.com January Mix Mixed by Libations & Oscillations
This was a fun promotional mix for theWaxhole.com. Our good buddy Hypo, then Editor-In-Chief for Waxhole was organizing mix series with various artists to weave the music featured on the blog into Mixtapes. This was a using November and December 2012 tunes as the palette which lead to some interesting choices for tracks, but ones that lead to some great audio moments.
Libations & Oscillations - Cadavre Exquis
So this is the fifth mix chronologically but the story this mix takes place after our duo Dr. Dirigible and The Outlaw Saint have left Professor Seaglitch's Isle. In this arrangement, we hear the newfound musical techniques of Dr. Dirigible and The Outlaw Saint. The former title could be, "The Exquisite Corpse of My Former Self," however that is a touch extravagant. Instead "Cadavre Exquis" describes both the technique and emotion that was put into this mix. This was put together and performed for the 38th Ambient Campout and lead to one of our favorite remixes we’ve ever done. The Portishead remix here was something that happened. There was a point in Cadavre Exquis where we thought, "Man, it would be nice to drop some Portishead right here, but it doesn't quite fit." So we remixed it. You have to be careful when remixing something as timeless as Portishead. The original is so beautiful, we didn't want to change that much but rather just amp up the groove a bit to fit the context of the mix.
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
Libations & Oscillations - Invasion Of The Soul Snatchers
It’s hard for me personally to pick-out a favorite Libations & Oscillations set. Tonebreaker and I made a lot of magic together in the studio piecing together songs from friends, remixing, and editing extremely avant-garde tracks. This mix would be up there at the top though. This was our set from Ambient Camping 36. We decided to construct a blend of haunting downtempo that creeps along and stitches together beautiful, yet somber melodies. In addition to being hauntingly beautiful, this places in some of our favorite artists and allowed us to really start putting our own flavor into those tracks through remixes and edits.
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.
Libations & Oscillations - Professor Seaglitch's Isle of Aural Decadence
The very first Libations & Oscillations mix. This one is a special mix as it cemented my longest-running musical partnership. It started with Tonebreaker wanting my help in a remix project he was working on. It then moved to us finishing an original track he was working on. That track became “Going Baroque”. The next thing we knew we were working on a live set to play together. This first one was not played as a duo as he had a DJ reunion show in Dallas to play and I had a show on the beach for Ambient Campout to play. So separated by 550 ish miles on the opposite ends of Texas we played this set. Later we released it on the nurevolution studios podcast. This marked the beginning of the journey by Dr. Dirigible (Tonebreaker) and the Outlaw Saint (Joseph Noctum).