Uboa

Noise school #666: abusing "input raw data" in Audacity

Hey, so been a while since I've posted, I've been beyond exhausted. However I have something simple, quick and fun you can try to make small harsh noise clips. (or entire songs if you are lucky and don't kill your computer. be careful!)

These small clips can be very useful for glitchy sound design and I frequently make use of this technique to get free unlimited noise bursts samples. Indeed you could even import such samples into a slicer and make a glitch-instrument with them. Often ...

An Angel of Great and Terrible Light stems

I've decided to *slowly* release the stems of my songs, at least the ones which I still have the project files for. The first one here is probably going to be the most demanded one.

All the tracks are there, but a few of them have-baked down FX, although I don't think thats going to be an issue for a lot of you. Can provide drys if necessary, although quite a lot of them sound unrecognisable without their FX chain.

Feel free to remix, use parts in your own work or even just unp...

Uboa - Tongues of Other Ears (WIP)

Another done-in-one sitting song based on complex LFO patches and royalty-free samples.

It sounds a little like Ben Frost, who I'd been listening to a lot recently, and reading interviews about how he gets his particular 'organic' synth sound. In one interview he mentions stacking many, many VSTs and synth patches - often default ones - to make very complex tones which evolve over ...

My Cousin Cthulhu (2010) - Demo

Two-song demo by my old post-hardcore band which didn't work out as I was too nerdy to find committed members and a place to practice. My bestie Tom is the lead vocals, with mine only in "worms". (and the group chants lol). Guitars done by by me, bass by Tom (correct me if wrong) and me, and the drums are actually a machine. Actually still dig this one.

Going to post the 'best bits...

Uboa - The Origin (Deaf) (Live on Behind The Mirror)

Here is a live-to-radio set played on Behind The Mirror, the noisey industrial hour on RTR 92.1 FM, a radio station in Perth/Boorloo.

It's probably one of my best-sounding recorded live sets I've ever done, and is even a strong candidate for an official Bandcamp release (let me know in comments if you agree).

It makes heavy use of drones from this 1998 sample cd, famous for its use in the...

Uboa - Diaphragmatic Breathing

A bit of stress relief during my burnout arc. Harsh Noise Wall (open debate on the 'wall' part). Done in a single sitting, based on live noise improvisation and sample overlaying. Lyrics = ???. Have fun (or not, idc).

My girlfriend said, I quote, "it sounds like you're drowning".

Ableton Cut-Up Sample Slicing 101

A lot of my noise is sample slicing. Please Don't Leave Me, Thigh High Cat Tights and Light Eater are probably the most obvious examples of using this technique. They are the various (often literal) explosions of glitchy on/off sound that seem q...

Validation Pyre

Another soundcloud song I am really proud of. It's also available for download on soundcloud, but I've provided an mp3 here instead of an "AIFF" file.

Mostly a sound collage of heavily edited film soundtracks butchered into loops, paulstretched, reversed, reverb'd and compression artefact'd. I think these ones are from the Interstellar soundtrack, where extremerly small loops are stolen and stretched/glitched into oblivion and totally new sounds. Please don't tell Hans Zimmer. I do bel...

Protect Me

I was reluctant to upload this song, mostly because it was made (and is about) for an ex to show them ableton. Obviously songs about (or with) exes is a tricky deal, even if the relationship didn't end on the most negative of terms.

Either way, it's here for the sake of completeness as I consider this an archive, but also I don't mind the song despite the emotional resonances and the fact it took only about 2 hours to finish.

Drowning on Dry Land

Another song from the soundcloud archives (which at the time I called 'filaments', with the intention of maybe collecting them together as a release with that name) that you can download here. Made around 2016, same year as Hook Echo.

While not as immediately compelling as Entropy, I do still really dig this song. The sound design elements were by hitting the metal sink in the granny flat I was living in at the time, the same sawblades from my dad's shed (also on Jouissance and Entropy...

Entropy Always Wins

Another soundcloud song I didn't realise wasn't here. This is one of my favourite soundcloud-only songs and something I wish I had the old project files to so I could mix it to 'fit' with a few other songs for an EP.

I thought I'd say a few things about this song from 2015-16.

This song was strongly inspired by Locrian, as when I was younger I had a tendency to try and 'co...

Lavender Psychosis

A request. I didn't realise some of the stuff on soundcloud isn't here and now you can download it. It was WIP at the time but I don't really intend on finishing it, and doubt that Ableton file isn't missing files.

The choirs were inspired by the Annihilation soundtrack, specifically by Barrow and Salisbury's use of atonal female choirs, probably in turn inspired by György Ligeti.

I always felt there was a good incomplete idea, however I feel like there needed to be more compo...

Another Violated Angels excerpt

Sorry for the lack of posting. I was meant to get around to doing some more noise school this week, but my local pharmacist had given me the wrong dose of my antidepressant (and the text saying the dose on my pack was fine printed) and have been having a horrible time for the last week and a half. So here is a big part of the upcoming Violated record.

Also mostly lacking (coherent) vocals as lyrics still in development. I am very happy I offloaded them to my good writer friend/housema...

Willing to do feedback on any song a patreon sends thru

I’ve been helping a few friends with a compositional and production aspects of noise sounds design recently and have realised I can provide the service to y’all too. Free because you are already giving me money!

Feel free to DM me on the Patreon page (or leave in comments below) for some constructive criticism. Since there are only a few of you I’ll listen to every one.

Also so specify what you want criticism with too: mixing, composition, lyrics etc. even just some reassur...

New Project: Violated Angels - Montauk 110

Me and my girlfriend violet (who goes by vi a. and who I collaborated with on a EP last year) have started a new band on the more dark ambient side of the spectrum, but still with a dash of harsh noise (see above). It sounds like a combination of both of our projects.

The main inspiration behind it was t...

Video: Illegal Abandoned Factory gig circa 2018-19

Here's another set sent by Nova from a few years ago, which the dug up on their phone about a week ago. It was massive fundraiser festival run by a bunch of anarchists to raise funds for West Papuan refugees (if I recall correctly). Some other artists I played with - some of us at the same time across several different parts of the factory - included 2023-06-14 14:44:09 +0000 UTC View Post

Video - Live @ Trash Cult 21/4/23

Here's a high quality upload of the set I played at Trash Cult earlier in April, as posted on instagram. Might eventually upload to YouTube, but I have enough terrible sets (usually ones with the computer crapping itself on stage or me simply not practicing) on there already.

As the instagram put it:

"This is what happens when you have ADHD, gear issues (I am playing through amps, not a PA, which were so distorted they sounded nothing like what they sound like on laptop), drink ...

Sometimes Light + Jouissance (MP3 320)

I still have a few people ask for these two releases after I took them down a while back.

I took them down as I made both while closeted and are very much a product of that time. Unlike Coma Wall, which I still occasionally think has its own merits, I see these works as derivative (specifically of Khanate) and not at all representative of what Uboa as a project is now and who I am now. Musically and lyrically they are still very much juvenilia and transport me back to a time i...

Soft Dementia Over Vermin Sky: Lyrics Unpacked

Going to try something new.

I remember posting some stuff about lyrics on genius from The Origin which I eventually deleted because I realise I'd prefer to let people come to their own conclusions.


These are the lyrics to this song. Here I don't exactly want to give an authoritative interpretation but just expand bits and pieces of meaning in the lyrics to further other's int...

Please Don't Leave Me noise processing effect bus (Ableton)

These are (over two channels) the exact FX racks I used for noise in Please Don't Leave Me, featuring (left to right):

-A gate to chop it up when the volume goes beneath a certain level. Kind of an auto-cut up function

-A saturator, so it's always distorted, using specific eq/colour settings I might into detail when I do a post about the saturator

-Grain delay, best to automate it and fuck around with it. it's how I get that cyborg noise sound where it s...

Drum machine samples

Hey! I made some samples using ableton's operator for drum hits, which if anybody is interested I can teach in a bit (leave a comment below so I don't forget). I use these samples myself occasionally, and some of them are on upcoming projects. There's also a few melodic drones there in the same folder.

Some of these samples (kicks) were used "the death of you". Feel free to use them for whatever w credit

The Flesh of the World vocal FX rack (ableton)

Here is the clean vocal effects rack I used on that release. It's designed for a ribbon mic (specifically the SEX1r) but could be useful for others as a good starting point to unpack for clear clean vocals. Contains:

-hi pass to get rid of low-end mud
-noise gate to remove ...unwanted noise
-de-esser (the multiband filter) to remove sibilence
-saturator to add hi-frequency "air"
-...

Scotomised (Early Version)

Another Apple of Every Eye post! An early version of "Scotomised" that was very much a WIP at the time, missing Res's contributions and a very other factors like some baritone guitar. It's a much more droney song, but I prefer the final version.

Anorexia, She Wrote (WIP)

TW eating disorders

Written in the same time as Empathy Loop, I was having trouble with eating at the time (medication induced) and wrote a song about it. This one has a small amount of (clean) vocals. I think it suffers from the same issues of the other song but I don't know if it's unsalvageable as there are some parts I really like. I also realise my perception of the songs could be skewed by the fact I associate them with a very difficult time in my life, so I might wait a little b...

Some Samples from The Apple of Every Eye

I found some ambient loops, some of which I used in The Apple of Every Eye. I feel others might have some use of them. Some of them are also used elsewhere and actually might appear on later releases (don't worry you can still use them with credit).

Hey sorry for the delay in posting. + "Empathy Loop"

I've gotten sick twice in the last few weeks, once with the flu and then again with a throat infection/cold. I am having to go a doctor and see if my meds are interfering with my immune system. On top of this I have to do the usual amount of Uboa work.

Got some options on some easy-to-do-while sick content.

-My live setup (gear wise)
-How I use compression with noise (I alluded to it elsewhere, can do a more detailed article)
-More free resources
-Some samples on my HDD...

No Anaesthetic (Live Demos 18/2/23)

While I've put up the live recording (still sadly not multitrack) of the show at the Evelyn on the day, hours prior to the show I practiced and recorded the jam (also, again, not multitrack to save HDD space). The jam before it sounds a little better in a headphone/speaker context as I wasn't running around on stage causing a ruckus, so I could just focus on the music. Also, sometime you i...

Of You

"Of You" is a melodic industrial song that I found on my hard drive circa 2021, recorded during hard lockdown. It didn't have a title (just "build up idea") so I took the only lyric I could hear as I didn't want another "untitled". I think I did this in a day while living in an city apartment, so I had to record and mix everything quietly (hence no screams).

I don't usually open up about my private life anymore because I have a tendency to overshare, but I feel I have a lesson ...

Clanky sample pack (fixed, hopefully)

hey I said I was on holiday with FFS (luckily won't need a fundraiser anymore, still might release that EP eventually) so I put this on auto-post a few days from now. the future is now.

sample pack of junk, metal, washing machines field recordings, weird bits I found. hopefully most of them loop seamlessly. some basic drum loops of metal there too. Most of them are very old  (4-5 year old) samples I don't use anymore. but I've polished them off a bit so they can be thrown in a ses...

Live @ The Evelyn 18/2/2023

Hey, here's the recording of the set (yes the one that was on twitter recently) with a small amount of polish and mastering. It's straight from the laptop as I feed everything through ableton on stage, hence why it sounds quite clear.

I've also split the sections into seperate tracks as they feel like "tracks" in my head even through they are seamless so if you like a part you can jump to it. Not sure about putting it on bandcamp.

One small issue that annoys me is being unable ...