With as much Indie music as Noctum processes, somehow this tune skated by his radar entirely. It was only after hearing a friend sing along to a clubby remix that he scoped the original and shared it with Tonebreaker.

Our initial remix attempts yielded a sort of two-step revival that neither Tonebreaker nor Noctum were genuinely happy with. With frustration rising and the project almost on the ropes, we determined that while we enjoyed many of the elements that we had designed, working without raw stems left us with very little creative breathing room.

So we scrapped the original track and looked at what remained.

With no acapella of Lykke Li vocals available, we searched the dregs of the Internet to find a generic European Cover CD by the non-descript name, “Tribute Mega Stars.” On this was a very solid recording of an unknown vocalist singing “I Follow Rivers.” We would love to credit the source of these vocals but without any real documentation there’s no way to find out who she is. So we placed these vocals over our arrangement and immediately, they breathed life into the track revealing empty sonic gaps for us to sink our collective teeth into.

Three weeks later we had a track… Nay… A cover. Outside the lyrical content, everything’s been sampled, sliced and synthesized to fit our new iteration. Without further adieu, we present Libations & Oscillations cover of Lykke Li’s phenomenal song, I Follow Rivers.

If you dig the tune, please toss us a heart over at Hype Machine

The newest effort from Libations & Oscillations comes as a rework of the brand new xx track ‘Sunset’. A dusty string line harmonizes with Jamie’s vocals to play gently of the mood of the original tune. A smattering of moody piano rounds out the track. We hope you enjoy it!

We are releasing this cocktail in celebration of the fact that The Cracked Chronometer has been listened to on every continent in the world, including Antarctica.

When we created this mash up, Dotti asked us if we could use Catch A Fire by The Bug because she loved the vocals. When Noctum looked at the song it was in the wrong key, and the wrong tempo, but we did agree that we loved the vocals. One sleepless night while pouring through samples and tracks, Noctum found himself digging through the Massive Attack soundtrack for Danny The Dog. It was there the track “Sam” popped out. Shortly there after, he passed out and when he came too he fired the beginnings of this cocktail over to Tonebreaker.

It was quick, it was dirty, but sometimes that’s the best way to make a good cocktail.

So our friend, Kate, sent The Cracked Chronometer down to McMurdo in Antartica in a effort to get that mix played on every continent. Well, we got a response and it is official, The Cracked Chronometer has been played on every continent in the world! Kate, thanks for sending this off and Kevin thanks for listening and for the awesome work you do in Antartica.

Here was his response below.

Hi Kate,

My name is Kevin and I’m working here in McMurdo Station.

Thanks for sharing your friends’ music. I can definitely appreciate mixing (or marrying) of acoustic and electronic music. I enjoyed The Cracked Chronometer and will check out more of their work on that website.

I guess your request was passed to me because music is a big passion of mine.

I’m the carpenter foreman this winter but I also volunteer as the Point Of Contact for the band room. McMurdo and the new South Pole station have designated spaces for people to make and play music.

Thanks for the music and for remembering we’re down here,

Kevin

When Dotti asked us to do the music for the effigy burn, it was an incredible honor. The energy from Flipside 2010 is what fueled the creative fire that forged the group Libations & Oscillations. Before that, we were just two solo artists, Joseph Noctum and Tonebreaker. It has become tradition that we always have a story that goes along with our mixes and this one is no different. 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.

So this remix just 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. We hope you enjoy it.

Cadavre Exquis is the most recent mix from the Libations & Oscillations camp. Derived from the Surrealist method, this arrangement represents a collage of sound picked piece by piece by either Tonebreaker or Joseph Noctum. It was performed at the Amalgam Coast – Burning Flipside 2012.

Just finished a new thing for Libations & Oscillations. A couple of dash’s Florence with some Chilly Gonzales makes a bootleg full of earsex. Hope you dig it!

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of giving a play by play of my new mix which aired on Kick 106. I’ve always enjoyed working with these guys and they’ve got a top notch program. Respect to Leigh, TMI and all the other kids across the pond.