SEEKING
Vocalist.ABOUT
I'm currently on Bandmix to find studio vocalists/lyricists (particularly folks who can perform harsh vocals) for new Planepacked material. My current interests these days are somewhere in that nebulous realm between extreme metal and extreme electronica, although I'm aiming closer to the former than the latter. If you like heavy keyboard emphasis in your metal music, I'm here for you.
Heads up: I'm trans. You'll have to respect that if you want to collaborate.
I released a bunch of tracks a few years ago under my artist name (Planepacked). Look up Critical Mass on ! s://planepacked./album/critical-mass
The best way by far to contact me is through my email address. I don't answer non-emergency calls at work, but if you need to contact me by phone, I'm generally available after 5:30 PM EST on weekdays.
I took 10 years of classical piano lessons in my childhood (up until I graduated from high school). I'm out of practice, but I'd say I have a good foundation to build up my skills to the point I need to perform the sort of music I like to write. I am also (as of March 2020) taking singing lessons, but it might take a bit for those to get to the point where I'm confident using them.
- Screen name:
- JessicaKagan
- Member since:
- Jun 20 2016
- Active within 1 week
- Level of commitment:
- Committed
- Years playing music:
- 10
- Gigs played:
- 10 to 50
- Most available:
- Nights
Influences
Hard question, Bandmix! I listen to a lot of metal music, but I also take trips into other genres, like progressive rock, electronica, and classical music. A few bands/musicians that resemble even vaguely my plans: Bal-Sagoth, Sigh, Igorrr, Blut Aus Nord, Devin Townsend, Samael, Autechre, etc.
Instrument experience:
- Keyboard:
- Advanced
- Electronic Music:
- Intermediate
- Vocalist:
- Beginner
EQUIPMENT
Novation Launchkey 49 (MIDI keyboard)
Laptop (Runs DAWs and VSTs)
REAPER (DAW of choice)
Ableton Live (Might come in handy)
MUSIC
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Azure (Her Clarion Call)
Azure (Her Clarion Call)Look, I know I've been bad about actually releasing music I've written, but that's entirely for selfish commercial reasons. These may have to hold you over for a bit.
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Dual Shock Agent
Dual Shock AgentLook, I know I've been bad about actually releasing music I've written, but that's entirely for selfish commercial reasons. These may have to hold you over for a bit.
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Echoes of the Past (Warcraft II Cover)
Echoes of the Past (Warcraft II Cover)Warcraft II was the first of Blizzard's games that I got to take onto the internet (I got to singleplayer Starcraft before that). In the mid '90s, Glenn Stafford fought an unholy duel with Matt Uelmen for supremacy over Blizzard's music department, while Davidson and Associates sat in the corner and wrote Math Blaster/Lost Vikings crossover fanfiction. I don't know the original name of this track, if it even has any, but a partial cover/rearrangement appeared in Warcraft III called "Echoes of the Past", so that's what this track gets to be called. Distortion should be up to 11 as usual.
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Behind the Bitmask (Demo)
Behind the Bitmask (Demo)Here's a teaser for a musical project I've been working on. First of all, "Behind the Bitmask" is the title of the long-ballyhoo'ed novel I started for NaNoWriMo 2016, and which I've been steadily finishing and revising since then. On a whim, I started building this song in OpenMPT from instrument samples ripped from the original Jazz Jackrabbit; this was the result. The second iteration (a Planepacked-official rendition with guitars and better synth and such) is sitting on my hard drive awaiting official release. Anticipate it with joy.
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What's A Piob? (Autechre Remix)
What's A Piob? (Autechre Remix)This is loosely based off the Autechre track of the same name (off "Garbage"), and it may someday be part of the ambe/r/ collab if that ever awakens from its enchanted slumber. I still don't know what a Piob is.
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The World Is Burning (Remake)
The World Is Burning (Remake)It's even harder for me to believe than the time difference between "3D" and "Dimensional Override", but it's been over four years since I originally wrote this track! Things have changed dramatically in my life since then, but in remaking and overhauling tracks I can often find some continuity in my creative efforts. This track may end up bulwarking out an EP I've got in the planning phases, which will most likely also contain some remixed/remastered older(2015/2016)tracks. More on that through my various channels if and when that comes to fruition.
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Radial Entropy
Radial EntropyEver felt creeping terror thinking about the laws of thermodynamics and their implications? This probably won't have any effect on how you feel, but I do hope you enjoy another track in my usual style(s). To be fair, this one did kind of remind me of the void and the universe and other concepts that are likely denied to me until the cost of private spaceflight drops like it finally slid into our planet's gravitational well.
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Dimensional Override
Dimensional OverrideTurns out I'm continuing the long running semi-tradition of me branding songs with vague similarities as semi-sequels. I guess this one is somewhat related to "3D" from 2015. It's hard to believe it's been over a year since that one came out, since much in my life has changed since its release. On the other hand, I'm probably not going to make a music video for this one unless there's some especially good reason. You know, the nu-metal and post-grunge of the turn of the millennium is nearing its 20th birthday. It'll be in the public limelight soon, believe me.
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Katakis (Chris Huelsbeck Cover)
Katakis (Chris Huelsbeck Cover)A song worthy of covering, I say. A recording of the original from someone's inaccurate SID player languished in my playlist for years and then went all brain-consuming mind virus on me when I remembered it was still there a few weeks ago. I'd like to put a subgenre on this for labeling purposes, but that seems like a very bad idea, since a few synth patches have landed me straight in uncharted territory again. Chris Huelsbeck is following up on the Turrican soundtrack anthology by making an album of orchestral arrangements of Turrican II music. Maybe check it out and give the guy some money? He deserves it. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chris-huelsbeck/turrican-ii-live-orchestra-album-by-chris-huelsbec
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Harvesters
HarvestersIs it a devouring plague that culls all life in its path, or simply a necessary step to keep the populace well fed? The answer, of course, is that this is another metal instrumental. If you ask me, it's probably written more like the way I imagine a band with a vocalist would approach an instrumental, but surely that doesn't mean anything that you could derive elaborate meanings from, right?
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Cannon Dancer
Cannon DancerAdd this to the list of songs I've named after video games I should play and concepts from such. I feel like this might be a better integrated fusion of metal and electronica/EDM/IDM stuff than I've done in the past. Keep in mind that most of my tracks lean more one than the other, and intentionally so. This one might not.
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Schwerpunkt
SchwerpunktIt's been a while since I uploaded an original metal track. The development of my musical language continues, and in more than one way - this track is a candidate for having lyrics someday in the future and was sort of written with that possibility in mind. There is little else of value to say about this, except that if it DOES get lyrics, it might get a new title. Keep that in mind if I ever become a super famous rock star.
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Crocodibli's Crocovers (orig. Ryan Melmoth)
Crocodibli's Crocovers (orig. Ryan Melmoth)Mibibli's Quest is a great game with a rockin' soundtrack, but I felt like some of it needed to be approximately 11 times heavier. This is a cover song. I do not own the original, and I probably don't even own my own work now that I've released it to the public! To my understanding, this sort of transformative work is covered under fair use in the USA... at the time of posting. The tracks that play in the sections of the game where you fight Crocodibli and navigate through his "Crocastle" are fairly short, so I smooshed them together as best I could and added transitions/extra content as needed.
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Superior Steel
Superior SteelYeah, sorry, I can't describe this one properly since it's somehow in a genre I'm not very familiar with. Any ideas, guys? Work on this track began in late March 2015 and stopped for a few months before I resumed in December with more knowledge of production and composition. This is probably the longest I've ever taken to finish a track unless you count "3D".
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Redshift (The Second Five Year Plan)
Redshift (The Second Five Year Plan)I'm out of free SoundCloud space. See you when I buy membership! (Or maybe if I work up the courage to delete some stuff.) Still a fan of Darkest Hour (the wargame) and still looking forwards to Hearts of Iron IV. The name of this song, however, is a result of me noticing it was developing some traces of musical continuity with the first song that I named after the concept of a five year plan. I feel like the riff style here is appreciably different from usual to a greater extent than I usually expect from my compositional process. That might be entirely subjective.
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Visualshock Speedshock Soundshock (REAPER)
Visualshock Speedshock Soundshock (REAPER)This one took a while to get going. I started it at about the same time as "The Nameless Dread". This is becoming more common, and I would not be surprised if I end up with more tracks in my pipeline, for better or worse. It MIGHT "the 68000 heart on fire" (sic), but that's about as likely as I am to accidentally an entire can of coke.
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The Five Year Plan
The Five Year Plan"When in the song do they start implementing true socialism?" So I had industrial progress and historical 'narrative' on the mind at times when I wrote this track. I also played a lot of Darkest Hour and learned that for countries with middling industrial capacity, I should build more infantry and fewer armored spearheads, but this track probably doesn't sound like any of those. In fact, this might be the first time I've written a metal track that isn't at least moderately fast for most of its duration, although some shmuck might comment in a decade or two that there's some old apocryphal thing in my discography that negates this.
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Encrypted Sails 2015
Encrypted Sails 2015The mixing and production on the original Encrypted Sails always bugged me, so I overhauled it and brought more in line with my current aesthetics. Otherwise, this version of the song is fairly similar to the original, although it should overall be more intelligible and clear, and maybe less blatantly liminal than the rest of the Second Contact Is Worse branded tracks.
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The Nameless Dread
The Nameless DreadI had trouble naming this track, so I ended up naming it after the fact I had trouble naming it. It's probably not as cosmic horror oriented as the name might lead you to believe fhtagn, and parts of this were actually inspired by music from the Jazz Jackrabbit games. In fact, I'd say one of this track's better defining attributes at this time is that I figured out how to properly double track my guitars, making it easier to bring them to a prominent point in the mix, and presumably also improving the tone a bit. This is not my first track written to use such a simple trick, but it is the first to see release.
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Impaled On Thor's Hammer
Impaled On Thor's HammerLike most things named after acts of absurd, cartoonish violence, this track is probably rather brutal. Try not to get impaled by a hammer in real life; if it happens, something probably went wrong with your actions a long time ago. Now, it IS written in the usual style, so the polyphony and bleepy synth might belie any aggression I wrote into this work, but if you're a long time follower you're probably okay with that. Also, if you need harsh distorted vocals on the fly, extreme formant pitch shifts might have you covered.
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Mare Magnum
Mare MagnumAka "1996AD", or maybe "The Creepy Little Girl Who Wore A Frilly Hat" if you're into the musical works of Jun'ya Ota. I don't know where in my headspace this came from, but it has slightly different drums than the REAPER presets I've made (which use a different VST), and that counts as a genre shift now. Most of the instruments are run through some sort of amp for distortion's sake, but that's kind of a thing I do and you shouldn't be surprised anymore.
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3D
3DThis track had its origins in an attempted submission to Mini Ludum Dare 53. It took on weird mid-'90s multimedia/computing/vaporwave concepts as I kept working on it and expanding it. It has a music video you can watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCFcj58Zzyk. I'd say it's weird, but most of the musical techniques here are stuff I use all the time, so that either means I'm weird (woo!) or this track isn't as wacky as I think (woo?). Earlier versions were inspired by '90s industrial metal, especially in the form it took in games like Descent II, but how much of that is in this relatively final product is up for question. There's samples from Half Life 1 in here. Don't kill me, Valve!
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Agnus - Scanlines Of Terror (VRC6 Demake)
Agnus - Scanlines Of Terror (VRC6 Demake)I chipped Agnus. Someone out there is probably incandescent with rage that I didn't write for the Commodore SID. All the important elements of the song (at least by the appraisal of me, the guy who actually wrote the original) should be there; due to the way I composed it, as well as the fact I ported this to an expanded NES, I didn't have to make very many cuts at all, except relating to rhythm. There are some changes that presumably reflect my approach to VRC6ing, too, but I think they're good for the final product. While you might need to nudge the positions a fraction of a second, this syncs up pretty well to the original!
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Agnus (Scanlines Of Terror)
Agnus (Scanlines Of Terror)Gratuitous references to old technology make me happy, and apparently, so does desynchronized arpeggiation. Besides being named after one of the big important graphics chips in the Commodore Amiga (the chip, of course, being named after a name, as Commodore was wont to christen), the main experiment for this track was in the realm of rhythm, since the piano roll metaphor of REAPER allows for simple implementations of some ideas that you won't see in a rigidly step based tracker unless you mess with tempo settings, plan ahead, or maybe are fortunate enough to be able to fake it in samples or plugins.
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Giant Mecha Fight 9001
Giant Mecha Fight 9001At a sedate 180 BPM, this track probably belongs in an anime. Over the Christmas season I acquired some new virtual instruments and plugins and decided to try out a more powerful DAW than OpenMPT. I've a lot to learn about using REAPER, but I'm sure listening will give you an idea of what I'm going for. This track almost showcased the "Vaudeville" easter egg from Simcity 2000's "Urban Renewal Kit". I decided against it, but you have no idea how close I came to shoving it in somewhere.
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Synapse
SynapseGuest mixed and mastered by a guy who currently only wants to be credited as "YK", although I can go into more detail if he's interested. I'm not entirely satisfied with the title of this track, but I didn't want to leave music lying around on my harddrive just because I didn't know what to name it. I am, however, very satisfied with the mixjob YK did; it's a lot clearer and sharper than my usual efforts. The actual composing process went lightning fast... it usually doesn't unless I get possessed by a couple of ideas. One of the riffs here was prototyped about a week before work began in earnest, but "work in earnest" was compacted into a lot shorter of a time than usual.
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Attribute Clash (Remake)
Attribute Clash (Remake)This song has vague plans for a grandiose music video that I lack the dedication to make, and vague plans for vox and lyrics that I should really sit down and make in Sibelius. There was always supposed to be a blood curdling scream at ~2:28. Remaking some of my old Famitracker tunes in OpenMPT does give me a lot of opportunities to dramatically shift the arrangements, but I seem to be relatively satisfied with the overall structure most of the time; Laserbringer (a few tracks back) was the exception. There is one prominent change that you'll notice in your listening... I hope. The current image is from the ZX Spectrum game "Knight Tyme", notable primarily for being Wikipedia's go-to game for demonstrating attribute clash the phenomena.
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Overwhelming Force
Overwhelming ForceNot to be confused with "Unrelenting Force". You have not been smashed up against a wall, as far as I can tell. This was not a song that lent itself well to an extended format, so I kept things compact. It is particularly blasty and aggressive, even considering that mine is a discography full of earborne assaults and hyperbolic descriptions of physical/mental damage you can avoid by using sane volume and equalization settings. I brought out some old presets for variety's sake when making this, so if you're familiar with my output you might recognize them for what they are.
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LGRemix (RAM PUSHER)
LGRemix (RAM PUSHER)Clint Basinger (aka "Lazy Game Reviews" or "Phreakindee") is a video game reviewer on Youtube who focuses primarily on PC games, especially older ones. He also likes The Sims... well, maybe not that weird fat one on the street corner, but you get the point. You can check out his work at https://www.youtube.com/user/phreakindee/ Onto the musicology! I had the idea to do some non-Game Grumps remixes about the time that I did my last one, but it took this one a while to pop out. It's way out of my comfort zone, but is that really a bad thing? Vaguely useful references/antecedents from my own discography include 1995AD and Death Calliope. It ended up sounding naughtier than I was expecting, too. From an actual musical stance, I did some more stuff with repurposed vocal textures and EDM type arpeggiation here, but it's overall unfamiliar territory for me regardless. I sent LGR an email about this track some time ago, and he seems to like it!
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Dragons Made Of Lightning
Dragons Made Of LightningRetroactively a demo due to the release of Polyhedron on Bandcamp. The version there is remastered and has minor arrangement changes. Original description follows. Dragons made of lightning are better than dragons made of lightning any day. Aesthetics are a dangerous toy to play with, but I tried a couple of things here with the sounds that I haven't before. On the other hand, I've been making some effort in recent months to rotate through synthesizer patches and samples. I did, however, reuse the Arin Hanson "chorus" from my last stab at Grumpstep (https://soundcloud.com/invisiblesandwichtm/helvetica-scenario-game-grumps-remix). Like a lot of processed vocal things, it gives the composer a lot of options.
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Striking Magma (OpenMPT Remake)
Striking Magma (OpenMPT Remake)I always wanted this track to have vocals. It doesn't yet, but I took the time to create lyrics and I might upload those if there's enough interest. Anyways, I remade this one in particular because it had a lot of musicological elements that I liked and thought would be suited by my current OpenMPT techniques. It seems to have translated well enough.
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Laserbringer
LaserbringerRetroactively a demo due to the release of Polyhedron on Bandcamp. The version there is remastered and has minor arrangement changes. Original description follows. This is... sort of a remake, but unless you're one of two people you probably haven't heard the original. A long time ago, when I was first learning how to use Famitracker (summer 2011), I wrote a short game's worth of looping music that I hoped would be put in a friend's video game. If you've been following me, you'll note that some of the more developed stuff from there has been released; check out "Bullets Are In It For Themselves" for the full story. "Laserbringer" specifically developed from a track named "Galactose" intended for this unreleased game's early levels. If I ever release the latter to the public, you'll note this is basically a massive expansion of parts of it interspersed with new material. This is actually pretty common behavior for me - I occasionally unearth a demo or partial track or whatever and finish it up, generally taking it in a new direction reflecting my current interests. Also, I found that running some of these bloopy synthesizer effects through amps makes for suitably fake guitar solos. Isn't that cool?
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Golgotha
GolgothaOkay, this has been exclusive for long enough. "Golgotha" was previously only available on the "Second Contact Is Worse" EP. Read about it here: https://invisiblesandwichtm.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/second-contact-is-worse-ep-now-available/ It's not going to cost you anything! In fact, I think the cost analysis of you downloading it for your own benefit ends with you making a profit! Whatever. This is more openly metallic than the last two things I uploaded and because it's part of a concept album of sorts contains references to other things I've done. Remember, the EP itself has more detailed production notes this time.
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LED Wars (Remake)
LED Wars (Remake)You know what this track needed? Pimp horns. I had Riot's 1990 album "The Privilege of Power" on the mind when I originally wrote this, so when I decided to redo the track, I found myself a brass section VST and used it. More detailed production notes when I upload to the 'tube. I really need to sync this page and that page up a bit more...
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Helvetica Scenario (Game Grumps Remix)
Helvetica Scenario (Game Grumps Remix)My second stab at Grump-ambient, although this is probably more film score flavored than the last one. I'm okay with that, before you ask. As always, you can see my production notes at the Youtube mirror, which is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQzyCZcmeUo.
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Orbital Assault (Badensbach)
Orbital Assault (Badensbach)Continuing the buildup to my upcoming novel, "Second Contact Is Worse". Badensbach is a city caught in the crossfire of killer robots, one of which lands upon it in similar fashion to a large meteorite. Furthermore, its old-fashioned inhabitants are not ready to comprehend the danger. This is the mindscape I used to inform my composition, and with luck that'll show when you listen.
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There Are Four Lights
There Are Four LightsA quick musical 'sketch' I did about half a month ago. Make of it what you will. This work was loosely inspired by Star Trek: The Next Generation, especially the episode "Chain of Command"; especially the sequences that lead to my title. I had a concept of 'fighting' melodies that I wanted to explore... so I did! That's the great thing about Famitracker - I find getting musical ideas down very quick. Then again, I wasn't sure where to go after about 2 minutes, so you get this in its current state.
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Citrus - The Lemoning (OpenMPT Remake)
Citrus - The Lemoning (OpenMPT Remake)I'm getting into the habit of keeping some of the "bloopy" synth in these remakes, because apparently I actually like square waves. Again - more layers, a few additions and tweaks here and there, but the underlying composition is not changed that much. Also, this version really emphasizes how much of an extremely blastfest the original was - in both versions, I went for loud distorted drums and tracked at 405 BPM.
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Encrypted Sails (Metema)
Encrypted Sails (Metema)I had the desire to write something relatively extensive compared to my usual level. Titling it was a strange experience, since I could think of many that would fit this one's aesthetic. I ended up choosing the two best I could think of (better best than worst); of note is the fact the second is a reference to my upcoming book, "Second Contact Is Worse". As usual, more information about the track is on the Youtube version (although the content remains the same).
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1995AD
1995ADFlagrant experimentation, at least if you're from my musical 'homeland'. You could've made this track in the cited year if you had a Sega Genesis... and a sample-based drum machine... and some effect pedals... and maybe some other things. Still, the sound tools were there. Arpeggiation is a powerful tool, folks. Use it wisely.
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Advermiasma
AdvermiasmaA track I started at the end of 2013. However, I dropped it for a bit to work on the LEDWorld remake. Compared to the last few tracks, I figure there's a lot more intentional sludgey weirdness in here. Echos, reverberation, strangely pitched instruments - those are all aesthetic, but if you listen to the sounds...
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LEDWorld (OpenMPT Remake)
LEDWorld (OpenMPT Remake)So this ended up hewing pretty close to the original in terms of composition (I even duplicated some effects!), although I ended up adding a few more layers with intent to overwhelm. That was the original track's intent, and about what you should expect from most of my work. A relatively animated music video is planned; this will probably make gratuitous usage of Blender when the time comes.
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Universal Standards Association
Universal Standards AssociationGiving the guitar samples more of a workout! Since the last time I worked in OpenMPT, I've made further refinements to my setup, allowing me to be more flexible with instruments and samples and such, or more consistent if I feel like I need to be. This track was done with about as many notes and channels as Gangrene Spires or Old Fisheye, but I simplified my instrumental palette this time for easier mixing, and also because this song is particularly guitar driven.
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LED Wars
LED WarsDon't tell anyone, but the LEDs are fighting over the lucrative molybdenum trade. The last chiptune was a sequel by virtue of "I don't know what to name this", but this one was deliberately designed as a sequel to LEDWorld. As usual, more production notes will be available when I upload this to Youtube.
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Gangrene Spires (OpenMPT)
Gangrene Spires (OpenMPT)This is another remake, but in my defense, "Gangrene Spires" was always supposed to have guitars; which didn't stop me from getting the composition down in Famitracker. Obviously, what I currently have to use with OpenMPT renders everything a bit more electronic and synthy than it would otherwise be. Either way, this is a big step forwards for the 'metallic' nature of this song, since I found slightly better drums and a guitar setup of sorts that should sound reasonably up to 11 as I get the settings nailed. I also rewrote the ending out of dissatisfaction for the original (see what I did to "Wars of Aggression" for a similar case). Future OpenMPT things in this genre are going to have more guitar and more complex guitar.
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Death Calliope
Death CalliopeEver play Rollercoaster Tycoon? I may have overdone it a bit. I sampled notes/noises from the "fairground organ" music in the game (which were originally sourced from the Bressingham Voigt in the Netherlands), loaded them into OpenMPT, and made this. Unfortunately, I had to use drums from outside the organ tracks since I was finding it troublesome to isolate the (limited) percussion, but I wouldn't worry about it; this track is already gimmicky enough as it is. Also, despite me labeling it as "death metal", it's not to be confused with the real thing. The OpenMPT version of "Gangrene Spires", for instance, is a lot closer, although it has Nocturnus levels of synthesizers in it. If this gets anyone into metal at all, though, I'd be surprised.
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Police
PoliceNow for something entirely different! This is from an abandoned attempt at opera named "Severe Recluse Syndrome". It basically followed a guy who was wrongly accused of murder (due to his not having left his house in years) who, in his attempts to prove his innocence, ended up committing murder. This was made in September 2012 using Sibelius 5.2.2, and it would have lyrics if I'd had access to opera singers at the time. Since the sound samples I had did not produce an acceptable facsimile of the human voice, the three performers in this track are represented by a violin and two saxophones. The end result was a lot more spacious sounding and martial than the things I do in Famitracker; I blame Magma, particularly on "Wurdah Itah".
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Jon Jafari's Nightmare (Game Grumps Remix)
Jon Jafari's Nightmare (Game Grumps Remix)This I did on a whim at the beginning of 2013. Read about it at the provided link/mirror, because typing out a contracted version of my production notes for it does not quite appeal to me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXDcBUaObjI
