Matt McCormick has proven over and over again just how impressive he is as a film landscaper, revealing an urban and industrial visual poetry few have bothered to define. Quick initial listens of his debut audio only release show he’s got a way with soundscapes as well.

This particular track is part of the soundtrack to McCormick’s most widely know short film, The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal. It’s a purely ambient eight minutes of basic humming electronic tones, gentle noise swells and a recurring microcosmic melody. It doesn’t develop really at all, but that’s not the point. McCormick is completely honest about the tracks he’s releasing on Very Stereo. From the liner notes: “I hope they can stand on their own. I would like to suggest trying them with head phones. Close your eyes and make a movie.” Many of the songs can indeed stand alone, but this probably isn’t one of them. So, go ahead and make a movie.

Here’s the liner notes for this particular piece:

blue will remain grey as long as it isn’t reinvented became the “theme song” of my 2001 film “the subconscious art of graffiti removal” and was made with a demo version of cool edit pro. my computer lacked a soundcard that would have allowed me to record audio, so all I had to use was the reference tone that the software generated. I chopped up the tone into different clips and changed each clip’s pitch, layered them up, and then implemented various built-in filter effects. I really had no idea what I was doing, but just kept playing with it until I came up with something I liked. I recorded the song out to tape, and demo-version of the software expired after 30 days.

By the way, the opening phone message clip is kind of a you-had-to-see-the-movie deal to get the joke. You can get the synopsis at the link below.

www.rodeofilmco.com

Photo: A still from the above mentioned film.

Download audio file ( blueremainsgrey.mp3)