Tonebreaker & Noctum - America's Ghostwriters

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.

“Tracklist:
1. DJ Shadow - Rocket Fuel (feat. De La Soul)
2. Gramatik - Halcyon
3. GRiZ - PS GFY feat. Cherub (Opiuo Remix)
4. DJ Shadow - C.O.N.F.O.R.M (feat. Gift of Gab & Lateef The Truth Speaker)
5. Barbatuques - Baiana (CloZee Remix)
6. Skrillex & Boys Noize - BREAK LAW
7. Lin-Manuel Miranda - Immigrants (We Get the Job Done) (feat. K’naan, Snow tha Product, Riz MC and Residente)
8. BRONSON - DAWN feat. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
9. Flume - Jewel
10. DROELOE - OATH (TWO LANES Remix)
11. Edamame - Kishi Kaisei (Tor Remix)
12. ODESZA - Memories That You Call (feat. Monsoonsiren)
13. Childish Gambino - This is America (WHITTE Remix)
14. The Glitch Mob - Saikuron (The Glitch Mob Remix)
15. Diamans - Egypt
16. Skrillex - Mumbai Power (feat. Beam)
17. BAAUER - REACHUPDONTSTOP
18. DJ Khalil - Elevate (feat. Denzel Curry, YBN Cordae, SwaVay & Trevor Rich)
19. Gramatik & Galactic Marvl - Voyager Twins
20. Run the Jewels - JU$T (feat. Pharrell Williams & Zack de la Rocha)
21. 1991 - The People
22. Flume - Let You Know (feat. London Grammar) (Nathan C Remix)
23. Orbital - PHUKU”

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

“Tracklist:
1. Miroslav Losonsky - Neanderthal
2. Griff - Improbability
3. Great Scott - Looking Good (Instrumental)
4. The Glitch Mob - Beyond Monday
5. Mongoose - Dragon Slayer
6. Kalya Scintilla - Caravan Planet
7. Birds Of Paradise - Lucid Dream
8. Cassette Culture - We Once Had An Empire (Jungle Fiction Remix)
9. Daft Punk - Rinzler (Kaskade Remix)
10. Akira Kiteshi - Iron man
11. Bassnectar - Boombox (Bassnectar & iLL.Gates Remix)
12. The Glitch Mob - Animus Vox
13. Muse - Knights of Cydonia (Gramatik remix)
14. Great Scott - Mad Hydraulic Bounce
15. Kalya Scintilla - Way Of The Tarot
16. Emancipator - Rattlesnakes (saQi Remix)
17. Pretty Lights - Something’s Wrong
18. Bird Of Prey - Pathfinder feat. Ryan Johnson and Robert Rich
19. Trifonic - Growing Distance Pt. 2 (Instrumental)
20. C2C - F-u-y-a
21. Benn Jordan - Sunrise In Blue Skies
22. Massive Attack vs. The Bug - Catch A Fire Sam (Libations & Oscillations Cocktail)”

Joseph Noctum - Pyropolis 2011: The Bad Boogie

The second in my Pyropolis series. This time instead of looking to my past I had by this point had set up a new live performance method. Instead of DJ’ing with vinyl, or USB’s as I had learned for last year. Now I was armed with a laptop, and MIDI controller to string together a DJ set with more control over the tracks, EQs, and FX than ever. While the sets were live and raw and filled with additional live chops and layered effects I would still make a studio version for release. Not the same as the live version but a pleasant memory for those who were there. This mix also includes two of my “Calculated Crunk” mash-ups I was known for during this time in my performances.

“Tracklist:
1. Lokid - Bad 2 Be Good
2. Who Cares - Lucky Larry (Samples)
3. Probiotik - Say It Then ft. Emotionz
4. J.me.J vs. Ying Yang Twins - Tigershaker / The Anthem (Noctum Mashup)
5. The Glitch Mob - Drive It Like You Stole It (Mixtape Version)
6. Mr. Rogers vs. Rick Ross - Dynamite / Husslin (Noctum Mashup)
7. Love and Light - Good Vibes
8. Zen Death Squad - Cyber Lazer Dojo Training
9. Who Cares - These Three Words (Ill-esha)
10. Zen Death Squad - Awesome Patrol
11. MC2 - MC Slicing
12. JPOD & The Root Sellers - Medicon
13. JPOD & The Root Sellers - Stop Drop and Roll
14. VibeSquaD - Sleaze Me
15. K-Lab - Grimewarp
16. King Fantastic - Westcoastsynthesizerbeachbumgangstermusic (Knight Riderz)”

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).

“Tracklist:
1. Of Porcelain - Signal The Captain
2. The Glitch Mob vs. Le Roux - Bad Wings (Castle) / In For 3. The Kill (Acapella)
4. Ill-esha - Smoke and Mirrors
5. The Glitch Mob - Between Two Points ft. Swan
6. M83 - Skin of the Night (Of Porcelain)
7. Eskmo - Cloudlight
8. Fever Ray - I’m Not Done (R/D)
9. VibeSquad - Empower the Wallflower
10. R/D - Ballad of Melted Rapture
11. Truth - Perfect Combination
12. Nico Luminous - Speaker Box ft. Reva Devito
13. Ill-esha & Kitsch Palace - Shiki Miki
14. James Zabiela - Human (Stephan Jacobs Late Night)
15. Love & Light - You’re the Reason Why
16. Libations & Oscillations - Going Baroque”