Lexi Waffles and Her Mystical Musical Mansion

[Lexi Darling]

Good afternoon! Over the course of the day I've been going through my archives of the solo synthesizer music I made between 2008 and 2015. Sadly everything I recorded before then has been lost. C'est la vie.

It has been very fun going back to that stuff and recalling some of the memories associated with making it. In the case of the stuff from 2014 to 2015 I barely remember recording any of it at all due to being extremely high on drugs a lot of the time.

The early stuff is generally quite patchy but it does get better as the timeline goes along. My roots in music are generally in heavy, dissonant hardcore rock music that I rarely had to apply any music theory to compose. So my early work is a bit more off the cuff and experimental while my later music is more melodic and... pretty, I guess? You'll see what I mean.

I will be uploading the tracks to YouTube with the year of recording in each upload's title. I have a lot of this stuff and I don't really want to foist it on you all at once, so I'm going to try to upload one track every other day starting tomorrow.

My only question is what order you all would want me to upload them in? Should I do it chronologically? The highlights first? A random order, perhaps? Do let me know, and I look forward to sharing my music with you all!

[Lexi Darling]

I'm probably not going to be able to post anything today, my apologies. I'm having a medical issue currently (I'm fine) but I'm gonna have to postpone the actual start of this project until early January. Thanks for your understanding, and as I mentioned, if you have a preference in what order I should upload, you now have some more time to let me know. Thanks again!

[Lexi Darling]

Fluttery (2015)

This is probably the closest I've gotten to straight up new age music, one of a few attempts at making a lighter, more pastoral atmosphere, right down to the bird chirps. I'm sure those were from some sample library or possibly from freesound dot org. I don't know for certain, I only have a vague recollection of recording this. Anyway, I do hope you all enjoy, and I will be posting a lot more in the weeks to come.

[Lexi Darling]

Twistening (2013)

This is a bit of a psychedelic one, I like those glossy synths bubbling and morphing throughout. That sound is from a Korg Wavestation I was borrowing from a friend of my dad. I think I made good use of it.

[Lexi Darling]

Treetop Gaze (2015)

Here's a little piece of foresty ambient with tribal drums. I think those are from some sample library, while the sound effects and synth leads are my trusty Moog. I forget what the main choir sound that runs throughout the track comes from. I think this is one of my personal favorites.

[Lexi Darling]

Infernal Maw (2015)

This one shows my darker side. Surprisingly not a lot of particularly synthy tones here, but it does have a cello drone from my Roland D-50, drum samples, Moog sound effects, and, blasphemously enough, actual guitar that I totally knew how to play. I like this one a lot, one of the ones I didn't remember much about recording until I heard those chiming guitars. That took me right back to fiddling around with the guitar to get a usable sound out of the thing, haha.

[Lexi Darling]

Spiraling Islands (2014)

A pretty simple piece. I think this one works best as nice background ambience as there's not a lot that really happens. I still like it though. Hearing those jagged analog pulsing effects again just makes me miss my Moog.

[Lexi Darling]

Cosmic Lights (2013)

I like this one a lot. I wanted to go for a sci-fi, aliens descending from the heavens kind of vibe. I think this is mostly ROMpler strings, random samples and some drones from my trusty old Ultranova.

[Lexi Darling]

The Blackened Waste (2012)

I went to college for audio engineering, and took a number of electronic music related classes. Some of the stuff I made during my peak years of musical output was made for school projects, and this is the first one of those I'm uploading. I like this one, but I kinda wish it was longer, I think I could have done more with it. I really like the swelling analog strings at the end.

I am aware that the title could be... misinterpreted. I meant, like, a charred wasteland. The title has been preserved for historical accuracy.

[Lexi Darling]

Neon Angels (2014)

One of the many tracks I have no recollection of recording and had completely forgotten about prior to opening up the archives. I know the main organ sound is from my Ultranova (that patch was saved on there for years after this), and I'm pretty sure the other sound is a custom D-50 patch composed of layered guitar and electric piano samples. This is one of the tracks I've enjoyed the most in my recent trek through my musical vault, which is crazy considering I have no memory of creating it. I like how the chillness of the guitar/piano contrasts with the urgency of the organ chords.

[Lexi Darling]

A little self-promo, I hope no one minds. But I recently started streaming Pokemon on Twitch! I'm gonna try to do two streams a week for at least an hour.

Drop me a follow if that sounds up your alley (and pls help im having tech issues lol)
https://www.twitch.tv/lexidarling89

[Lexi Darling]

Analog Destruction (2013)

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... 24 minutes of synthesized fart noises.

[Lexi Darling]

Frost Breath (2012)

This was another school project, though I can't recall what the assignment actually was. All the stuff I did for that particular class (an electronic music focused class) was made with virtual instruments and samples rather than my own synths. That wasn't mandated by the school or anything, it's just that since project deadlines were a thing, I wanted to be able to use my laptop to work on these projects on the go without needing to be tethered to my hardware synths. I'm pretty sure the plucky string sounds in this track are some sort of dulcimer sound from a sample library.

[Lexi Darling]

Warszawa [Cover] (2011)

This is the first cover of an existing composition that I'm uploading; my take on a classic David Bowie ambient instrumental. I recorded this mostly live, the only overdubs you hear are the choir part and the proggy Moog solo at the end. That wasn't in the original track, and I'm not sure I would have put it in had I done this cover nowadays, but I wanted to add my own little twist. The photo in the video was taken by yours truly in the fall of 1999, it's the lamppost and surrounding trees in the front yard of the house I grew up in.

[Lexi Darling]

Flattened Brains (2014)

This is one of a few completely improvised one-take jams I've done; most of those are more like sound explorations, but this one is one of the most "musical". I prepared each of the synth sounds (the percussive sequence is a sampled loop) and I played keys and triggered sound effects live. Multitasking with a bunch of synths is hard, which is where there aren't too many more tracks like this one. I like this one quite a bit timbrally, but it could do with a bit more variation. C'est la vie.