Men [and women] of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal...
H.P. Lovecraft

Highly esteemed colleagues,
It is my pleasure to announce the completion of the IML's 5th album Mysteries Of The Unexplained.
Though it's formulation was plagued by demonic deferments and extrasensory impedimenta, the final product of all our labours is a thing of uttermost recherche, and of arcane, eldritch gnosis. The challenge of putting together this album was a disquieting one, so immense was the emotive power behind its music and songs. Once I had completed it to my satisfaction, I required the services of a yogi, shaman, priest and parascientist, who prescribed acute psychic flushing, mountain solitude, exorcism, TM, parlance with spirits, irrigation, screeing, smudging with sage - cedar and and sweetgrass, regression therapy, psychic-surgery, hypnotism, holistic healing, astral projection therapy, lucid dreaming, yogic flying, alchemic enlightenment, alien abduction, sensory deprivation, shamanic transcendence, and plenteous doses of cheap medicinal Scotch.

I strongly recommend you enter a tranquil place, free from distraction and meditate on this metaphysical music in its entirety - if you do so and survive, I hope you are as aroused by it as I.

Yours eerily,
Timothy Donderevo
IML Headquarters of Paranormality

Here's the artwork, hot off the press, for our new album: MYSTERIES OF THE UNEXPLAINED! Artist Eric Lebofsky reports that after a number of attempts at drawing and sculpting (in clay!) the individual subjects, he opted for cut-out construction paper to create this masterpiece.

Click HERE to see it in all it's hi-res glory!

Finished my track!

It's a weird one. It's in German, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I figured it might complement the French and Spanish tracks we've had, although I hope nobody actually speaks German -- I was just doing my best to sound like the lady on Google Translate.

So anyways, we have a new album coming out soon! That's cool.

Whoa! (That's English for stop a horse,)

The time is almost upon us, believers of the impossible - so make the most of your final few days and make your mixes count! Remember to observe a few IML technical groundrules...

• Upload mixes in .WAV or .AIF formats at 44.1KHz, 16-bit.
  
• Submit mixes somewhere between -6db and -3db (around 3/4 volume - don't mix at MAXIMUM volume!)
  
• Name the file with your chosen track title.
  
• Email me your track info: title, writing credits, vocal credits, lyrics.

...and most important of all - stay on the path and beware the moon!

Sincerely,
Tim

Static trouble

So here's my crystal skull... I'm trying to access its hard drive but I'm getting nothing but static so far. Presumably, once my my mind is sufficiently expanded I'll be allowed access to its rock capabilities, then I'll have my song. I hope that's how it works anyway. Ommmmmm Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Due to inexplicable magneto-lunar events over Legoland and the excessive release of negative ions from Mr T's Chuck Taylors, there have been some delays in the submission of backing tracks - but the assignments are all finally here! Through long sessions spent meditating on Michael Douglas' cleft, I have mystically foreseen the uncanny events listed below. You must now clear your thoughts, let your lucid minds penetrate the metaphysical universe beyond our own, and then click on the links below to download your assigned backing track.

Kelly Hoglund will summon the ghast-specter of Kaspar Hauser (by Rob Fisher)
Layla Vandenbergh will be transfixed by the Crystal Skulls (by Tim Donderevo)
Barney Brown's camp will be rudely disrupted by Bigfoot (by Kelly Hoglund)
Eric Lebofsky will be drawn into the Himalayas by the call of the Yeti (by Craig Macintosh)
Joseph Ashley-Smith will scourge the village of El Chupacabra (by Michael Weber)
Rob Fisher will start his weekend with an un-announced Alien Encounter (By Layla Vandenbergh)
Craig Macintosh will delete data from computer discs via ESP/Intersubjectivity (By Eric Lebofsky)
Greg Dean will wake up exhausted after dabbling in Spectrophilia (By Julian Peters)
Kip Loades will, once again feel the uncanny sense of Deja Vu (By Oli Hayhurst)
Benjamin Arntzen, whilst scanning the seas, will hear The Bloop (by Dan Waldkirch)
Dan Waldkirch will be kept awake by unruly Poltergeists (by Joseph Ashley-Smith)
Michael Weber will witness Spontaneous Human Combustion (by Barney Brown/Rich Field)
Julian Peters & Sam Berry will together gaze upon the Face On Mars (By Joe Dean & Greg Dean)

If I have not assigned a track to you, and you want to sing - please email me and I'll find a track for you.

Tim Donderevo
timdonderevo@gmail.com

STAGE ONE COMPLETE!

Congratulations! (Nearly) all of the backing tracks are in, and they're a bunch of winners as usual. Sadly, some were nipped in the bud along the way, but there's plenty to go round and everyone gets to thrust a thumb into this unexplained and mysterious pie. Spookily it looks like we've got 13 backing tracks and 13 singers.

Stay tuned true believers - I'll be doling out tracks over the coming week! FYI I may employ magic to make the selections - or I might print out a spreadsheet and use a dart.

Tim
XXX

Wow! What a sinister spectrum of spine-chilling strangeness we've summoned together for this reconnaissance into the eldritch entropy of the metaphysical. Monsters! Blood! Ghosts! AAaarrrghh!!! It's going to be a toe-curler.

Good luck with your mixes, and don't forget the current IML standard specs:
44.1 Khz, 16-Bit
Average Mix level: around -6db (approx 3/4 volume.)

Hello all.
Sorry I am so late to join the blog again. I have finally decided on a topic and it is... Spectrophilia!
The act of inter-paranormal relations. Be it a gentle kiss from a ghost or much much more! Could be handle gently and romantically or very differently indeed. Surely it is sexy and weird.wwooooooooooooooooooo uh! uh!

The Bloop

Assuming nobody else has taken it, I'm gonna write some music about the Bloop!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop

It was a tough decision between writing about the Bloop and writing about the Hum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum). I will, of course, be including the actual Bloop in my song. Maybe the Hum will make an appearance as well, but I suppose that would be up to my vocalist...

Planet of the Apes?

That fine purveyor of heavyweight news and rigorous scientific analysis - Britain's The Sun newspaper - has today reported the existence of gorillas on Mars. The above photo (taken by previous IML star Mars Rover) has provided the unequivocal proof. NASA were disappointed with the image though as the gorilla obscured the statue of Elvis that the Rover was trying to capture.

I am working on a musical accompaniment to the face on mars mystery with Joe Dean (my brother from another mother). If the recipient chooses to smother the track with gorilla noises instead we will fully understand.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2875287/Gorilla-seen-in-Nasa-snap-from-Mars.html

Greg

I've finally decided on writing a backing-track for Crystal Skulls! In particular the Mitchell-Hedges skull found in British Honduras in 1927. This one is thought to be the oldest known, and is unique in it's anatomical realism and separate lower jaw. It is thought that the 20-odd other famous skulls in existence were modeled after the Mitchell-Hedges, though they tend to be one-piece and more stylized (in line with later Mayan and Aztec art.) The Mitchell-Hedges skull is supposedly impossible to carve with modern tools from the type of quartz from which it is made - and there are few anthropological theories pointing to their purpose. They are 100% Unexplained!

I'm hoping to get some music inspiration from the likes of Os Mutantes - but the skull seems to be telling me Garage-Rock!

Why not get a tattoo of your chosen theme?

Hi. I'm adopting a new technique this time round. Thanks to my friend Rich, the chord sequence for the song has been created for me. Rich told me on the phone the other night he wrote the chords on a piece of paper whilst his guitar was just out of reach, so he's never even heard what they sound like when played. This style and approach is of course, right up my street.

So I'm going to play around them (Rich urges me to apply some smooth jazz stylings and given our subject matter - Spontaneous Human Combustion, I think, ahem, some spontaneity would be VERY apt).

I was always a really big fan of Oli's backing track for what became Know It Now on Superheroes Of Science so I might plunder the depths of the synth wash (again). Having said that, all of the tracks I've written so far have started in one style, been trashed, been written in another style, been trashed, then cobbled together near the last minute.

My research into SHC so far has revealed that nearly all sufferers of this appalling condition were found either with their heads in the grates of fire places, or next to bar heaters. Far be it for me to try and explain the unexplained but I am ALREADY beginning to sense a connection between ... conventional sources of heat ... and ... people being set on fire. Clearly I need to dig deeper. Why the fast burning? Why so intense? Why? I can't wait to explore the possible causes of ignition, through the power of SYNTHESIZERS.

Stigmata / Murder of a little alien

OK. I'm working on 2 this time. One is balls-out rock bullshit about the stigmata phenomenon, the other is a tragedy about the murder of a little alien: I was creeped out by this story:

http://momento24.com/en/2009/09/16/panama-youngsters-claim-to-have-killed-an-alien/

Love
Kip

Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle is something of an enigma. It has captured the minds and imagination of many at sea - and I am attempting to capture one interpretation of it in music form. What could be at the bottom? Only time and fiction will tell...

Line of the Dead

DEADLINES for music submission:

Backing tracks - Friday March 12th (5 weeks from this Friday!)
Vocal tracks - Friday April 30th (13 weeks from this Friday!)

If anyone has any issues with these dates - let me know and I'll modify them.

Things that like to go boom

I can't get spontaneous combustion out of my head. Those black and white photos of people, lying in fireplaces, boots, devoid of humans, small piles of ashes. What happened, wha happen? That instantaneous and unexplained transformation from bellied, flesh wielding humanoid to flaming HOT HOT piles. I think there's some beautiful simplicity in there, what was happening in the lives of those people before they seemingly blew up in their living rooms? Did they manage to feed the cat? Did they pay their gas bills? What caused the heat? Wha? Wha? Wha happen? And more importantly, as someone writing a backing track to accompany the subject, what would it sound like. All I can say is that I'm trying to secure the services of a flute and a banjo to convey the sonic impression. Good luck all.

The first MYSTERIES OF THE UNEXPLAINED subject has been chosen. Kelly Hoglund of Milwaukee has snagged herself the task of composing music for the American Sasquatch aka Bigfoot! Good luck Kelly.

The Weirdness Flows Between Us...

Welcome to IML album #5 MYSTERIES OF THE UNEXPLAINED. On this album we're going to explore strange and paranormal phenomena. For obvious reasons, please refrain from writing about human 'freaks', and in the interests of preserving future subject matter, avoid classical mythology and conspiracy theories (other than Alien of course!)

These are some of the main subject areas:

• CRYPTOZOOLOGY: Yeti/Sasquatch/Bigfoot/Chupacabra. DeLoy's Ape, Giant Lizards/Snakes, Prehistoric Survivors/Loch Ness Monster, Sea Monsters, Mysterious Big Cats, Giant Elephants, Civil-War Thunderbird, Cottington Fairies
• MYSTERIOUS STONES: Stonehenge/Stone Circles, Avesbury, Prehistoric Temples/Pyramids, Giant Stone Spheres/Sculptures
• NATURAL PHENOMENA: Ball Lightning, Freak Weather, Raining Frogs/Fish, Astmospheric/Astronomical Phenomena, Auras, Kirlian Aura Photography, Forteana
• ESP/PARANORMAL POWERS: Psychotelekinesis/Uri Geller, Clairvoyance, Prophecy/Nostradamus, Water Divining, Pyrokinesis, Human Magnetism, Out-Of-Body Experiences, Tarot, Levitation, Astral Projection
• ALIENS: UFOs, Adbuction, Area 51, Roswell, Face On Mars, Crop Circles, Cattle Mutilation, Ancient Alien-Human Interaction (see Erich Von Daniken)
• GEOGRAPHICAL PHENOMENA: Ancient Geoglyphs, Nazca Lines, White Horses, Burial Mounds, Bermuda Triangle, The Great Siberian Explosion, Atlantis/Lost Civilizations, Death-Valley Stones
• GHOSTS: Apparitions, Hauntings, Doppelgangers, Poltergeists, Ghost Orbs/Ghost Photography, Haunted Houses/Places, Ghost Ships/Phantom Trains, Electronic Voice/Video Phenomena, Ouija Boards, Ectoplasm
• SPONTANEOUS HUMAN COMBUSTION: (in a class of its own!)
• FAITH-RELATED PHENOMENA: Stigmata, Reincarnation, Bleeding Statues, Religious Apparitions, Demonic Possession/Exorcism, Inexplicable Images of Saints/Christ/Allah
• ANCIENT TECHNOLOGY: Crystal Skulls, Pyramids, Ancient Computers/Antikythera Mechanism, Baghdad Battery, Vitrified Forts, Ancient Astronomy

And here are some online resources:

Unexplained Mysteries
Profiling The Unexplained
Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World
Unexplained
Fortean Times