In celebration of public domain, we made some music. All of these works use public domain recordings and/or are performances of written works that are in the public domain. Enjoy!
The prompt was gabber. Some went the traditional route and some stretched it pretty far. It's all music!
This is a special project in which we used recordings of Jem's mom playing a piece she composed on her cello. These recordings were made by Jem's mom herself in the late 80's when she was a teenager.
The goal with this project was to create music based on, or starting from, small sounds. Granular synthesis, etc.
Simon the Magpie challenged us to make a song just with a single cheap keyboard, so we made 18. Video by Turhiki.
Experimenting with tiny bits of sound. We love sounds.
The moon light shining through the tree branches, the hiss of the wind chilling your bones as you slowly walk into the dark forest. There’s a ritual tonight, somewhere deep in the obscure fog, would you be able to find it? The air fills with the scent of unknown things lurking in the darkness, you can feel it in your soul, something ancient, something beyond light and dark, is being resurrected. You hear the distant chants getting louder and louder. And suddenly, everything stops. The forest fills with a heavy eerie silence, they have found you, it’s too late to run.
In this project, we explore the concept of randomness in creating music. Each artist employed random elements into their creative process to make a track. The track order was selected at random. Video footage was based on random keywords.
The Pirates find all their blips and bloops and make them into music. Celebrating the heyday of console generated video game music.
For this compilation the Pirate's crafted songs inspired by the late Vangelis to honor their passing.
For this project, we used only samples provided by the community to make music with.
This one was all about abnormal / unique time signatures.
German artist Klaus Schulze passed away at the age of 74 on April 26th. Schulze was a major figure in the "Berlin School" of music in the 60's and 70's (aka "Krautrock"), starting out with brief stints in such legendary groups as Ash Ra Tempel and Tangerine Dream. He quickly shifted to releasing his own solo work and pretty much never stopped making music until his death. Very much of what you're familiar with in ambient and electronic music can be traced back to Schulze. He was one of the first people to release work based almost exclusively on experimenting with synthesizers and is considered a progenitor of ambient and techno music. We made some music in memory of him.
On the Magpie Pirates discord, we do a lot of elaborate, well-thought-out album projects. Sometimes encouraging working within specific musical genres or traditions, using only the samples supplied, or focusing on experimenting and pushing one's own boundaries. Other times, we just make a channel called, let's say "Pet Sounds", post a deadline, and hope for the best.
For this project, the community volunteered to be randomly assigned one unique emotion. Each member then made a song based on that emotion.
Breakbeat, but it's 5.
Music to Ponder your Orb. That was the only prompt our pirates had to create a perfect soundtrack for pondering your orb.
Mreenal Mams has a drum machine that goes all the way down to 10 BPM. This inspired us to make music at the tempo of 10 BPM. Bonus tracks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9g0PuCpoRk
The theme of this community compilation is space. As in: outer space. The final frontier. Etc.
In this project, we determined to make music with “weird” instruments. That is, items that were not designed with the intention of making music. In addition to making a track himself, Spenny also edited video for a bunch of other pirates’ spots. Thanks Spenny!
Welcome to the “no input” project! In this compilation the Magpie Pirates created music using electronic and acoustic feedback. Visuals by foot ( https://footmusic.bandcamp.com ) using a diy device that creates analog video feedback:
We randomly generated a list of track names and an album name, then made music to match it. This one is pretty chaotic!
Simon Fakepie asked the community to make some 132 bpm techno tracks.
As is our usual practice, the community has decided to explore a genre of music. This time we chose dungeon synth. Some artists on this album have already released material in this genre and some had never even heard of it before starting to make a track for this project. Enjoy!
The Magpie Pirates community ventures into the American west with spaghetti western.
Lou Ottens, inventor of the standard audio cassette tape as we know it, passed away earlier this year (March 6, 2021). We wanted to make a compilation of tracks dedicated to his memory with a focus on the cassette tape. Sound art that uses and/or is about cassette tapes, or blatant use of cassette tapes was strongly encouraged.
Artists submitted a picture of their shoes, then other artists made music that they imagined the person in those shoes would make.
Break. Beat. FOUR.
We wanted to devise a genre of music randomly, so we put a whole bunch of words in a bag, made a script to put them together randomly, then had a tournament with the resulting random phrases. The winner was "Swamp Ritual VHS". After that was sorted, everyone made some music that they thought would fit this imagined genre.
In this project, we took doom (metal) tracks, ambient tracks, or anything in between.
The Magpie Pirates' take on the Dream Punk genre.
ThE HyPeRPoP EpIsOdE
Most everyone has a voice. Most of us don't use it as much as everyone else would like. For this album, we wished for The Magpie Pirates to put their voices in the spotlight. The human voice adds a personal connection that is felt by the listener. Anything goes, as long as you use your voice.
Simon the Magpie and Andreas made some samples from their lego-fretted bass guitar. We made music with the samples.
Folk music!
The third breakbeat collab.
Simon the Magpie used a "Kalooper" from Battery Operated to make a bunch of tape loop samples. Then the Magpie Pirates community used those sample to make some music.
Simon the Magpie recorded a sample of a toy pig and suggested people make a track using just that sample. This is the result.
Black Metal vol. II: Memento Mori
The Magpie Pirates made a spoopy Halloween collab.
The Magpie Pirates go psychedelic
Simon the Magpie provided some samples from his animal toys and encouraged everyone to make some music. So they did.
The guidelines for this collab were: Create a song, preferably within the loose confines of the genre "pop", using only toy instruments. The definition of toy is up to you, but for some kind of framework/reference I'd say that any piece of equipment over 100$ isn't a toy. Old Yamaha/Casio keyboards are most def toys. Apart from toys it's encouraged to use things like rubber bands, finger snapping, glasses of water etc. Stylistically it'd be cool to have an album with a somewhat acoustic and multitracked feel to it, with a lot of working with whatever you got and less of using the best equipment to get that perfect sound. Using VST's and/or samples is absolutely fine (since everyone doesn't have access to a microphone/instruments), but try to keep them within the concept, i.e. probably leave your most realistic sounding kaoss-paddy motorized synths out of this one and pick up your slide whistle instead. Oh, and don't forget to check out the kids section at your nearest thrift shop.
Andreij Rublev and Næringssorg met in the Magpie Pirates community and decided to make a concert on a live stream during the Quarantine Sessions, a two months long marathon of daily live streams on Andreij Rublev youtube channel. Then they mixed and mastered it to create "De Rerum Natura". The improvised music is evolving slowly through all the length of the album as a seed grows with its own inner time into a full plant. The artwork, inspired by ancient herbariums, is made by Garden of Myxini. You can find the full footage of the live stream here: https://youtu.be/Au39MJxs75E Næringssorg: https://naeringssorg.bandcamp.com Andreij Rublev: https://youtube.com/c/AndreijRublev Garden of Myxini: https://www.artstation.com/hagfishgarden
GRINDCORE
It's about dinosaurs.
Drone. Just the one note. Forever.
Poor pirate ChrisBBacon was bored one day and needed something to occupy him. So we decided to make a hardcore techno album.
Noise and rock.
A collection of tracks from pirates who hadn't submitted to any other collabs up until this point. No holds barred!
Covers and reinterpretations of other pirates' songs
First four-hours album release consisting of four tracks recorded live monthly through discord and obs, then mixed and edited afterward. Every session's video can be found here https://bit.ly/2zejHPX
A compilation of tracks composed by the Magpie Pirates during the lockdown.
Just sit back and relax with the chillout collab by The Magpie Pirates!
Our take on house music.
SHOEGAZE! So get out your pedalboards and Fender Jaguars and get gazing!
In the "Help! I'm having a stroke!" collab the intention is to make music as if the musicians were impeded / confused / confounded in some manner. Bashed keyboards and smashed sounds in the most beautiful way possible.
The Magpie Pirates community created some ambient tracks.
This was mutiny...
This collaboration is to take a second and capture those sweet moments in the morning. The sun just peeking out, maybe your children sleepily waking up, or your partner humming in the kitchen, your new exciting synth idea you can’t wait to bang out before work. A freshness to it all, and a new start.
Where will the winds blow them this day? What will be found in the forbidden sounds of the distant city on the hill? This is no quest for the meek, there is no rest for the weak and weary, through rain and wind, wet and dreary. Make haste. The Sea calls out to you. 5 sample swap sessions spawned a sonic Monolith that will shine brightly as a beacon for all to see that anything is possible, thru MUTINY.
It's literally another breakbeat collab. It breaks, it chops, it brings quirky time divisions. No 4 on the floor allowed here.
Simon the Magpie solicited the community for the "worst" samples they had for a project he was working on. This album is the result of a side-project to make songs using the crappy samples.
Lofi vol. II
This is the sequel of the first Industrial Album.
What would happen if you let a load of pirates free in an industrial estate? This, this would happen.
Magpie Pirate sETH devised a collaboration in which each participant was randomly assigned another artist and tasked with covering one of their songs.
Songs created by Magpie Pirates with Simon the Magpie's water sample pack.
A very conceptual and quirky idea that formed after someone just tagged the ‘collab’ role in the server with the word ‘yo’. So naturally we collaborated to create a song called yo. Everyone submitted 1 yo and were allowed to process them however. Warning: some people have clipped their submission, so volume inconsistencies are a thing.
Simon Magpie started a surprise stream and challenged everyone to make a full song from start to finish in 1 hour. The neat thing about this collab is not just that the tracks were created in an hour, but that *all* of the tracks were created in the *same* hour. The entire album was literally done in 1 hour. Cover art by Lu (Also done within the hour).
Magpie Pirates go black metal! A collection of raw, distorted, screaming offerings to a genre that became a cult.
The directions for this collab were: "Pick your favorite painting, illustration, sculpture, or animation frame and make a song around it"
16th of June, 1969, exactly 50 years ago that day Don Van Vilet who's more famous under Captain Beefheart and his magic band published their magnum opus of an album, trout mask replica. After months of Don tourmenting his band having them practice every hour of the day, everyday resulting in the band only needing about 4 hours of studio time upon recording the entire album, to fellow producer Frank Zappa's shock upon the quick finish. The album have reached an undeniable legendary status amongst listeners and critics alike. And with this very big anniversary for the album we really only saw it fit to pay homage, trying to put our own twist to the sound of trout mask replica. This album is more of an interpretation of the sound. Musicians trying to pull elements from the album into an own sound. No beefheart covers, sadly.
The Magpie Pirates created an album based on the "Microwave genre", from an idea by Simon the Magpie. Cover art and pictures by Carl Mikael (Cabinet of Curiosities).
A bunch of samples submitted by the pirates were stretched, transformed, mangled and reassembled by other pirates to make this album. No other sources were allowed. Let's see how different ideas and musical tastes create different songs starting from the same point!
A collab where new comers were encouraged to contribute. An epic compilation of work with old and new members.
Collaborative video-game soundtrack by the Magpie Pirates around the game Stranded Deep. Tataki played Stranded Deep for a few weeks and we all made music for it. This culminated in a stream of Tataki playing the game as we all listened to the album (YouTube video linked).
An EP with leftovers from the doom collab.
A collaboration album by the Magpie Pirates in which every track was made utilizing the screams of Simon the Magpie.
In this project, we asked the community for doom metal and/or ambient tracks.
Another field recording compilation, with focus on sounds produced by nature!
An album about the stuff that makes our heart beat. Cover idea and intro by DDC
An album where 10-12 different artist came together to create each track by "passing" it around. Using our own set of skills, instruments, and DAWs we present to you "Pass The Track" a fully collaborative album!
The latest collab on the Magpie Pirate's Discord server was the IDM collab, Sit back, relax, have a cup of tea and listen to the full compilation here!
The magpie pirates jazz collab is a fest of modern jazz interpretations made by the pirates. Some with a cool genre twists, some with an oldschool sound and some venturing into new exciting terriories.
A compilation of songs by the magpiepirates crew putting our own twist on the genre of no wave as a tribute to the original no new york compilation that birthed the genre.
Building something out of nothing.
The Magpie Pirates go retro! This collab is inspired by old school video game music.
Well it's a bit late, but as the old saying goes "The best Christmas albums are the ones that get released a month late" or something like that... Join the Magpie Pirates: https://discord.gg/jkfk6yq
The first installment of the Magpie Pirates 'Vinyl Sample Collab' where participants can send in samples from records they own, and make a track out of the collected samples. Join the Magpie Pirates: https://discord.gg/ae42hve
All participants were asked to record for 1 minute outside the space where they live, in 1 take. The album cover is a collage (made by the artist Andreij Rublev who is also on the album) of pictures taken of the places where the field recordings were recorded. From left to right: track 11, track 1, track 2, track 5, track 8, track 4 and track 10 We hope that you enjoy this quite conceptual album!
Bonus tracks for the third Magpie Pirates 'Sample Collab'.
Third installment of the Magpie Pirates 'Sample Collab' where participants can send in up to two samples and at the end make a track out of the samples.
You want to know what the Magpie Pirates cannonballs are filled with? Well take a listen and see for yourself.
Second album done by the Magpie Pirates-community. Sample Collab is a collaborative effort, where the members of the community record two 20 second samples, submit them and make tracks with the whole of them. No added sounds allowed, but slicing, dicing and spicing them in any way is highly incentivised!
These are the songs made with the first Magpie Secret Sample Pack! Album cover art by Glassman
Have a track for an upcoming collab? A podcast episode? A video for our YouTube channel? An idea for a new collab? Submit it!
Click the big JOIN link up above to join our discord server, then come back here and log in. Then you can contribute too!