The Jensen Studio

TubaTronix is an electronic music group consisting of Joe Jensen on Tuba and Andrew Jensen on electronics. The group focuses on heavy improvisation and combines Rock, Dance, and Jazz music.

Note that almost none of the songs are named. We’re working on that. Maybe we’ll go Dave Matthews-style – name a bunch of songs #36, #41, etc. (Those are real songs, by the way.) Or, if you know what something should be called, post it in a comment! TubaTronix thrives on blog comments.

Live at Pennyroyal Cafe, 1/28/2009

• 01
  After a few silly equipment problems (I forgot to plug in the computer keyboard, Joe had his stompbox cable in the wrong place) we opened with this. The looping is a trickier in this piece than in others – Joe has to use the Whammy pedal to harmonize, and he changes the chords in the middle of the main loop. This song also has something closer to a verse/chorus/bridge structure. Maybe we’ll even get played on the radio for such a move.
• Music For Two Musicians
  Our tribute to Steve Reich, minimalist composer. We were considering playing a live looping version of his famous piece, Music for Eighteen Musicians (you know, just the two of us? Impressive, huh?). We might still do that. But for that gig, Joe wrote out a brilliant little set of Reich-style loops, I added in some gratuitous movie quote samples, and this came of it. I don’t think the house-style drums make the song sound much like Reich, but you might say this would be the result of a collaboration between Steve Reich and Matthew Herbert. (Can you imagine?) Brownie points to whoever can name all of the movies I borrowed the quotes from!
• 03
  See The Vault, #18. I’m very proud of how this song has evolved. Even the sounds have changed a lot since we first wrote the song. It amazes me how Joe managed to make his tuba sound like an old Hammond organ (Leslie speaker included). This is the first time we’ve tried starting and finishing a song with a beepy, repeating synth. A little unusual, but pretty cool, I think. A major inspiration for this song was Autechre‘s earliest work.

Live at Pennyroyal Cafe, 1/14/2009

The Official Debut.

1. 01
   See Live at Pennyroyal Cafe 1/28/09, 01. Sorry we didn’t get this one recorded. It’s just as well – it ended up a little messy. I remember the phrasing was particularly bad…when we went to change to the really angry part, I missed the button and there was an awkward pause for a measure.
2. Awkward Ambience
   We were originally planning on playing “Luba”, but decided against it. (Joe was too nervous about his guitar chops.) The day before the gig, we hastily altered the Luba Ableton set to work like an old tape loop so we could make pretty whooshing noises for 10 or 15 minutes. In a tape loop, basically, sound goes into a big loop that builds on itself and repeats every few seconds. See The Vault, #15. Unfortunately, I was sloppy about making the loop work efficiently, so it really hit the computer processor hard. I added extra effects during the song, and eventually, the CPU couldn’t handle it. At 2:40, the sound in the loop vanished all at once. I left the rest of the recording in place, so you can hear the awkward pause and clapping (through Joe’s whammy pedal, funny!).
3. 03
   See Live at Pennyroyal Cafe 1/28/09, 03. This one sounded decent, except for my keyboard solo. So listen to the other version.

The Vault

These are the improvisations from old TubaTronix rehearsals, recorded live in the studio.

• #05
• #08
• #11
• #15
• #18
• Luba
  “Luba” is Russian for “Beloved.” We’re working to incorporate a bit of influence from Air, the wonderful French electronic group. Joe would like to dedicate this song to his wife, Amy.

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