NEWS
October 14, 2023
The 12th album, Hippopotamus Five, has been released on my Bandcamp page. I'm not sure if I'll make a physical release available. Most folks don't seem interested in them anymore and I haven't sold one for many years now. I originally intended to make this an all-instrumental album, but ended up singing on two songs: Si Collop Vintu and Refried Beans. The lyrics on Si Collop Vintu are taken directly from posts I made on the Prog Archives forum under the thread with the title "Off At Tangents: Si Collop Vintu."
If you have a chance, please give it a listen here:
https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/hippopotamus-five
Track listing:
1. Choose Your Hairballs Wisely (5:35)
2. The Quest for the Holy Crap (3:18)
3. Si Collop Vintu (7:27)
4. Gas Hamper (5:58)
5. Nasal Hairs of the Anthropocene (3:08)
6. Refried Beans (5:21)
7. I Ate My Micro-Doppler Radar (3:11)
8. Please Control Your Plate Tectonics (1:28)
9. Unexpected Human in the Baggage Area (9:29)
September 16, 2021
The eleventh album, Word Soup, has been released on my Bandcamp page. A physical CD is in process. It might take a couple of weeks. This album actually has a concept behind it that is explained below.
If you have a chance, please give it a listen here:
https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/word-soup
Track listing:
1. A Thousand Civilities (4:15)
2. These Apricots and These Peaches Make Me (4:04)
3. The Stone as Roll Not Heap Up Not Foam (5:13)
4. He Has a Good Beak (6:39)
5. Familiar Phrases (8:08)
6. Dialogue 14 - For to Dine (6:05)
7. Dialogue 3 - For to Dress Him Self (4:30)
8. Dialogue 9 - With a Shoemaker (2:21)
9. Idiotisms (6:03)
10. Napkin the Nose Before Combs (6:29)
About the concept:
Back in 1855, a gentleman named Pedro Carolino wrote a book called “O novo guia da conversação, em Portuguez e Inglez” and intended it to be a Portuguese-English conversational guide and phrase book. The book was published by Parisian publisher J.- P. Aillaud, Monlon & Co. Obviously it seems odd that this album would be based upon an ordinary phrase book for Portuguese speakers to learn English, but this book isn't by any means ordinary.
It is widely believed that Pedro Carolino could not speak English. He apparently used a French-English dictionary to translate an earlier Portuguese-French phrase book, “O novo guia da conversaçao em frances e portugues,” written by José da Fonseca. In fact, Carolino added Fonseca's name to the 1855 edition, either to give Fonseca credit or as an attempt to give his book some credibility. While this may seem harmless, it is Carolino's indiscriminate use of literal translation that resulted in this book being a classic source of unintentional humor in translation.
Examples of this include:
| Portuguese | Carolino translation | Correct translation |
| As paredes tem ouvidos |
The walls have hearsay | The walls have ears |
| Anda de gatinhas | He go to four feet | He's crawling |
Carolino's book was later published in London in 1883 under the title “English as She is Spoke.” An American edition was also published in 1883 with an introduction by Mark Twain. The book also inspired a number of spoofs over the years.
Word Soup is dedicated to Carolino's work and has extracted phrases and used the text of three dialogues to make up the lyrics of this album. In some ways, what Carolino did was a precursor to what many have used Google Translate for during its early years when translations across multiple languages resulted in some bizarre results. And Carolino did this over 150 years before Google Translate was launched.
A copy of the 1855 edition is available at the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/onovoguiadaconve00fons/mode/2up
August 30, 2020
The tenth album, Subfield Pipe, has been released on my Bandcamp page. I'm still working on the physical CD for release on Amazon.com. It might take a couple of weeks. Lots of new software on this album and I started using a MIDI keyboard controller for the first time (Alesis V49). New stuff includes Toontrack's EZdrummer, Ample Sound's Ample Guitar TC and Ample Bass J, GForce M-Tron Pro, GForce impOSCar2, Xpand!2, AnaMark VST synthesizer, and Surge VST hybrid synthesizer. Also started using a new DAW: Reaper. I like this one better than LMMS.
If you have a change, please give it a listen here:
https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/subfield-pipe
Track listing:
1. Off at Tangents (11:04)
2. The Grumpy Piggapotamus (3:40)
3. Hoagies Attends Without Poops (2:02)
4. Available on Microfiche (4:52)
5. Photographs of Oxygen (8:14)
6. Three Poop Dog (4:20)
7. Pigpen, It's Rubber Duck (4:48)
8. Spray the Palace with Polynomials (6:23)
9. Go What (0:56)
10. A Response to the Musical Moron (10:16)
As always, thanks for stopping by!
-KR
June 22, 2019
The new Superluminal Pachyderm album "A Swarm of Dish Rags" has been released. It's my first 2-disc album and is available as a download on Bandcamp and as a 2-disc CD-R on Amazon.com. This is the ninth studio album and the first one to be composed and recorded in the open-source LMMS digital audio workstation. I had been using Making Waves since I began this project back in 1999, but the creator of Making Waves sadly passed away back in 2011. Making Waves crashes in Windows 10 so much that it became unusable, so I have been forced to abandon this little gem. I believe my small handful of fans will fine this to be probably more "whacked out" than usual.
When you have some time, please give it a listen here:
https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/a-swarm-of-dish-rags
Track listing:
Disc 1:
1. The Bonehead Conjecture (3:44)
2. One Poop Dog (1:38)
3. Television Set (7:23)
4. Humming Like a Pile of Kneepads (9:34)
5. Size 40 Pants (3:18)
6. A Joy Ride in the Neutrino Tank (8:09)
7. The Nasal Metric System (5:51)
8. A Symphony of Beef (17:10)
Disc 2:
1. Early Formations of Larry Hair (8:31)
2. Masquerading as Rabbit Papers (2:01)
3. Two Poop Dog (4:38)
4. Oof's Diarrhea (8:23)
5. Per Per Breek (7:50)
6. Should I Eat the Amplifier? (23:36)
Thanks for stopping by and happy birthday!
--KR
April 27, 2019
Recording sessions for the next Superluminal Pachyderm album A Swam of Dish Rags began in January 2019 and are ongoing.
While you're waiting (all one or two of you) for this much anticipated release (ha ha), a single was released on Bandcamp for
the song A Joy Ride in the Neutrino Tank.
Please listen to it here:
https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/a-joy-ride-in-the-neutrino-tank
A video was also released for the single on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNR5_T0X1IM
The "B-side" to the single is a short track called Size 40 Pants.
I am anticipating released the new album sometime during the summer of 2019. It will be
available as a "name your price" purchase in Bandcamp and a physical CD-R on Amazon.com
Thanks for stopping by!
--KR
April 7, 2018
Superluminal Pachyderm's 8th studio album, Happy Bags of Trash, has been released. It's currently available to download on Bandcamp and will be available shortly on Amazon.com.
Please give it a spin when you have some free time:
https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/happy-bags-of-trash
Tracks include:
1. Redundant Stomach (8:21)
2. The Dododox (8:34)
3. Metadata Socks (16:42)
4. Doctor Doofus and Dump Truck Jr. (25:02)
There are also YouTube videos available:
Metadata Socks: https://youtu.be/RoB9rgozuFE
Redundant Stomach: https://youtu.be/uEilkG1raxY
Thanks for the bacon bits!
--KR
November 1, 2016
The new Superluminal Pachyderm album "Incoherent Brain Dump" has been released. It's a free download on Bandcamp and will be available shortly on Amazon.com.
This is the seventh studio album and the first since Unsalted Pants was released back in 2013.
See: https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/incoherent-brain-dump
Tracks include:
All the Toilets of the City (7:05)
Pieces of Crap (4:19)
Eometry (14:23)
Poojer (4:10)
It Smells Like Aunt Helen (6:19)
Cadillac (7:45)
Radio Donkey (13:46)
Please stop by my Bandcamp page and give it a listen.
All the best,
--KR
September 24, 2016
A second online-only single has been released for the upcoming Superluminal Pachyderm album "Incoherent Brain Dump." Cadillac is now available for free on Bandcamp: https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/cadillac
Enjoy!
July 10, 2016
Superluminal Pachyderm is busy working on a new album called Incoherent Brain Dump. A new online-only single, Poojer, the first single ever released by SP is now available on Bandcamp. See: https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/poojer
I really should update this website more often...
August 30, 2013
Xaagma.com is currently being migrated to a Joomla content management system. Some pages may be inaccessible temporarily. One does grow weary looking at HTML code and having to change every file when a simple menu change is implemented. Maybe I will actually add some useful content to this site for once. Don't hold your breath.
December 9, 2012
What? Three years for an update? Yep.
Recording for the new Superluminal Pachyderm album called Unsalted Pants has been completed. The Sea of Peas album is now available on Amazon.com. Unsalted Pants may show up on Amazon in January 2013. Earlier albums are now out of print because I am no longer doing business with Cafepress.com. The book of poetry noted below is also out of print. Reissuing these items may occur in the future. There isn't any known demand for them, so I'll be taking my time.
I've been spending a lot of time on genealogy. I haven't decided if I will put any of my work on the Xaagma.com domain. Time will tell.
No other updates to report. No doubt I've been lazy at developing this website. I'm using the term "hiatus" as my excuse. You can believe whatever you want. Thanks for stopping by.
February 5, 2009
Here it is, about a year and half later and nothing new at xaagma.com. I moved into a new house in May 2008. I haven't had much time to devote to this site of mine. I still have plans -- I always have plans. The problem is usually having the time.
The Superluminal Pachyderm project has been moving along really, really slow. I have unfinished parts of five songs for the upcoming Unsalted Pants album. That's definitely better than the one song I had started back in June 2007, but I used to chug these out almost annually.
I even have three unfinished pieces in the works for the debut album of the Amalgamated Hippopotamus project. All I have to do is invent a language for it. Yeah, I know... geeking out again.
The philatelic galleries I had planned are still empty. They've been empty since I started this website. Gee whiz. I'll get around to it. That's what I'm always saying.
Thanks for stopping by.
June 21, 2007
Xaagma Press has released its first print publication, a book of poetry by Ken Robinson called I Would Not Send My Bags to Neptune. This is a selection of 40 poems written between the mid-1980s and up to the present day. The following description appears at the Xaagma Products Cafepress.com site:
Ken Robinson, the famous creator of the Superluminal Pachyderm project, has written a book of poetry. It's a conjunction-timed reality tidal wave of bubbles and envelope fragments, specially designed to make your nose bobble and ionize the atmosphere. Today we know that poets arrive like a selection from a relational database, only to find that we have stamps and bowling balls. Include your detergent and take tours of your washing machine and gently investigate the security issues with frozen methane and assertive pterodactyls. You will know the meaning of the phrase "I can eat my vowels with the best intentions." Ken Robinson is an ear. He's a vacation waiting to happen. He's a cement truck with a glass mixer filled with TV dinners. Ken Robinson is the smell of the past and the hamper of trash bags. You will be delighted or seriously annoyed.
OUT OF PRINT
February 1, 2007
After much thought, I removed the drop-down menu system that was located on the horizontal navigation bar above. It has been replaced with a "Home" link. Some pages have multiple "Home" links within this domain. I decided to remove them to prevent the hassle of always changing and rewriting the CSS files everytime a new version of a browser comes out. The pages of this site actually look pretty nice in IE7. I must say, Microsoft did a good job of enhancing IE's display capabilities even though their support for CSS standards is still lacking in some respects. However, I still recommend using Mozilla Firefox for security reasons. I have no comment on Netscape at this time as I do not have it installed. I also have no comments on browsers for Macs because I don't have a Mac.
January 14, 2007
It has come to my attention that the menu system on the horizontal navigation bar above does not work in Internet Explorer 7. I will look into fixing that in the future. It should work for IE6 as it was tested on that. From reading information on other CSS sites, Microsoft continues to fail to implement CSS standards. Because of this and the never-ending security fixes, I would recommend using the Firefox browser (that is until Firefox becomes big and the hackers pile up on it). I'm still going to look into fixing the menu system for IE7.
On other news, Superluminal Pachyderm has started recording material for the Unsalted Pants album.
December 5, 2006
For about three months, Superluminal Pachyderm CDs were unavailable due to a serious bug at Cafepress.com that prevented images from displaying. Due to uncertainties about the availability of the CDs in their correct form, the Buy CDs pages at Xaagma Music and the official home page of the Superluminal Pachyderm were disabled. The bug appears to have been fixed, thus the Buy CDs pages have been restored.
See: Superluminal Pachyderm: Buy CDs
If you have checked this site periodically over the last three months, you may have noticed that many pages remain under construction. I've been quite busy (e.g. sleeping, digesting, watching TV), so nothing has happened. I hope to alleviate that over the upcoming holiday season. I'm sure it doesn't matter, as most of this site has yet to be indexed by Google (that's why you should seriously consider using Yahoo, which I might add HAS indexed the whole site). Enjoy your visit and don't forget to wave.
September 10, 2006
Welcome to Xaagma.com. A lot of the pages on this site are under construction. Updates will be posted as time permits. A hamper in the living room is not as uncommon as one might think. I would rather not put clothes in one, but it looks like a great place to put pencils.