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)

January 27, 2022

A physical CD-R of Word Soup is now available for purchase for $10 at Kunaki.com: https://kunaki.com/Sales.asp?PID=PX00E2GT4J

I am no longer using Amazon Media on Demand because Amazon ended that service in 2021. Hence, any previous CD-R that was available on Amazon is no longer available. There is literally no demand for these, thus I don't intend on putting older titles back in print. My Kunaki sales page is also not permanent. If no sales occur for a period of six months, they shut down the sales page. I bought myself 10 copies to give to close friends and family. If you buy one, it will be a rare copy. This is the current situation with on-demand CD-R production these days. Still, it's cheaper than getting 100 of these printed and then watch them collect dust in my house.

Anyway, beep beep!

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 chance, 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

The second single from the Incoherent Brain Dump project has been released. It's called Cadillac and it's B-side, Foggy Cows, is an outtake that won't be appearing on the album.

You can listen to the single here: https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/cadillac

In addition, three music videos from this project are also available on YouTube:

Cadillac: https://youtu.be/PodrPEnHyU8
Poojer: https://youtu.be/hTIjkhEHS7E
Pieces of Crap: https://youtu.be/VtTascX8CM8

Enjoy, even if it produces headaches.
--KR

July 10, 2016

Superluminal Pachyderm has just released its first single ever. Back when this project started, physical CD singles were not particularly useful. They were all on-demand and having someone pay $5.99 or higher for two songs was ridiculous. Besides, I had never even toyed with the idea. A growing number of artists have been releasing material online in the last 10 years or so a few songs at a time. Some make it onto proper albums, some don't. Perhaps they're gauging fan interest to determine what makes it onto an album? So, in that spirit (though I'm not gauging anything), let me introduce you to Poojer:

https://superluminalpachyderm.bandcamp.com/album/poojer

This and it's "B-side" Pieces of Crap are expected to be a part of a future album called Incoherent Brain Dump.

Thanks for stopping by,

January 25, 2013

OFFICIAL RELEASE OF UNSALTED PANTS

Finally, after almost eight years, Superluminal Pachyderm has released its sixth studio album, Unsalted Pants. The album contains three long songs, the title track, Ich bin eine Dose (Ooomgn), and Voices from the Nose. The latter is a five-part epic. The second track was inspired by the German band Can and is sort of my tribute to them. The album is now available on Amazon.com has a physical CD or as a download and was manufactured by their CreateSpace service.

See: http://www.amazon.com/Unsalted-Pants-Superluminal-Pachyderm/dp/B00B5J3P2K/

Now I can finally relax, sit on the couch, and watch some Doctor Who. Don't forget to try the bacon bits on the way out.
--KR

December 9, 2012

This week the final mixing and recording of the Unsalted Pants album was completed. One might ask what was going on between 2009 and now? A big fat nothing ought to be the answer, but I'll keep using that "hiatus" term that so many musicians like to use when members are at each others throats. Since I am the ONLY member of Superluminal Pachyderm, the proper reason is laziness. A good secondary reason is my sudden addiction to genealogy and family history. Anyway, the new Unsalted Pants album is likely to show up on Amazon.com sometime in January 2013.

The second announcement is that all of the Superluminal Pachyderm discography is out of print, with the exception of Sea of Peas. My former manufacturer, Cafepress.com, simply stopped making CDs and I rudely discovered one day that none of my CDs were there anymore. Needless to say, I wasn't a happy camper and closed my entire Cafepress store. Earlier in 2012, I reissued Sea of Peas using Amazon.com's CreateSpace service. I plan on reissuing earlier titles when time permits. I am also considering releasing download only albums that are compilations taken from my first five albums using Bandcamp. Stay tuned, but don't hold your breath.

Thanks for stopping by.
--KR

February 5, 2009

There hasn't been an update on this page since the summer of 2007. I would say quite a lot has happened since then. First, I moved into a house and of course had to pack up my studio stuff and reset it all up. That was back in May 2008. Since then I have slowly worked on several new pieces of music and have incomplete sections for five songs that should be on the upcoming Unsalted Pants album. In addition I've been playing around with unfinished material that never made it onto the Sea of Peas album. I always have unfinished stuff leftover from album projects and tend to carry some of them over to future projects.

This April will mark four years since Sea of Peas was released. Am I getting lazy or what? All I can say is hang in there, all three of you. Unsalted Pants will make the light of day sometime this year.

Also, I was quite surprised to find out that I now have an entry at Prog Archives. There's even a review there for my first album; rated much higher than I would give it. To be honest, it's an album I don't regard very well. The mistakes I made on it make me cringe, but I do have some nostalgic feelings about it because it was my first and was quite a growing experience. Check it out here.

Thanks for checking the site out. Don't forget to flush when you leave.
--KR

June 21, 2007

Progress on the Unsalted Pants album has been slow as I have been working on other projects, like a book of poetry. I am hoping to put in more time on this project in the future.

Meanwhile, there are some Superluminal Pachyderm t-shirts, aprons, and tote bags available at the Superluminal Pachyderm Stuff page at Cafepress.com. I've been thinking about adding more things to this "store." [update 8/30/13: these things are no longer available]

Don't bump your head on the pipes.
--KR

January 14, 2007

Recording has started for the Unsalted Pants album. It's going slowly as expected, but some progress has been made. I'm still selecting and writing material for it. About seven minutes of the title track has been laid down, but tweaking procedures are still active. I also wrote the lyrics for a five-part song called "Hapes" which will be part of this project.

December 5, 2006

It's been three months and I finally found my way out of the clothes hamper. About three months ago I noticed that the manufacturer of my CD's, Cafepress.com, experienced some sort of severe bug that prevented images from loading on audio CD products. Because of this, it was uncertain if purchasing a CD would result in a customer actually getting it in the form I wanted it to be in. Thus, I dismantled the Buy CDs page. A few weeks ago, it seems Cafepress.com fixed their problem. Like most IT departments, after a half dozen helpdesk tickets, the problem mysteriously goes away and no one announces the fix. The bottom line is they are again available for purchase, just in time for the holidays.

So, have I recorded any new music? No, I've been stuck in a clothes hamper for the last three months. But my brain has some ideas. I'm sure it won't be too long before I download it into a series of off-key notes.

Anyway, if I don't see you before the holidays, have a good one.
--KR

September 10, 2006

Welcome to the official home of Superluminal Pachyderm. After several years of having pages at various music sites (starting with mp3.com) and with a discography including five studio albums, I felt it was time for the Superluminal Pachyderm project to have a new home all its own. It resides within the xaagma.com domain, my little internet playground.

So, what's happened since the Sea of Peas? Not much I'm afraid. I've got a couple of projects on paper, but no attempt has been made to really put something together. The next album is tentatively called "Unsalted Pants" and I hope to start recording it sometime this fall. Another project that I hope to work on at the same time has been given the name "Bonehead," but I suspect I will give it a better title in the future. These two projects are going to end up being the sixth and seventh Superluminal Pachyderm albums.

Another project that I expect will take a good amount of time to finish will be an experimental work that I will release under a different name. It will be the first album under the name Amalgamated Hippopotamus. The kind of music I envision for this project will be sort of an offshoot of some of the types of experiments I did on the Sea of Peas album. I'm planning on inventing a language for the lyrics to be sung in.