Tag: indie music

Lazy Sunday CD: 🐟Koi Dance🐟 Posts

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Koi Dance is out now on all streaming platforms and at https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com. It’s 90% off (!) with promo code koipond. That means it’s $1 for twelve tracks of great music (that promo code is also good for everything on the site).

As such, I’m featuring some posts related to Koi Dance (and the title track, “Koi Dance”):

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

🐟Koi🐟 Dance Splashes Up Mogadishu Matt

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Mogadish Matt, Somalia’s #1 Libertarian and a longtime friend of the blog, shared a bit about Koi Dance (out today on all streaming platforms and on Bandcamp; 90% off with promo code koipond) on his blog, Free Matt Podcast:

Guest Highlight: The Portly Politico

Thanks for the shout-out, my grizzled friend!

Also, I’ll be hosting a listening party tonight (Friday, 7 August 2026) at 8 PM EST; join here.

Thanks again, Matt!

—TPP

Koi Dance Write-Up at Existential Ergonomics

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Thanks to Erin at Existential Ergonomics for this awesome write-up of my new album, Koi Dance (out today on all streaming platforms and on Bandcamp; 90% off with promo code koipond).

https://existentialergonomics.wordpress.com/2026/08/07/a-new-release-from-tyler-james-cook-koi-dance/comment-page-1/#respond?page_id=23342

I’ll also be hosting a listening party tonight (Friday, 7 August 2026) at 8 PM EST; join here.

Thanks again, Erin!

—TPP

It’s a 🐟Koi Dance🐟 Bandcamp Friday!

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Koi Dance is out TODAY, Friday, 7 August 2026, on all streaming platforms and at https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com!

It’s 90% off (!) with promo code koipond. That means it’s $1 for twelve tracks of great music (or 8⅓ cents per track).

That promo code is also good for everything on the site, including a full discography purchase. That means you can get thirty-one (31) releases—almost all of which include tons of original artwork, scores, videos, essays, etc.—for $9.70 with promo code koipond.

Look at that cute little koi!

To put that into perspective, if you purchased every release on my Bandcamp page individually, it would cost $194. Purchasing the full discography (just click on any release to see the option to purchase my full discography) comes with a built-in 50% discount, so that brings the cost down to $97.

Use promo code koipond, and the price plummets to $9.70. That’s less than any one of my albums at full freight. It’s less than a small pizza. It’s less than two cups of coffee.

But if you buy just one release—or even just stream one release—make it Koi Dance. It’s my best release in awhile.

Also, I’m hosting a free listening party to the entire album tonight, Friday, 7 August 2026, at 8 PM EST. You can join in on the fun and conversation here: https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com/live/koi-dance-listening-party

Finally, it’s Bandcamp Friday, which means Bandcamp waives their usual 15% cut of sales, making it the absolute best time to support your favorite pudgy composer—me!

I love this album cover!
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Press Release for 🐟Koi Dance🐟

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

I was going to slap together a review of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey for today, but yours portly and Dr. Wife have been pretty busy getting stuff done around the house. Instead, I wanted to share the press release I sent to the local paper for my upcoming release, Koi Dance.

As readers know, I’m never one to let content go to waste. Why not recycle/reduce/reuse content to save myself some trouble? Well, that’s what I’m doing here. But I also really, really want to get the word out about this release, because I sincerely believe it’s some of my best work.

The album releases this Friday, 7 August 2026, on all streaming platforms and at https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com. It’s 90% off (!) with promo code koipond. That means it’s basically $1 for twelve tracks of great music (that promo code is also good for everything on the site).

Now, on to my corporate-ese press release:

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Lazy Sunday CCCXCVII: Reedy Chorales

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Yours portly is squeezing in a quick, post-cruise Lazy Sunday with some recent posts featuring reedy chorales:

Enjoy!

—TPP

New Music Tuesday XVIII: “Two Chorales for High Reeds”

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Yours portly has been in a chorale mood, to the point that I was asking CoPilot about churches that actively commission original sacred pieces (it’s information was fairly dated, unfortunately, as the few leads it offered were from some years ago). I love playing around with little mathematical harmony problems, and seeing where long, sustained notes will take me.

When putting together last week’s piece, one of the proposed instrumentations I pitched to readers on various platforms was soprano saxophone, English horn, and oboe—a highly unorthodox blending of higher reeds. I ended up going with a more traditional woodwind trio of flute, oboe, and bassoon, but I wanted to try that other instrumentation for this week’s effort. I was pleased with the outcome.

The piece itself began as some jotting after Dr. Wife and I had our pre-breakfast Bible reading time together. I wanted to play around with writing a chorale in 6/4—something a bit different, which would also give me some more flexibility in moving the voices.

The process for mastering/mixing this piece was virtually the same as last week’s piece. I imported the WAV from Noteflight into Audacity and applied a “Small Dark Room” reverb effect; an “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect; and a “Tape” master effect. The granular effects are probably slightly different, as I tend to tweak the chorus and master effects slightly, but listeners will recognize a similar soundscape as the one I shared a week ago.

I then took the audio and pictures of the score and track artwork and imported them all into iMovie. From there, I imported the resulting video into YouTube Create, where I added my favorite filter, “Vaporwave.” I got this one churned out quickly, as we were packing for our cruise (I took advantage of a Dr. Wife nap to hammer it out).

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New Music Tuesday XVII: “Three Geometric Chorales”

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Dr. Wife and I had some errands to run last week, and while she was tending to a few things I jotted down today’s piece. I will sometimes keep little bits of staff paper open in my music journals for short musical sketches, and I had three glorious staves waiting for an opportune moment to do some hasty composing.

The result is this set of three chorales. I posted polls on Substack and Telegram asking for feedback about the instrumentation, but results were limited. I initially arranged it for a string trio—violin, viola, and cello—but changed to a woodwind trio of flute, oboe, and bassoon. I think that captured the sound I wanted better.

I imported the WAV from Noteflight into Audacity and applied a “Small Bright Room” reverb effect; an “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect; and a “Tape” master effect. I then took the audio and pictures of the score and track artwork and imported them all into iMovie. From there, I imported the resulting video into YouTube Create, where I added my favorite filter, “Vaporwave,” and added one bit of text that reads “<–“(C# Locrian)” to indicate that the “A major” section in the handwritten score is, actually, in that highly unusual key signature.

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Open Mic Adventures CLXV: “Summertime”

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Yours portly hasn’t had a chance to noodle out any more new saxophone compositions or to tinker with new digital compositions, so I’m digging up a little something I put together last year and waited until Sunday—the first day of summer—to upload.

I recorded this little cover of the jazz standard “Summertime” from the opera Porgy and Bess last summer when I was driving up to see then-Dr. FiancĂ©e. On those long, boring drives, I would usually entertain myself by sending her goofy voice messages. These usually hit in the third and final hour of the drive, when I’d be dying to get out of the car and see my girl.

Such is the provenance of this cover, my own little rendition with some altered lyrics.

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