This is the printable cover for Tripico.
Since I use it to make labels, it's tailored to my printer and browser (IE7) settings. It might not look or print as nicely on your PC.
I suggest you try a print preview and/or low-ink draft print before trying to print actual labels.
Make sure you configure your browser to print backgrounds, or the images won't print.
Set your left/right printer margins to 0.75 and your top/bottom margins to 0.50.
For this album I wanted a strong musical theme. I was tired of tentatively attempting different styles of music, falling short, getting frustrated with the technology, etc. I wanted this album to be different. I wanted to focus on a single genre, to concentrate my energy on learning the tools and techniques that would help me "master" that one genre, so that I could finally get a sense of musical accomplishment.
So, which genre?
When I was starting the album, I was listening to a lot of reggae CDs. It had been a long time since I'd deliberately attempted to create reggae songs, so I decided to dedicate the entire album to reggae.
No problem, right? After all, most of my music is reggae-tinged. So how hard would it be to exaggerate my reggae habits, distilling them into a "pure" reggae sound?
Well, after a song or two, it became evident that "no problem" really meant "big problem", and a few songs later it meant "insurmountable problem". You see, no matter what I tried, I just couldn't figure out how to get a realistic reggae sound. Something always went wrong, whether it was the instruments I chose, the rhythms I played, the chord progressions, the effects, the jazzy little riffs I added here and there... It all ended up sounding like Tripecac rather than reggae. After a while I gave up on creating "real" reggae, and just focused on trying to finish the album by the end of the year.
So what's the end result? Well, each song does have a slight reggae feel, but then again so do most of the songs on my other albums, so I can't exactly count that as an accomplishment. Some songs have interesting moments, instrumentation, or effects. Others are just run-of-the-mill. Many end abruptly, which is a sign of my frustration; as I was finishing each song I told myself, "this isn't working; let's just get it over with and maybe the next one will work." And it shows.
Oh well. Count this as another fizzled experiment. Another coaster for the bottom of the glove box. Hopefully it's at least listable. In that amateur muzak sort of way.
The album name, in sticking with the Caribbean theme, comes from a combination of "Tripecac" and "Tropico", which was a game I was playing around the time I started the album.