albums
Underway
2006 Wonday
Compilations
1993 Songs to Sleep By
1997 Songs to Sleep By 2
2002 Sunday Sampler
2002 Dad's Picks
1999 Mix 1 (sy55)
2010 Mix 2 (triton vocal)
2010 Mix 3 (triton instr.)
SY55
1991 Archives
1992 College Collection
1993 College Collage
1994 The Hermit
1997 Where's My Muse
1999 South or Southeast
Triton
2001 In the Margins
2002 Renewal
2002 Re-treat
2002 Convenience
2002 Back Up
2003 So So
2003 So On
2003 So Long
2003 Baby Steps
2003 Baby Talk
2004 Schmocial
2004 Brroom
2004 Chuckadee
2004 Disco Hike
2004 Extra Extra
2005 Coma Pill
2005 Ourboretum
2005 Jaminy
2005 Padden Drift
2005 Gorilla Love
2005 Aminals
2005 Vegibles
2006 Fruitine
2006 Dignored
2006 Miner
2006 Mouseculine
2006 Yata
2007 Zipit
2007 Sixawon
2007 Halfdosin
2007 Whatcom Home
2008 What Roses
2008 Pho Kit
2008 Composed Pile
2009 Decomposed Pie
2009 Swaddlicious
2010 Lost Train
Soft Synths
2011 Out the Margins
2011 Redebut
2011 Reprogression
2012 Working Progress
2013 Tripico
2014 Aerosol Concrete
2015 Reduced to Clear
2016 Motions
2017 The Walking Dad
2018 Mockolate
2019 Still Testing
2020 Slow Wins Teddy
2024 Battle of the E-Bands
  • Title: Motions
  • Artist: Tripecac
  • Timespan: 2016
  • Theme: sculling
  • Length: 68:17
  • Tracks: 11
  • Lyrics: 5
  • MP3s: 11
  • Rating: rate this album

Track List

# title lyrics time started recorded rating mp3
1 Imperpetual lyrics 8:39 2016-01-09 2016-04-12 download
2 IHS lyrics 6:36 2016-04-13 2016-04-29 download
3 Standing Disk - 4:27 2016-05-01 2016-05-11 download
4 Loveheartburn - 6:29 2016-05-13 2016-05-31 download
5 Hots Bottle lyrics 6:34 2016-06-03 2016-06-20 download
6 Tinky Piky lyrics 9:04 2016-06-23 2016-07-14 download
7 Growup - 5:34 2016-07-25 2016-08-14 download
8 So Tired I'm Wired - 4:53 2016-08-15 2016-09-03 download
9 Blinders - 5:03 2016-09-19 2016-10-31 download
10 Say Mold - 4:55 2016-11-11 2016-11-30 download
11 Going Through the lyrics 6:03 2016-12-06 2016-12-31 download
Total 68:17 album rating:

Notes

I know, I know... It's the same old lament: Each year it gets harder and harder to find time and energy for music.

The main excuses are: Life with kids. And work. And cleaning. So much cleaning.

Music (well the making of music) has taken a distant back seat. More like a seat in the "boot" of the car. Or actually in the trailer being towed behind the car. That is, if you have a tail hitch. Which we don't.

A tail hitch is yet another thing to put on the to-do list. The very long to-do list. Which is sitting on top of my keyboard right now. Sigh.

Short sentences. Short album. Ish. Short songs. Well, ish. And kinda not really. But definitely short on time to spend polishing either these words or these songs.

They're rough. As always. And kinda dumb. As always. And repetitive. As always. But there are glimmers of catchiness and coolness in there. As always.

That's why I keep on making music, despite the (sometimes not so cute) overload. It's why I keep churning out these CDs, year after year. It's why I keep producing, keep moving, keep treading, keep going through the...

Well, you get my drift.

Or at least you should...

If you don't by now, you probably never will!

User Comments:

  1. "It's ok. Often plays it too safe." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "Hit and miss. The juvenile vocals are the low point, but some of the bass work is neat, even if it's too boomy." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

Songs

Imperpetual

  • Motions track 1
  • started: 2016-01-09
  • recorded: 2016-04-12
  • length: 8:39
  • Travis Emmitt - Battery 4, Addictive Drums, Lounge Lizard, Rapture Session, vocals
  • rating: rate this song
  • mp3: download (HTML5 player)

New Sonar, new 'tude. I wanted to get this song out in January, but due to a move, it ended up taking a lot longer than I hoped. It wasn't until April that I finally had time to finish it.

The singing is horrible, but the music is dark, aggressive, and hopefully can't be classified as elevator muzak. Hopefully, right? Right???

Lyrics to "Imperpetual":

i motion
i motion
i motion
i motion

bowel motion
bowel motion
growl motion    yikes
bowel motion    ahhhh

imperpetual
imperpetual
imperpetual
  

User Comments:

  1. "Nice aggressive feel. Some out of tune vocals, but overall pretty cool." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "Noisy and weird. But interesting." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

IHS

I wanted to write a dance song, so here it is. Put "dance" in air quotes. And "write".

The lyrics are dumb, basically whining about the most recent version of Sonar.

The drums are wayyyy too busy for me to fix (or mix properly), as are the vocals. In fact, there is so much stuff happening that mixing was too intimidating to get into properly, so I pretty much left it as-is. It therefore ended up being a bit of a mess. By "bit" I mean "huge". And by "mess" I mean "diaper disaster".

But hey, at least's it done. And that, as you know, is eleven tenths of the battle these days.

Lyrics to "IHS":

i i i like to dance    
so i i i hop around
i i i need new pants
so i i i shop around

z z z z z sonar
b b b b b bonar 

x1 x2 x3 x4  
no no there is no 4
x1 x2 x3 x4  
no, platinum - it's in the store

x1 x2 x3 x4  
no no there is no 4
x1 x2 x3 x4  
upgrading has become a bore
    
i hate sonar
i heart sonar

  don't you?
  

User Comments:

  1. "Funky. Another anti-Sonar song. Seems fine to me." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "Nice bounce. Not sure about vocals though." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

Standing Disk

Trancy and simple.

Well, not so simple after I added a million drums to it. It ended up sounding like drum-and-bass. -and-other-stuff.

I gave it a slightly exotic feel too.

The title refers to my standing desk. Mixed with disk. You get it. I hope.

User Comments:

  1. "Nice, but doesn't really stand out. Perhaps it's due to the lack of vocals?" - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)

Loveheartburn

  • Motions track 4
  • started: 2016-05-13
  • recorded: 2016-05-31
  • length: 6:29
  • Travis Emmitt - Kontakt 5, Addictive Drums 2
  • rating: rate this song
  • mp3: download (HTML5 player)

Long jam, with no loops. Lots of editing of mistakes, though!

Even though this is "mindless", I like the energy.

User Comments:

  1. "Good driving vibe." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "Grating, but I like the punky energy near the end." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

Hots Bottle

Stupid, juvenile lyrical adlib ruins a perfectly bad song.

I threw a cheesy planet joke in there for my kids. Couldn't resist.

You're welcome, kids.

Sorry, everyone else.

Lyrics to "Hots Bottle":

[scat]

hots bottle

it's freezing cold
there's sparkling frost in the shade outside
the mountains are covered in pretty snow

but my fingers are numbing
it's getting increasingly hard to type
i need to find a way to warm them up

i'm freezin' cold tonight
i'm feeling old
so hold me tight

i'm freezin' cold tonight
jon friesen cold
no that's just not right

[scat]

this is dedicated to all the naysayers on the cakewalk forum
this is dedicated to all the poopoo heads
this is dedicated to all the guys who say you must conform travis
this is dedicated to all the sheep wading in their own fecal pellets

baa baa baa baa...

oh will they ever learn?
and they accuse me of being mister ignoramus
when the smelliest planet is uranus

ah what wit 
what wit what wit what wit what wit
i'd rather be deviant than sleep in my own 
ship of foolish thoughts 

ship my foolish thoughts
  over the mountains
    sheep in the mountains

sheep my foolish thoughts
  over the mountains
    sheep in the mountains

another frozen morn
my feet are fearful of the floor
i seek my slippers by the stairs

the counter's clammy
the kitchen chilled like a walk-in fridge
i quick kettle up some oatmeal and a hot bottle

i'm freezin' cold tonight
i'm feeling old
so hold me tight

i'm freezin' cold tonight
jon friesen cold
no that's just not right



oh no not again
come on
you're just ruining the song now
 
  

User Comments:

  1. "The vocals are silly, but a bit out of tune and not quite as witty as I seemed to think they were. The music is ok." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "Not a fan of the vocals." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

Tinky Piky

I have given up on making my music "suitable" for the general public. So, this one is for my girls.

It's an inside joke. They get it. You don't. Doesn't matter. No one listens to these songs except me... And my captive audience family. So I may as well tailor the music to them!

Lyrics to "Tinky Piky":

ok time to get serious

tinky piky fell in the poo
was it poo from denali
or poo from you?    
  

User Comments:

  1. "Oh God. How old was I? Once the potty humor ends, the solos are pretty good. Still, who is going to make it that far?" - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "The lyrics are awful, and the cliche solos are annoying. But the relentless driving feel isn't too bad." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

Growup

  • Motions track 7
  • started: 2016-07-25
  • recorded: 2016-08-14
  • length: 5:34
  • Travis Emmitt - Battery 4, Massive, Lounge Lizard
  • rating: rate this song
  • mp3: download (HTML5 player)

The last 2 songs were a bit juvenile lyrically, so I wanted to create something more "grown up" for this one. Hence the lame title.

As with all recent songs, this one was improvised and then stitched together, with no planning or writing. Hence the lame music.

Predictable.

Disposable.

Throwup is more like it.

Next.

User Comments:

  1. "Nice title, but the music was just ok." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "Bass is too boomy, but at least there are no vocals! And the music's nice." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

So Tired I'm Wired

  • Motions track 8
  • started: 2016-08-15
  • recorded: 2016-09-03
  • length: 4:53
  • Travis Emmitt - Kontakt 5, TTS-1, Dimension Pro, Reaktor, Studio Instruments
  • rating: rate this song
  • mp3: download (HTML5 player)

I'd been sick for a while, mostly with a bad cough. I was taking medicine to quiet the cough so that I could sleep, but it backfired; some of the meds ended up making me wired, so for a couple nights I got very little sleep.

This song originated during that time period. Can you hear the nervous tension, coupled with fatigue?

User Comments:

  1. "Sounds like a slightly polished version of so many of the songs I used to do on the Triton. Very safe, nothing new. Fine as background, but nothing more." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "Ok. Spacy effect kinda interesting." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

Blinders

  • Motions track 9
  • started: 2016-09-19
  • recorded: 2016-10-31
  • length: 5:03
  • Travis Emmitt - Addictive Drums 2, Kontakt 5
  • rating: rate this song
  • mp3: download (HTML5 player)

Solution for agoraphobes: Blinders, painted to resemble a city. Or cave. Or womb.

Anyway, this one's funky. Took me forever to finish, which kinda sucked the spontaneity out of it.

User Comments:

  1. "That low bass sound is really out of tune. Sounds awful. The rest of the song is ok." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "The bass bothers me. The rest is ok." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

Say Mold

More of the sayyyyym. Well, sorta.

Actually, what makes this song different is that I recorded and mixed it all using speakers rather than headphones. As a test.

User Comments:

  1. "Better. Some nice chords in there. I just wish the mix were more subtle. The drums in particular seem heavy-handed." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "Not bad. I like the bass." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)

Going Through the

Last song of the album, barely finished on time. Nonsensical lyrics. But at least there are some. And they refer to the (hastily chosen) album name. So I guess that makes this the "title song". Sorta.

Lyrics to "Going Through the":

going through the motions
keep swimming through the oceans
i have no emotions
as i follow every notions

g g g g g g g g g goin'
s s s s s s s s s snowin'
m m m m m m m m m mowin'
f f f f f f f f f flowin'

foller the leado   
holler the cedo
  

User Comments:

  1. "Don't really like the vocals. The music is just ok." - Travis (2020) (2020-04-17)
  2. "Oh no, vocals again. :( And the bass is too loud." - Travis (2025) (2025-07-13)