Abelan / Anthony Pappalardo

Brooklyn, NY                                       

In 2004 Apple released GarageBand, a free and simple consumer audio program loaded with pre-set sounds and instrument emulators. Shortly after Apple introduced a lower price-point plastic Macbook in white or black that for some, became the Tascam 4-Track of the early-aughts. Despite GarageBand’s relatively extensive capabilities, especially for free software, the program had a sound and there was something almost warm about the swirly, shitty effects, and slightly off drums. I ended up releasing a 12” and cassette EP on Dais Records in 2012, under the name Italian Horn, recorded exclusively on the software.

A few months ago, I was looking for a simple drum emulator online and had this idea to revisit that process, but instead of making low fidelity guitar-based whatever, I wanted to make the most simple music—beat-driven drones that let the listener hear what they want as they pulse for a few minutes. The only parameters were that all the sounds needed to be made from free shit I found online and assembled in GarageBand.

So far, I’ve “released” five EPs on Bandcamp as Abelan—a made-up word with a nod to Western Massachusetts’ finest made up name band, Sebadoh. The idea is that you can listen to the songs in sequence or as individual chapters but each EP builds off the prior. I wanted to make uncomplicated music that you could just let do whatever, preferably listened to in the AM before your brain wakes up. I decided to give the songs number names to make them less loaded but each has a reference. For example, the track “THIRTEEN | 013” was made after I watched Chad Muska’s Epicly Later’d episode and another was born by finding a weird combo of settings that reminded me of Silver Apples. Sometimes it’s a phrase that leads to the basis of a song. “No one has names,” popped into my head, so I quickly chanted it into a voice emulator, set it to “German Woman,” and had a track an hour later.


- Anthony / Abelan