As a drummer and project studio owner I am intrigued by the notion that drums and other percussion instruments could play a larger and more interesting role in modern music. We don't just have to sit at the back and keep the beat! And with that in mind the experimenting began in 2013 with the first installment of Bastardized Percussion. Installment 4 of this series continues the quest using only drums, percussion, my meagre talents, and a lot of messing around with effects that normally wouldn't be used on percussion along with any studio tricks I can dream up. Luckily there are even some unexpected "happy accidents" that help weird things up in a good way! This time out I have kept things more free form and less thematic. In most cases starting with a basic idea then simply adding whatever "felt right" at the time, letting each piece develop as they would. And since the only new instrument added to the percussive arsenal this time is a Thunder Drum, and I stayed away from pealing duct tape off of drum heads, I had to scrounge around for some new sounds. It occurred to me that the dozens of wind chimes Carol has scattered inside and outside of our home, many at head level so I walk into them when not paying attention, might be interesting to record and mess with. Glass chimes, bamboo chimes, and metal ones of all sizes hanging from decorative dragons and hello kitty figures, all waiting to be combined into a wonderfully noisy piece backed only by a djembe and camel bells. (Finally found a piece where I could use the camel bells!!) And not one to waste any part of an instrument that might yield an interesting sound, one of those happy accidents I was mentioning comes from the spring attached to the Thunder Drum. In the piece called Back to Front which layers roto toms, concert toms, a woodblock and a few other things over a bed track which runs backwards for most of the piece, then forward right at the end, I discovered that scraping my fingernails along the spring then eq'ing it just right and running the sound though a couple of effects created a sound that made Carol ask "what is that thing that sounds like a prehistoric bird?" As for the rest there's something different, and hopefully interesting, to discover in each of them as this quest to bastardize as many drum and percussion sounds as I can continues!