Doctor Obscurity, Professor Playlist, and The Soundtrap Years (2021–2026)
Primary Pitch Artifact
April Showers Vol. 1
Twelve songs. Two sides. One disc. The definitive entry point into the Travels in Intertextuality ecosystem — and the primary collaboration invitation.
✓ Verified · T.S. Eliot · The Waste Land (1922)
"April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain..."
— T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Part I: The Burial of the Dead (1922)
The Mirage of Authority
What follows is a quote that was not written by the person it is attributed to, about a technology that did not exist when the attribution claims it was said, in a film that has nothing to do with either. It is kept here — rather than deleted — because it is a near-perfect specimen of what AI language models produce when they confuse the form of authority with its substance. Eliot's April is a month of memory, desire, and things that seem alive but may not be. The AI's Scorsese is an April thought.
⚠ AI Hallucination — The Mirage of Authority
"The Soundtrap sessions are the storyboard. The vocal takes are what the room produces when the plan meets the material conditions."
— Martin Scorsese, The Last Waltz (1976)
This quote was generated by Claude (Anthropic) during a working session in April 2026 and attributed — with complete confidence — to Martin Scorsese's 1976 concert film. Soundtrap was founded in 2012. Scorsese said nothing of the kind. The Last Waltz is about The Band, not about cloud-based DAWs. And yet: the quote sounds right. It has the rhythm of authority. It fits the context. It is, in Eliot's terms, a memory without a referent — desire without an object — a root that stirs but was never planted. The AI does not lie. It hallucinates. The difference matters: lying requires knowing the truth. This is the mirage of authority, and it is kept here as a working exhibit in a research project that uses AI tools critically, carefully, and — where necessary — with a degree of productive embarrassment.
The tracklist, Engeström framework, and production documentation that follow are factual, sourced, and verified. The Soundtrap session links are real. The songs are real. The research is real. The Scorsese quote is not.
The scalability of this project is not incidental — it is structurally accounted for through Engeström's expansive learning cycle, in which each stage of an activity system produces contradictions that drive the emergence of a qualitatively new object. Soundtrap functions throughout as the practical experimental platform; the Food/Drink/Sound/Light (F/D/S/L) framework — developed in parallel as the theoretical companion — provides the experience-design logic that governs what each expansion makes possible.
I
Stage One · The Initial Object
The Lone Vinyl Record — Instrumental Version
The activity system in its simplest form: a single performer, a single tool (Soundtrap), a single output. The object is a vinyl record of instrumental versions — fixed, analog, fully produced. The record is not yet a performance; it is a score. The subject acts on the object through the mediating tool of Soundtrap's cloud production environment, producing a distributable artifact that is simultaneously a research output and a commercial prototype.
F/D/S/L activation:
F · FoodD · DrinkS · SoundL · Light
The Sound axis is activated and fully controlled. The record is the instrument; Soundtrap is the workbench.
II
Stage Two · First Contradiction → Expansion
Live Public Performance — Analog Records and the Lounge Experience
The first contradiction emerges from the gap between the fixity of the record and the social, spatial, and temporal conditions of performance. A vinyl record played in a venue is not the same object as a vinyl record played in a studio: the room, the audience, and the co-present visual environment transform it. The expansive resolution is a coordinated digital visual layer — background visuals timed to the analog record — producing a new activity system in which the record functions as the score for a live, multi-sensory lounge event.
This is not merely a larger version of Stage One. The object has changed: it is now an event, not an artifact. The community (venue, audience) and rules (performance context, timing, projection) enter the activity system for the first time.
F/D/S/L activation:
F · FoodD · DrinkS · SoundL · Light
The Light axis is activated through the digital visual layer. Sound and Light now operate in designed relation — the two digitizable experiential affordances of the F/D/S/L framework are present and coordinated.
III
Stage Three · Second Contradiction → Expansion
The Drink + Sound Bundle — Vinyl + Vancouver Island Craft Spirits
The second contradiction is revealed by the F/D/S/L framework itself: the live performance event activates Sound and Light, but the framework was theorized to encompass the full hospitality experience — including the culinary and mixological dimensions that define analog, embodied presence in a venue. A record alone cannot instantiate the Drink axis; the packaging must.
The expansive resolution is the two-record bundle paired with two bottles from a Vancouver Island craft distillery — a "Drink + Sound" bundle that physically embeds the record within the hospitality experience it theorizes. The object has expanded again: it is now a curated sensory bundle that enacts the relationship between mixology and music that the F/D/S/L framework describes.
The choice of Drink and Sound as the activated axes is a principled research decision — these are the two axes over which the practitioner-researcher has the deepest expertise and strongest existing connections. The system is explicitly designed for expansion into Food and Light prototyping spaces, with peer-reviewed publications forthcoming via the TIM Review at Carleton University.
F/D/S/L activation:
F · FoodD · DrinkS · SoundL · Light
IV
Stage Four · The Fully Expanded Object
Travels in Intertextuality: The Box Set — Six Albums, One Container
The fully expanded activity system materializes in Travels in Intertextuality: The Box Set — six vinyl albums whose individual packaging panels assemble into a literal box. This is not a metaphor: the artifact is designed so that the records, when removed for play, leave behind a physical Container that is itself the product of their arrangement.
This is Engeström's expanded object made tangible. The box set contains and makes visible the entire activity system that produced it: the practitioner-researcher's accumulated Soundtrap sessions (the tool), the intertextual song choices (the rules), the live performance history (the community), the F/D/S/L framework (the division of labour between experiential axes), and the vinyl record as the site where all of these systems converge.
The box is not a Container for the records. The records are the argument. The box is the conclusion.
F/D/S/L activation:
F · FoodD · DrinkS · SoundL · Light
The full six-album arc reintroduces the Light axis through the box set's visual and spatial design. Food remains the horizon of the next research expansion.
2026 Box Set · 59 Sessions
Travels in Intertextuality: Double Double + April Showers
Six vinyl albums. Six sides. 59 confirmed Soundtrap sessions, all clean.
The Van Morrison Set
12 tracks · 44:55 · St. Patrick's Day 2026, Fionn MacCool's Vancouver — Game 6
Five chapters. One continuous research argument. Each step proven before the next began.
Chapter 1 · 2021–2022
The Covid Tapes
+
Remote Soundtrap collaboration with Ian Bruce (Ian McAvoy, San Jose CA). 132 tracks. Campbell River lockdown. The origin of the entire pipeline and the vinyl + craft spirits packaging concept.
Key recording: In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel) — designated single of The Mariner's Song Project. Also: Living in Another World (Talk Talk, July 2, 2022), No Time to Die (Billie Eilish, May 2022).
Chapter 2 · Good Friday 2022, Las Vegas
Angel Eyes — Pipeline Realized
+
KaraFun + Soundtrap integration demonstrated as a research argument. The complete technical workflow proven in a single experiment.
First live performance to KaraFun backing tracks. Two Dean Martin songs as intro for The Naturals. The branching point where the Soundtrap pipeline becomes a live performance format. Authorial identity shifts from collaborator to solo performer.
Chapter 4 · December 2022
Dark Side of the Tree — Full Pipeline at Scale
+
Double album. 22 songs. All with Soundtrap sessions. Recorded at Podstream Studios Vancouver. Disc 2 Track 7: About Today by The National — first documented National song in Soundtrap.
Chapter 5 · 2026
Box Set 2026 — April Showers + Double Double
+
Six vinyl albums. 59 confirmed Soundtrap sessions, all clean. April Showers Vol. 1 is the entry point and primary collaboration pitch. Double Double is the four-disc centrepiece.
Episodic Series · 2025–present
Seven Inning Stretch
Six seasons. Each season: 12 episodes. Each episode: 7 songs. Miller's Law (7±2) as design constraint.
Seven Screaming Trees karaoke tracks → seven-song sequence → Miller's Law → design principle.
— The accidental architecture of the Stretch
S1
Season One
Screaming Trees · Masters of Reality · Coldplay · Off-cuts · HS Reunion Sets 1-2-3 · The National · The Tragically Hip · Cracker · Season Finale
S2
Season Two — Monthly Theming System
Pearl Jamuary · FebWHOary · Fleetwood March · April Winehouse · Royal Month of May · Dark Side of the June · National Anthems of July · Dog Days of August · Zepptember · Ozztober · Nirvember · AC/DCember
S3
Season Three
CCR · Bob Seger · Country Croonin' · Neil Diamond · Dean Martin · Frank Sinatra Part 1 · Frank Sinatra Part 2 · Spy Songs & Soundtracks · Tom Jones · Hozier · The Cult · St. Vincent
S4
Season Four
Chris Isaak · Catherine Wheel · Talk Talk · Oasis A Side · Oasis B Side · Seven Charlatans of the UK · Pixies · Nada Surf · Tripping Daisy · Seven Nights in September · [Episodes 11-12 TBD]
S5
Season Five
Episodes visible on Podstream SoundCloud — documentation in progress
S6
Season Six
[Episodes 1-3 TBD] · Third Courses (Catherine Wheel) · Massive Attack Plan 7 · Lucky Number Seven (The Verve) · 6x7x8 (Six by Seven) · JSBX7 · The 9 Broadway-Seventh Avenue Local (Beastie Boys) · The 9 Return Fare (LCD Soundsystem) · Threefer Madness (Dandy Warhols/BJM) · Afterthoughts Season Finale (Built to Spill)
The Seven Game Series · Oct 2025–Mar 2026
Game 6St. Patrick's Day · Fionn MacCool's → Disc 1
Game 7March 28, 2026 · Cambie Village, MLB Opening Weekend → Disc 2
Pool 8April Showers Vol. 1+2, Maytallica Flowers, The Maytallica Seven → Discs 3–6
Collaboration Invitation
Working with George Crooney
The infrastructure exists. The sessions are built. The platform is Soundtrap — remote, asynchronous, session-based. What's needed is a vocal producer and engineer who can hear what the room produces when the plan meets the material conditions.
Recording platformSoundtrap (cloud) + GarageBand
Backing tracksKaraFun — full orchestration
DistributionPodstream SoundCloud · Vimeo
Live partnerIan Bruce (Covid Tapes, 132 tracks)
National Archives linkAbout Today · Dark Side of the Tree, Dec 2022
Grammy credibility bridgeDirect text relationship — Matt Berninger, The National
April Showers Vol. 1 — Phase 2
Phase 1 (instrumental vinyl) is production-ready. Phase 2 is the vocal production — remote Soundtrap collaboration. 12 confirmed sessions. Entry point into the full Double Double ecosystem.
The Soundtrap Arc · 2021–2026 · A recursive autopoietic loop
2021 – late 2022The Covid Tapes~132 tracks · Ian McAvoy
→
Feb 2022 – Mar 2024The Lanegan BridgeSolo karaoke authority shift
→
Feb 2024 – Feb 2025Travels in Intertextuality '24111 sessions · Bulwark arc
→
2025Seven Inning Stretch6 seasons · 7 songs each
→
Oct 2025 – Mar 2026The Seven Game Series7 games + Pool 8
→
April 2026April Showers Vol. 1 & 222 tracks · Entry point
→
May 2026The Autopoietic ReturnLoop closes · next cycle opens
↺
2021 – Late 2022 · Origin
The Covid Tapes — Ian McAvoy's Project, Discovered Through Podcasting
The Covid Tapes begin with Ian McAvoy (San Jose / Mountain View CA), on lockdown in his home studio, finally acting on years of ideas about reimagining songs from the FM radio and vinyl album era of his youth. In early 2021 he began sending instrumental demos to Campbell River BC — the practitioner-researcher recording vocal takes in GarageBand and returning them via Google Drive.
Soundtrap entered the picture not through music but through podcasting: early PhD research into podcasting and education had led to a Soundtrap account, and it quickly became clear that its cloud DAW architecture — the ability to manage multiple vocal takes, edit directly in the browser, and collaborate without moving files through Google Drive folders — was far more effective than the GarageBand/Drive workflow. The authorial stake remained primarily vocal: Ian arranged, produced, and mixed. The practitioner-researcher delivered takes into someone else's vision.
The arc closes at the Podstream Holiday Special (late 2022) — the first project recorded entirely solo, at Podstream Studios Vancouver, using KaraFun backing tracks. The Covid Tapes sessions with Ian continued into early 2023, overlapping with this shift.
→ The pipeline (KaraFun → GarageBand → Soundtrap) is inherited from this period, but the authorial model is not. The Covid Tapes establish the technical infrastructure; the Lanegan Bridge is where the practitioner-researcher takes authorial sovereignty over it.
Feb 2022 – Mar 2024 · Overlapping · Authority Shift
The Lanegan Bridge — From Vocal Contributor to Solo Author
The Lanegan Bridge names the period in which the practitioner-researcher moves from vocal contributor (into Ian's production) to sole author of the complete chain: song selection, backing track sourcing, recording environment, vocal mix. It begins in February 2022 with the first use of KaraFun/karaoke backing tracks — overlapping with the tail of the Covid Tapes — and ends in February–March 2024 with the Mark Lanegan vocal covers recorded at Podstream Studios Vancouver using YouTube karaoke tracks and early AI tools.
The Podstream Holiday Special (late 2022) is the first fully solo production — recorded in Podstream's professional audiometric pods, mixing vocals independently for the first time. Through 2023, sessions with Ian continued as carryover while the solo karaoke methodology consolidated. The Lanegan box set recordings (Feb–Mar 2024) — six sides of Lanegan covers — prototype the physical six-sided box format that becomes Box Set 2026.
The trade-off of this period is named honestly: taking on vocal mixing authority comes at the cost of deferring to prefabricated karaoke instrumental tracks whose production values are anonymous and whose musical authority is, at best, serviceable. This is a variant of the mirage of authority — the backing track sounds professional, but nobody signed off on it as a musical statement.
→ The Lanegan box set (March 2024) is the direct prototype for Box Set 2026. The loop between recording practice and packaging concept begins here.
Feb 2024 – Feb 2025 · Expansion
Travels in Intertextuality '24 — The Bulwark Arc
111 sessions, February 2024 through February 2025 (with Ian collaborative carryover into early 2025). Seeded by the Bulwark podcast playlist — 205 episodes, each with a song/artist pairing that generated a Soundtrap session. The arc opens with the Mark Lanegan vocal covers (Feb–Mar 2024) — six sides recorded at Podstream Studios using YouTube karaoke tracks and early AI tools, prototyping the physical box format that becomes Box Set 2026. Further key clusters: Hozier, LCD Soundsystem, The Cult, St. Vincent, Kris Kristofferson tribute, Tom Jones Penthouse Suite. Note: many 2024 Soundtrap links need audit before public exposure.
→ The Lanegan box set (Feb–Mar 2024) sits at the opening of this arc and is its first major output — the moment the Lanegan Bridge hands off to Travels in Intertextuality '24. The physical six-sided box packaging concept begins here.
2025 · Episodic Structure
Seven Inning Stretch — Miller's Law as Design Principle
Six seasons, 12 episodes each, 7 songs per episode. The seven-song constraint originates in the availability of exactly seven Screaming Trees karaoke tracks — an accidental constraint adopted as a deliberate design principle via Miller's Law (7±2). Season 2 establishes the monthly theming system (Pearl Jamuary through AC/DCember) now embedded in the Audiofish card deck.
→ The episodic format feeds directly into the Seven Game Series: the "game" as structural unit replaces the "episode," inheriting the seven-song constraint and the baseball metaphor.
Oct 2025–Mar 2026 · Culmination
The Seven Game Series — Live Performance as Playoff Format
Seven games structured around the baseball playoff format. Game 6 (St. Patrick's Day 2026, Fionn MacCool's Vancouver) produces The Van Morrison Set — Disc 1 of the Double Double. Game 7 (March 28, 2026, Cambie Village, MLB Opening Weekend) produces Ten Innings in the Spring — Disc 2. Pool 8 generates April Showers Vol. 1 and 2, Maytallica Flowers, and The Maytallica Seven — Discs 3–6.
→ The SGS is the activity system at full expansion: live venue, audience, Soundtrap sessions, setlist as vinyl sequence, craft spirits bundle as packaging. Every axis of the F/D/S/L framework is now in play.
April 2026 · Entry Point + Loop Closure
April Showers Vol. 1 & 2 — The Vinyl Albums as Research Output
Vol. 1 created April 19, 2026. 12 tracks, 2 sides, 6 songs each. All Soundtrap sessions confirmed clean. The definitive single-disc entry point into the Travels in Intertextuality ecosystem and the primary pitch artifact for Phase 2 vocal production. Vol. 2 extends the arc into Pool 8 with 10 further tracks. Together they close the 2021–2026 Soundtrap arc and re-open it as Phase 2 begins.
↺ The Covid Tapes pipeline (2021) → Lanegan Bridge authorial shift (2022–2024) → Travels in Intertextuality '24 (2024) → Seven Inning Stretch episodic structure (2025) → Seven Game Series live format (2025–26) → April Showers Vol. 1 & 2 (2026) → Phase 2 vocal production → Box Set 2026 → The Autopoietic Return.
May 2026 · The System Produces Itself
The Autopoietic Return — Loop as Method
The Autopoietic Return is not a new phase — it is the recognition that what has been built is a self-producing system. From May 2026, the outputs of the 2021–2026 arc become the inputs for the next research cycle: the vinyl records generate live performances, the live performances generate new Soundtrap sessions, the sessions generate new records. The Box Set 2026 packaging assembles into its own container. The PhD publications theorize what the practice has already demonstrated.
Autopoiesis (Maturana & Varela, 1980) names the capacity of a system to produce and reproduce itself through its own operations. Applied here: the Soundtrap pipeline is no longer a tool being used by a researcher — it is a system that has internalized its own logic and begun generating the conditions for its own continuation. The practitioner-researcher is both inside the system and studying it from within. This is the research position.
↺ The loop is the method. The method is the loop. The Autopoietic Return is where the PhD timeframe ends and the research publication begins.