1. |
Amb
05:40
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Amb started out as an ambient piece. Boredom eventually took the upper hand, though, and I added more and more beats and rythm to the track. The popping drum loop that I created as a result of this ended up being a main component of a huge chunk of the song. In the end, it goes through 3 different genres in about 5 minutes, but I think it works pretty seemlessly compared to a lot of other tracks where I've tried to do the same thing so I'm pretty proud of that. Amb is probably the track that is the easiest on the ears on the whole EP.
Production-wise there are a few cool things here, but not as much as on the other tracks. That big breathy pad at the start, for example, is a marimba with 20 second reverb that I think sounds amazing, and that effect was also mirrored in some things that come into the background during the jazzier part of the track.
In general, I really like the way the things in the background work in this tune actually. There are a lot of glitchy loops and oddities that add some character to most of the first two parts of the song. Aside from that there are also the terribly destroyed sounds that show up in the build up at the end to make the whole track sound like it is breaking into pieces. I love stuff like that.
Aside from this though, there's not really much "sound design" going on. Actually, the mid-section is based around some of the most common types of instruments in western music - piano, drums and bass - and the end section mainly uses guitar and strings, which are also not that uncommon obviously.
The very last orchestral section, by the way, probably took more time to arrange than the rest of the track put together. I'll never in my life write a symphony.
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2. |
The War For Water
07:48
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This weird track named The War for Water started out as a harmony cello part for the orchestral section of Amb. I liked the hook so I saved it to a new project and it was lying there in wait for ages. Originally I was going to make a pretty conventional track from it once I picked it up again, but then I discovered this amazing plugin from iZotope called Iris. This plugin lets you isolate parts of any type of sound to create really weird sounding effects and I ended up splattering it all over the intro. After that, the track kept growing weirder and weirder.
That big, bangy noise section that cuts the intro off pretty abruptly was lifted more or less directly from Steven Wilson's Insurgentes/Grace for Drowning records. It's about the coolest thing I know to break a song like that so I couldn't stop myself from using it. The kind of catchy part that follows was constructed through a tribal rythm I came up with in Spain last summer, in a sort of "where do we go from here" moment coming out of the noise section. That part also has some pretty poppy glitch drums that I really like.
In keeping with the schizo twists and turns of this track, I somehow decided it was a good idea to break into a club-inspired heavy part after that. Drum-wise, the main inspiration for this part was Jon Hopkins' work and the section is pretty dancable in many ways. You know, except for the abrasive distorted cellos that blast in your face for about 2 minutes. Oh, and I say "somehow decided" because it was almost literal hell making this part sound decent, but I decided to keep trying. Resilience, people. Hopefully it payed off!
In some ways this is my favourite track of the EP. It may not be concise and held together in a way that makes it feel like a song, but it is adventurous in more ways than one. Also, the end section really does it for me everytime I listen to it. That section was put together sort of by chance as I threw themes from the beginning of the song into it pretty haphazardly. Because of this it keeps the sense of excitement for me, since I didn't meticulously plan the section out for ages, which I did to a larger degree with most of the rest of the stuff.
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3. |
The Dust That Gathers
05:32
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There is a function in most DAWs called time-stretching. This supercool function allows you to stretch out the soundwave of any sound. It's good for nudging accents a bit back and forth to tighten a track up, but can also be used to pull things out to extremes. The weird squeeky sounds at the start of this track is a result of doing exactly that to some piano melodies. I think it sounds awesome.
In the long run, that sound was way too abrasive, though, so I added some strings to mellow it out. Then I put on some drums and a funky bassline, looped i and considered the first part of the song done.
The second part of the track was a rap instrumental for a friend of mine initially, but after he didn't find time to complete the lyrics for it I added the section onto the tail of the first section instead. To compensate for the lack of vocals over the pretty repetitive beat I did what most people do in that situation and added some solos. The second solo is a pretty destroyed (and time stretched) electric piano. It's catchy, I think, but really nothing that special aside from that.
The first solo, though has a pretty cool story. You may notice all the wind-in-mic noises going through that track and thats because it's a field recording of a guy playing the sax on the streets of Edinburgh. I recorded about a minutes worth of stuff from him, sneakily, and then imported that audio into Logic. Of course, he was not in key or tune or anything with the song, but a little studio magic will take care of that. Or a lot of studio magic, I guess. The finished product sounds absolutely nothing like the actual recording - but it sounds cool!
The sax makes a comeback in the string section towards the end of the track and ties it all together with a nice little bow. Here, I tried to make it sound as much as possible as an old blues guy in San Fransisco playing his heart out in the big finale. It's pretty hard to emulate that artificially, of course, but not for the want of trying!
In general, this songs sounds old and creeky to me - and hence the title.
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4. |
Today I Killed My Ego
05:08
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Named after a lyric Warrel Dane spits out in the Nevermore song Evolution 169, this track predates the rest of the EP by about a year and a half. I always liked it though, and I think it fit the rest of the songs, so I put it on here.
Most of this track is bitcrushed to extremes, and actually if you listen to the EP from start to finish you will notice more and more bit crushing in each song. This was not intentional at all and I just realised it while writing this.
Anyway, bitcrushing is a really great effect for making things sound evil and heavy. Again, the main component of this song is a piano, but it's mostly unrecognizable because of all the bitcrushing and other effects that are on it. There is a naked piano in the calmer mid section, though, that has some cool glitch effects going on with it.
That mid-section in general is cool to me because of the juxtaposition between the icy piano and ambience and the continued bitcrushing.
Finally, the part that comes out of this calmer section is meant to be as heavy as absolutely possible, and I hope I succeeded with that goal. A cool finale to the EP, I think!
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Indifferentia London, UK
Songs I occasionally write
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