wash drums

in the recording studio

lake district

over the weekend samples were recorded in the lake district for this project
they consist of water sounds, bird calls and foot steps
these with go in between songs and occasionally during

drums

Last night I recorded drums for Tzoots and Drift with drummer Ben Wallbanks
Neumann M147 at the body of the kit, just above the kick and a
Rode NT4 centre middle overhead
in a beautiful sounding room

guitar

i found that recording my acoustic guitar doing the exact the same thing as my classical and panning them separately sounds full and interesting

space

i've been trying out different spaces to record backton shore
like Brain Deck, I would like to experiment with different rooms to record the first song
i've found an area that gives my djembe a very fat sound but guitar and vocals don't sound so brilliant in there

interwinders

started writing some very short pieces of music to go in between songs
the first one is about two people connecting sexually using metaphors of the sea
as this intewinder joins two of the later songs on the album the words in the verses don't form sentences
it's greater meaning is about the interconnectivity and unity of everything, oneness and love

Lips of drifting tidal

Ripple roll away

Glisten

Touching body braking

Slowly surge and swell

Splashes, remind us

We are not the droplets

We are all the sea

flute

with the recordings of a tapping flute
i made a bass sample and percussion samples
then i made a bass line and beats to drift

fiddle

jammed Drift with a fiddle player today

interconnectivity

today i started to attempt to explain the relationship between the music and its meaning, i'm probably going to update this lots of times

Concept and outline

A six track EP that progresses from a simple acoustic set up to a full electric band with glitch rhythms.  Each song is structured individually to include some progression.  The Ep itself will progress from track to track in the same manner as a concept album through the instrumentation and themes (within the lyrics and the mood).

As the narrative theme becomes more abstract and all encompassing the music becomes less organic as it is overcome by technology.

Throughout the album there are several recurring themes in the lyrics, the quotations in italics show one of those themes - water.  The tide, the sea and the ocean, rain, flow and fog.  Throughout the EP this theme represents several things but the main one is this intrinsic relationship between constancy and change, the great settle of masses of water filled with rippling detail and movement.  

Track Listing

Track 1 – Bacton Shore
bacton shore is no more and that i can't ignore

Bacton Shore is a song that introduces a thought process that rids of restriction, attachment and language.  The opening song describes the EP itself through the story of a town of people that disappear, like the music eventually does in the final track.  Through a slimmer metaphor of decree, which isn’t realised without an overview of the entire EP, the song will start a thought process that progresses, and yet remains constant throughout. 

Track 2 – Tzoots
i'm standing in the rain, the rain

Tzoots uses the relationship of two people to address issues of restriction, willingness, causality and change.  Tzoots highlights how character’s perceptions create opposing views, what effects they have and how they can change.  One character lives an alternative lifestyle that is difficult to attain because of societies rules and regulations.  The other character starts to judge this lifestyle negatively before finally appreciating its benefits declaring in the final line 'you're the one that makes me feel alive'.  The music reflects the mood of those characters and describes, along with the lyrics, the progression and blending of their relationship.  The blurring of the characters in a penultimate, discordant section of the piece releases to a seemingly enlightening experience that is soiled finally by the songs aggressive rock motive that represents the constancy within change as the listener is reminded of earlier in the music.  The separate vocal sounds on the recording will represent the the characters and their merging together. 

"One can't live mindfully without being enmeshed in psychological processes that are around us." - Philip Zimbardo          

Track 3 – Drift 
the fog wont let her see past the tide

Drift uses situation to discuss nature, tranquility, mindfulness, attachment and ‘freedom and restraint’.  A narrator uses the idea that opposites are equal and interrelated using the concept of a traveler trapped in a stale state of mind.  After much chopping and changing, the  song ends by quoting the beginning but with a chord progression from later in the song representing the idea that the cycle has a linear property more like a spiral (change within constancy and vice versa).

"Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear."- Baruch Spinoza

Track 4 – Wash 
let it rain, so ink is dripping off my page

Wash then accepts the propositions of the previous songs and moves on to concentrate on mindfulness, perception of time and language, openness and tranquility.  Wash repeats a chorus that suggests all has already happened but has an always varying musical foundation that indicates, again, the change within constancy.  This character has opened up to the power of the mind and allows the idea of the equality of opposites and the limitations involved in language to be relaxing.  There is a repeating chorus that has a different backdrop but the same melody each time.  Like the verse in Drift and the main riff in Tzoots this represents linear circularity.  

"I don't believe that our will is "free" but I do believe it is possible to give up the illusion that it is. We can still live a moral and fulfilling life without believing in free will." - Susan Blackmore

Track 5 – Rail n Stile
it's just flowing down the drain

Rail n Stile uses abstract phrases, repetition and warps in tempo to hint at thought beyond language and consider causal relationships, time and togetherness.  ‘It is the drain’, a looping lyrical line represents not only the interconnectivity of all and the change within constancy but also the release of a draining thought processes through a dissonant tonal structure that releases to openness (but unlike in Tootz, ends with some clarity).   

"The frame itself thus becomes part of the premise system.  Either, the frame is involved in the evaluation of the messages which it contains, or the frame merely assists the mind in understanding the contained messages by reminding the thinker that these messages are mutually relevant and the messages outside the frame can be ignored." - Gregory Bateson  

Track 6 (unwritten)

Sounds and made up words over an arctic musical landscape ends an EP that concludes mindfulness beyond the realms of language can unlock a door to a tranquil understanding.  The song will dissipate into nothingness, as track 1 anticipates, through an ever increasing sonic filter.   

"Neither from itself nor from another, nor from both, nor from no cause, does anything whatever ever arise at all anywhere."  -  Nagarjuna

bass

borrowing a bass guitar today, started using the bass to determine some rhythms
like a puzzle, for the percussion to work it has to be closely linked to the bass and vis versa

each time i add an instrument i am muting everything but vocals
this gives me a chance to experiment, instead of being locked to the guitar part i composed it to
this way all the instrumentation will support the melody

in folk music it is often the melody and lyrics that are important, hence why there are so many different versions.
the originals sometimes only contained a very loose vocal line

beats

today i removed noise from the percussion samples
then, entered them into a sampler
now, i'm making beats

also
re-working my IP proposal

preperation

i'm currently forming a foundation for all the tracks I have ready to be taken into the studio
the first part of my process is getting all the tempos and tempo changes right
as i am doing this i am adding markers to tell the performer where they are up to and in some cases, what chord it is

i've recorded ghost guitar and vocals for some tracks and started working out new melodies and parts for other instruments

hopefully making a strong foundation, early on will give me more room to be creative later on

a sailors life

yesterday I started to learn a version of
fairport convention, a sailors life
today I started looking into some other versions and scores of the traditional english folk song
hopefully this will give me some ideas compositionally

the resistant concept album

the song sequence [of an album] is no longer an indifferent organisational aspect, but a prime location of meaning and significance, unfolding the actions or adventures of a protagonist.

How to Disappear Completely
voice decries existence "i'm not here, this isn't happening" - devolve into ahhs - voice disappears completely

cord progressions do not project a tonal centre within functional western harmony
expectations of resolution are continually frustrated

the triumph of electronic sounds over organic ones

Jethro Tull - Aqualung
Dettmar

drift wash

Last night I gigged two tracks that I expect to be on the EP.  This gave me a clearer idea of how I wanted them to sound.  The tracks I played (with a friend I am working on them with, Dave Jordan) were Drift and Wash.

Today Dave and I went into the recording studio and recorded a simplified version of Wash.  We wanted to do this anyway but it will also be useful to start creating counter melodies, getting a clearer idea of the structure and thinking more about instrumentation.  It sounds awesome.

radiohead

I found an analytical book about radiohead online and bought it.
It came today, could be of some use.

glitch

Today i recorded lots of samples with the hope of using them for glitchy rhythms in some of my pieces.
I also got a book out of the library entitled 'cracked media: the sound of malfunction' and started to make notes on the first few chapters, it has given me inspiration for this project and others I am currently involved in.

the samples made a nice accidental tune

http://soundcloud.com/crazy-bastard-turtle-bus/accident-tune

drift draft

Currently trying to work out tempos, chords and counter melodies for one of the tracks I expect to be on the E.P, entitled Drift.

(Me + Folk) + (Metronomes + Analysis) = Frustration

in the beginning

I've spent the last 12 months contemplating what I would produce for my individual project for uni but now I'm putting it into words the idea seems to have more structure.

There is now an outline of an idea
Bereshit
in the beginning

A six track EP working on themes of causation and progression
Starting to think about re-writing some songs and creating some new sounds.

That's all for now.