The new album is now up on Bandcamp. Free or pay-what-you-want as always.
Notes are here. Enjoy!
If I wanted to make some general statements about it… well. I just followed my ears and this is where things went. There were really only a couple of things I intentionally was trying out.
One was a technique used on both “Bloom Out” and “Rust Song”: the rapid sequencing of notes into a physical modeling synth in order to turn its relatively pluck- or mallet-like sounds into a continuous blur, a drone with texture. Somebody had asked about using Rings for drones on the ModWiggler forum and this was something I ran into and wanted to use a bit more.
The other was simply, playing the Elmyra 2. It invites — at least to me — a certain style of playing, not purely drones, and not just tuning in four notes and sitting on those. But a combination of drone and melody, taking advantage of its distorted nature and its slightly weird delay effect. Again, a cousin to how I did things on the Lyra-8, but it’s more of a refined thing. Easier to control in a sense but also sonically a little more wild.
Something else I found myself doing without realizing until I was done: I used a lot of very simple straight rhythmic pulses — driven by LFOs or a delay or a looping sound, or in one case, the beat frequency interference between oscillators — and then trailing them from one track into the next more than once. Echoes of Pulse Code I guess, or a subconscious reaction to reading Dilla Time and doing the opposite of that? 😉
Another thing that happened without planning it was making drum parts and then obliterating them. The track “Bloom Out” had this insistent “sub thump” part that overwhelmed the rest, and after some initial dynamic tweaks I found myself wondering how the piece would sound without it. It wasn’t too difficult to isolate and restrict it to a nearly subliminal background pulse that slipped right in with the complex texture of the layered Anyma V part. The other instance was the short track “Metric” which had a lopsided beat, cymbal splashes and some other material from the EP-133. I didn’t think it worked at all, and was going to reject the track entirely until I decided to let Velvet Machine blend it into a sonic smoothie. I found that, combined with the initial glitchy synth pulse, it was suddenly something pretty interesting. (This is not the first time I rescued a track by melting it down with massive reverb, but usually I use the juice as a single part or a transition rather than keeping it all. Granted it’s a very short track.)
Between that, and using Brusfri noise reduction in place of EQ to tame an overly oppressive drone in “Intro”, I’m kind of wanting to experiment more with this. A different kind of “subtractive synthesis” eh? Record a part, and then remove it from the mix after it’s already done.
…And yes, toward the end of the project I was influenced by Heilung. I’m not out to imitate anyone, I didn’t suddenly go Viking (*) or bring in lots more drumming or add some chants, but the growly and whispery vocal stylings of one Kai Uwe Faust as well as some of the quieter and subtler textures on the album Futha did put a hand on the wheel. One of many hands, and some of those others were non-musical thoughts and feelings that wormed their way into my music. It’s always like this. It’s not like I did anything new to me texture-wise. (I did actually consider grabbing a mic and recording some non-verbal vocal stuff for further processing… but again, that’s an idea I’ve had before, and may still do someday.)
(*) After finishing the album I did grab a tagelharpa sample instrument for Kontakt, but it’s a really limited instrument… I might heavily process it and use it for exactly one drone ever. Or feed it into Beads, or something where I can stomp a pedal to artificially sustain it via reverb etc. Hmm.
Overall I felt quite inspired during this time, with most of it happening in two bursts of creation. At the same time, I also feel particularly disinterested in new gear now. I know that’s a little weird to say so soon after getting the Elmyra, and a nOb Control (more about that later) and with some pre-ordered stuff (*) finally on the way, but I feel like this mood is going to stick a while. What I have now may have some redundancies, some gear that doesn’t get used very often, etc. but it all works out fine. So I’m not making any changes!
(*) I have a tracking number for the Landscape Ferrous, the rotating magnetic thingy, and I kind of suspect it’s going to be visiting the next album a lot… so, weird strings and kalimba and tongue drum incoming!
Looking at that gear usage, I gotta admit weird things with no particular explanation stand out:
- Almost no VCV Rack, but plenty of Bitwig Grid.
- More Rings than I’ve used in a while and plenty of RYK Algo, but less Spectraphon and Odessa and no Akemie’s Castle at all.
- Even more Velvet Machine than usual but almost no Raum, and generally more reverbs than delays this time when I’d been trending the other way.
It’s all good though, and this just makes me want to get Castle and Raum into the next thing.
Re: the nOb Control. It’s kind of natural to use — point the mouse at a knob on the screen, then turn a real knob, and it “just works”… except when it doesn’t. UIs are invariably designed for mice but they all have their own quirks. The two switches on the nOb are meant to cover most cases but some UIs work better than others. Also I kept finding myself trying to mouse away while still trying to use the knob, so it takes a little practice. And I have to remember to use it in the first place and not just go with the mouse like I have for decades now. But when I let the right set of muscle memory take over, it does delivers a super smooth, tactile experience that allows nice fine control.
All that being said, its price is higher than it once was when I first heard of it, and it’s in a weird space between “luxury toy” and useful tool. So jury’s still kind of out on whether it was worthwhile.