what the hell
20-Jul-2019 10:38:45 AM
man, again…real strange past couple days. let’s start with the good stuff.
dan, fiona and i were back in the studio this past tuesday night to do some more tracking. i showed up a little bit later than everyone else cuz i needed a nap after work. when i arrived, dan had just finished trying out some lap steel stuff for “29,” and fiona and matt were setting up fi’s lever harp. after figuring out how best to mic the thing, fiona began tracking some different takes for an intro track.
this thing sounds gorgeous. fiona put down two initial takes, one with a real steady meter and one that was a little less structured, but still with a driving arpeggio-type progression pushing it forward. i suggested she try playing it even looser and expressively, taking advantage of the fact that it had no real strict meter and to add some feeling to it. she tried it several different ways, playing in a way that was more dynamic, emotive and playful. just as we were about to start a take, we heard the whistle of a train approaching. matt sighed and we all kinda shrugged and said “well, maybe it’ll be perfect.” fiona ended up nailing the take, just a really gorgeous, evocative performance on the harp. really moving and hypnotic. the train’s whistle seemed to sound in response to fiona’s playing. i don’t even know if the mics picked up the passing train, but it was just one of those cool, magical moments that only happen every so often. i’m excited to develop this intro track a little further.
one of our other goals for the day was to work on the beginning of “say it right.” when we play the song live, i do some finger drumming on the digitakt to help get the band in time and to create a kind of transition. it usually ends up sounding pretty cool and it’s something we landed on without much planning or talking about it. fiona always builds this little guitar drone during that live transition and will let it run throughout the song. we decided the recorded version really needed that little intro, with the finger drumming and fiona’s drone. so, we took a few minutes to bash out the little digitakt part and then fiona spent some time building a really lovely guitar and vocal drone to run throughout the song. oh my god, it sounds so nice. it adds this really subtle melancholy to the song that i just love so, so much. i feel like it really takes it to a whole new level. fiona described it as being like adding a subtle mint garnish to a cocktail: it’s like adding a very small element to a mixture that changes how the overall thing is perceived by the senses. it’s so cool.
the night before going into the studio, dan, fiona and i met up at dan’s house to share the ideas that we all had for overdubs and to just make sure there wasn’t going to be a whole lot of overlap with the parts we were all imagining. it was a really fun little workshop that we had in dan’s den. sweaty as hell, but really productive and fun. i shared with them some parts i had written for “say it right” on mellotron and organ and they both really enjoyed them, which felt really, really nice. to be honest, though, after fiona tracked that gorgeous underlying drone for that song, i’m not entirely sure the song needs anymore additional melodic content. i guess we’ll have to see how all of that ends up working together.
in my free time, i’ve been trying to put together some textures for “old body.” i’ve been super into like twinkly, pitch-shifted granular stuff, so i’m trying to make something along the lines of that. something that’s generative and isn’t tied to a tempo or a noticable pattern. for the planetarium show that we played back in the winter, i came up with this generative pattern on the digitakt that was based on samples of a dx7 celeste tone, all the samples tuned to different notes within the song’s key. i’ve been trying to use the same pattern but run through different effects in ableton, but i’m struggling with it. i might abandon that idea and try something else because i just feel like i’m not getting the vibe that i’m hearing in my head.
22-Jul-2019 8:50:06 PM
i was writing this post and put it away for awhile cuz i was at work and hadn’t been able to come back to it until now. as luck would have it, i finally landed on a combination of sound sources and processing chains that i really, really like for “old body” and i’m super excited about it. i told fiona today that it sounds like being underwater and looking up at the rays of sunshine coming down through the water. i’m excited to work more with fiona on developing it. i have like two more little ideas for it that i’m gonna try out and see what she thinks. hopefully she enjoys it!
i’m having a hard time remembering where this post was leading me, considering i had several days away from it and my train of thought was interrupted. i think i was going to mention how this past friday, i passed one of my kidney stones. it came out painlessly at like 8:30 in the morning. i was at home cuz i got cut from work for the day, thank god.
earlier that morning, i had dropped my car off at a mechainc to get my brakes looked at and fixed. they called me like a couple hours after i passed my stone and told me it would be $2,300 to fix my brakes and take care of some other things on my car. i was immediately in shock. i told the lady that i wasn’t expecting it to be that much, and that i had like $600 that i was able to throw at the repairs. she said that if they did the bare minimum, it would be $1,600. so i got off the phone and panicked and felt sad for an hour. fortunately my mom agreed to lend me some money to cover the remainder of the cost of repairs that i couldn’t afford. i feel super fortunate and grateful that she agreed to help me out, but i also couldn’t help feeling this like overwhelming sense of sadness and guilt about being 31 and having to ask my mom for help. it fucking sucks. y’know, for as much as i love to complain about my job and tell people insane stories about things that happen there, i really do love it. i think my job is hilarious and it’s given me some unique skills and i feel like it’s weird and challenging enough to never really get boring. but fuckin’ a, it sucks not making enough money to build myself a safety net for things like car repairs and shit. i’m like just scraping by as it is, like just barely having enough money to get me paycheck to paycheck. it sucks that i’ve been living like this for so long, like i don’t even know any different and i like fantasize about being able to afford really basic shit without feeling like an intense amount of insecurity and worry about digging myself into a financial rut.
on top of the car stuff, liv got really sick and was bedridden for several days. she’s on like day 5 of this stomach flu and it’s just been really crummy to see her suffering so much with it. we went to the med center on friday night and they weren’t a ton of help. i’m hoping that she will start feeling significantly better here soon. 🙁
fortunately i got my car back today after not having it for the weekend. it felt really good to get in it and have the brakes working just as they should. it felt like a whole new car for a minute! so at least i’m back on the road and making some headway on some things for this fiona record. i’ve been listening to the rough mixes a lot and it sounds so great. i already feel so proud of it and we still have several days of tracking left! i can’t wait to see how it all comes together. i think people are gonna really enjoy it.
