Taken during the writing of 13 Parts, I think I am somewhere in the middle of it lost in sound designing some element.
I use a combination of over 50 synthesised instruments both real and virtualised throughout the album that are all from the 70’s to the early 90’s. The most featured sound is that from a Yamaha DX7 both several versions of real hardware and virtualised. I really found this keyboard and FM synthesises to be such a strong narrative creator and I think about its voice as our lead characters. You will also hear water sounds, rain, and ocean/wind sounds that are also all being generated by synthesises. These are created on a Arp 2600 and a Buchla Music Easel and are there for a few reasons the first being a transitional fluid to help you in and out of each audio story and to bring you down in scale to the cats level so you can experience a more connected feel with the ground level and visual landscapes I hope to create with these textural spaces.
Notes and mentions for each track:
- The Expanding City (part 1) - This track and its counterpart were originally one piece that I decided to split into two like bookends for this albums sound story. The track to me really tells through sound the feeling of what it would be like to watch a city unfold like a flower or render slowly on an old computer.
- Choices - the world is full of them and we are constantly bombarded with them because thats what reality is in some ways. we hope that we make good choices even when we don’t realise that we are making choices. This track to me is an auditory representation of those choices and how they can lead you places.
- 3D Printed Life - Things build and this track is a representation of things building up much like a 3d print would. layer by layer the intensity and complexity of the track builds on its self. Its a fun one to close your eyes to and let it build shapes in your head and you drift off in its soundscape.
- Little Gibson - Named after my guitar that I used in this track this one is a playful jaunt into a weird little place. I was originally going to only use synths for my music going forward I ended up brining a guitar back into the mix and I couldn’t be happier. Its something that I carried forward into the next album because of this track.
- Digital Tigers - This track was written together with my dear friend Courtenay Gasking (C3). Its such a fun and mischievous track that really plays with a fun back and forth nature of high pitched sounds and a wandering low end that wants to know more or might be wanting you to follow it into the shadows.
- Disassembly - Using the power of a virtualised CS-80 the synth that made the blade runner soundtrack so iconic this track for me is brining the city back in as a character and letting it breath a little and remind us that its there.
- Pigments - This is a personal fav track as it was the a moment where I saw my piano playing just magically jump up in complexity. its a fun reflection track that ended up being really positive for me and is one of the last tracks I wrote for this album.
- Left - For me this is like the little stories of what we leave behind each day and the sometimes complicated and delicate feelings that leaves us with.
- Error Proxy - This one has a an out of sync beat on purpose, I really thought it would be fun to have this come into unity as a reward for going through the track.
- Frequency Interlace - Sometimes shit its the fan and gets moving so this is definitely that song for this album. its harder in some ways but rounds out to a fun ending. This song started out long before this album as a weird track I wrote for a 80’s racing montage.
- Underbelly Deli - To me this one gave me the feeling of going to a little noodle bar deep in a dark subway station. The play with soft and grimy and funky tempos and sounds just make this one feel so textured to me. Definitely a favourite and the second to last track I wrote for 13 Parts.
- Colony Reprise - I will admit I wrote this one in a sad place and may sound optimistic but to me its reflective of dreams not realised and sometimes lost to resignation that they will never happen. Its a bitter sweet place and one I wanted to share.
- The Expanding City (part 2) - The second half to the opening ballad this wraps up our story and in some ways its the city folding up again and in other ways its the city continuing to expand but it just depends on what it makes you feel.
