Why did I make this painfully strange sound collage? While committed to the spirit of experimentation and cliche avoidance this round, I have mostly been trying to get things sorted before going to the recording stage. I am becoming biased toward this process, as it seems to be more efficient and to yield better results for me.
But this week I listened to the new Daphni album and was reminded of the pleasure of music created in the box, discovering the music by playing with the endless editing and manipulating tools we all have now. This is obviously the new frontier and where everyone is working these days. I am being a contrarian sitting in my kitchen with a guitar and a piece of staff paper, pretending like I'm back in the 19th century. So I decided to be modern this week and start with recording and editing, building a track.
My track was mostly in 5/4, per my own prompt. It was definitely weird but sitting in the space of it for a while it started to seem like music. The melody and lyrics I layered over strongly suggest 4/4, but still disorienting and off somehow. The lyrics were semi automatic and Stipe-ian, seeing if sound might proceed meaning and lead to unexpected, felicitous results. This has happened before. Here I feel like I came up short, but I like my title phrase.
The danger for me of working this way is I might step away after my time has been invested and discover that it is all a big impenetrable mess and doesn't feel good to listen to. Of course this can happen with any process, but this way it seems more likely than not, for me, and more difficult to then wrangle into something that works. But I do - sort of - want to live in my own time, and I do love a lot of music people make this way. So that is how I account for this failure. It was an honest effort.
lyrics
Shift advisor
Early riser
Synthesizer
By the bar
Spinning vinyl
Pure and primal
Soul revival
Start the car
Saudades tapas
River water
Alma mater
Sun to daughter
Note for note
Himalayan
Fiddle playing
God is swaying
Silky haute
Penta tonic
Penta meter
Penta sonics
Penta leider
Paraphrases
Pair of aces
Grace lives in this
Skittle beat
All acoustic
Retro new slick
Disco magic
Bring the heat
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