Written and recorded in Summer 2005. This song is another synth meditation, applying heavy layers of strings in chorus. Occasionally, the string section will peak into a tinny hard-synth sound, evocative of club sequences.
The drums are not an honest loop - well, yes it's a programmed drum sequence, but it was recorded simultaneously with the synth part. While playing, I occasionally hit keys that were programmed to either re-start the sequence (thus causing uneven 'loops') or to diverge from the sequence into a drum roll (listen for it when the guitar dies down in the middle) or other fills.
There is a live guitar part on this song...two in fact! The main electric guitar part, which comes in after 45 seconds of intro, was rehearsed many times but recorded in one take as usual. Somewhere in the middle, comes in a clean guitar part to echo one of the electric guitar riffs, and it remains through to the end of the song. The interplay between the two guitar parts is interesting, and one of the first real successes I've had in combining two very different guitar melodies.
Enjoy the song. Listen with headphones.
right-click here to download song
28 December 2007
Occam's Razor
26 December 2007
South Of The Border, West Of The Sun
In the past year, since Thanksgiving 2006 to be exact, I've been reading many books by Haruki Murakami. MIT gave him the title Artist-In-Residence a couple years back - I wish I was attending MIT back then to hear to him speak. This weekend I finished Murakami's novel South of the Border, West of the Sun and I can assure you that it's one of the worst books I've ever read. Maybe it's because I read so much Murakami that he became too predictable, but his other novels are so much better. If you like trippy, surreal stuff read Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. If you like music and love triangles read Norwegian Wood. The description on the back of the book says that South of the Border is 'mesmerizing', but instead Murakami drags out the plot over one hundred extra pages of filler. The one thing I loved about Murakami was his cultural awareness, especially to music, and how he intelligently laced his works with references to all kinds of artists and composers. However, in this work, it is overdone and forced - it only subtracts from the story. Maybe I burned myself out on Murakami, but to his credit he's written some awesome books. For now, I'm going to take a Murakami hiatus.
In other book news, I recently finished Rosshalde by Hermann Hesse. Fantastic. It's a quick read. I related a lot to the main character (at least back when I was reading it). A really fresh book if you're into the 'individual' or 'Self'.
Right now I'm reading Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. Really, really horrific and eerie but exciting nonetheless.
At home, I found a roll of Ilford HP5 400 film that I probably took in high school. I'm planning on developing it once I get back to MIT, in addition to (hopefully several) rolls of film from my forthcoming trip to Sénégal.
