<0.00> - <1.28> This introductory passage is a homage to a lot of artists who work with ambient music, (The Lotus Eaters for example) as well as some of the eerier parts of music composed for some of the video games that featured in my Petcha Kucha presentation earlier in the semester (Half Life, Deus Ex etc). This part is mostly bass and guitar feedback & sustain, with some additional pick scrapes and instrument noise. The percussive sounds come from a small African 'thumb piano' which is basically a piece of wood with some nails of different lengths attached to it.
This is probably the part I spent the most time on after the recording process was complete, obviously it sets the scene for the song to come so it's important to get it right. I usually try to keep recorded sounds pretty raw, this section is probably the most 'affected' by various filters and what not, mostly simple reverb. Something else that made its way into this part was the sound of my office chair creaking, which was initially accidental of course, but turned out to be a useful error.
<1.29> - <3.37> This composition is around 60% Pelican, 30% Botch and 10% Earth. It's based on Pelican's Ephemeral, with some Botch like double-kick and obscure stopping point in the phrase, the 10% Earth comes from mimicking their use of piano chords on key chords of the guitars. The guitar and bass tracks were recorded simply by mic-ing up the amps as per usual - one close and another a bit further away. The drums were a direct line from my sheisen ass electronic drum kit - into an amplifier - out through 2 passive DI's (to cut the noise out) and into the desk. It sounds silly but this is by far the best drum sound I've been able to get out of this kit by using it this way. The piano parts, although not being very high in the mix, were one of the harder bits to record in this song, as I am basically useless at piano. Took me about 6 or 7 takes to remember where those 4 piano chords were and play them in the correct sequence :P
<3.38> - <4.00> This section is based on a riff from Tool's Eulogy, which it mimmicks pretty closely, the screechy guitar bends underneath and the placement of this section in the timeline of the song is a homage to Queens of the Stone Age; one of the key characteristics of a lot of their songs is that there's often a guitar lead part 1/3 - 1/2 way through the song, as opposed to the usual big guitar solo 3/4 of the way through the song and then build up to a big finish. Hence, this section occurs relatively early in the piece.
<4.01> - <5.50> This section is a homage to ISIS, specifically, the last song from their last album Threshold of Transformation. There is a lot going on in this part, the 'BOOM' of the bass and drums coming in together was important to get right, there's also some harmonised keyboard parts which follow the guitar line, only the keyboards play the 1st of the 2 bars while the guitars play the second. They're playing the same 2 bar line but never playing the same thing at the same time, which is probably 'wrong' but I think it works. The lead line that creeps up in the middle of all this is actually the vocal melody of the original song, being played on an electric guitar using a slide, some delay and a distortion pedal with all it's knobs at 10. This is all fed into a tiny 4" speaker that is part of a CD wallet. Cruel I know, this gives it that fuzzy, tortured sound. The tremolo was applied in post production.
<5.51> - <9.27> As the bass slowly breaks apart from the previous structure, it turns into this arrangement of a relatively simple bass groove on octaves of D, with semi-tonal chords in between. The high pitch frequency is that little 4" speaker giving some feedback (which it did a lot). The drums go to para-diddles with 3/4 kicks and later, a straight hat count when the guitar wails come in. This is all based on Rosetta Stoned by Tool. The drumming part for this was basically impossible, even if you are good at drums, which I'm not. The drums for this section took me about a day. The guitar for the first half adopts similar ambient techniques to what was used in the introductory passage of the song. The wah/delay laden solo is very much in the vein of the original song, using half-pinch harmonic tremolo picking to come in, letting a lot of the notes ring out for as long as possible and filling in the gaps with pick scrapes. Unfortunately I don't have a large enough amp to get sustain to rival Adam Jones (Tool), but I guess my neighbours hate me enough as it is.
<9.28> - <10.10> The song blends back into the Pelican/Botch/Earth section that came earlier.
<10.11> - <11.35> Another difficult drumming part, fortunately one that I had mostly learnt earlier. This section pays homage to Geneva by Russian Circles. The bass guitar is distorted using a bass overdrive pedal, the 8 count before the dirty bass solo comes in is done by picking behind the bridge of the guitar. The guitars that come in half way through are kept deliberately silky so that the rhythym section is still at the forefront.
<11.36> - <12.03> The final onslaught concludes on a similar structure to the Pelican/Botch/Earth arrangement that has featured a couple of times earlier, only this time with more of a lean towards the Botch side of things - that being the ridiculously heavy double-kicking and car-crash-esque finish.
From here the song fades out with the bass amp still growling from the level being fed to it and the tiny 4" amp feeding back/committing suicide.
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