SSF: Maker's Commentary
SSF is my first musical release since... Since many things. This post will provide some context, talk about my inspirations and my current artistic approach. I will not explore the "meaning" of it, as I find such explanations mostly unsatisfying,
SWEET SWEET FAILURE
General Approach
Sound holds within itself a lot of information about it's source, and if presented faithfully, an audio-recording allows a listener to peer into the personality of that source. I will be referring to such sources as SOs (Sound Objects) in this post. A Sound Object can be anything: a musical instrument, a performer, a household item, a room, an outdoor space, a virtual space, etc.
Similarly, any musical piece holds within itself information about the world within which it was made, the tools with which it was made and a piece of the author's heart. I enjoy when music presents these aspect of itself with clarity, instead of striving for perfection, which often out-polishes the rough edges that hold the deepest of insights. And so, in an attempt to capture my internal and external worlds, I generally followed this roadmap when designing songs that ended up on SSF:
- Sound Object Exploration: I use field-recording and improvisation on various instruments on SSF, and my process always starts with experimentation and exploration of the sound object's capabilities. Through this experimentation I get a sense of the personality of that object.
- Familiarizing with the Sound Object: Next, I wait. I wait until an experience or an idea comes to me that relates in some way to a previously explored SO. This connection usually manifests itself in a core musical idea, be that a melody, an atmosphere, or whatever else.
- Improvisation: Finally, after forming my idea into a producible state, I record an improvisation, fusing the personality of an SO with my own. Each track on SSF is built around a couple of rough one-take "prepared" improvisation. Spontenaity and accident are welcome in this process.
- Presentation: I aim to present my recordings in as raw form as possible, preserving the qualities of the SOs. Still, some thought goes into making these recordings musically appealing, and I excercise my aritsic vision by focusing and expanding upon specific aspects of these recordings. I prefer sound extraction (accentuating or processing existing recordings) to sound synthesis.
Finally, there is an overarching theme and a progression that encapsulates SSF. The whole thing is very personal to me, and each song captures a very specific feeling or event from my life. I called it a DEMO because it covers only about half the narrative that I wanted it to cover (the narrative that is still being written).
On SSF, I only used material synthesised or recorded by me.
Birth Trauma
When working with digital synths, I often settle on a couple of parameter configurations that I like, and create a macro (Bitwig term: a macro allows you to modulate multiple parameters) to smoothly transition between them during an improvisation - you can hear me turning up harmonics and later noise levels.
This song is quite strange, as it is an amalgamation of pretty much unrelated improvisation sessions and conventional compositional approaches that came together surprisingly well. The initial idea was to tell a clear story about an impactful event from my life, but the final song ended up doing a bit more and less at the same time. It's a sort of happy accident.
Almost Something
Almost Something consists of two "digital field recordings" - sound recordings of game worlds - and of me playing virtual instruments within those worlds. The first one is of Paradise Marsh, and is quite special to me. In the game, the player has little control over what the instruments play, in fact you can only control the rough timing and the octave. I had to trust and adjust to the melodies that the game presented me with. It's very open-ended in that way.
Sonically, this track continues the themes of air, featuring mostly wind instruments. It moves from a purely constructed environment to a more organic one. The ambiance of Animal Well brings in some humidity.
Before & My Blue Whale
Before (including the first half of My Blue Whale) is the oldest song on SSF. It's also the only song for which I had sheet music for. The pad sounds were made using glass bottles, and the "bird" sounds were made using various ceramic whistles I had. There are various recordings I made while travelling in Sochi, including of water streams. The whistles were submerged underwater during the performance, creating the bird-song sound.
The first half of MBW includes recordings of wind, trains passing overhead, and of the sea. The two main recordings were made by putting my phone in a waterproof bag and placing it below the waves near shore. There are additional recordings performed on glass and a harmonica. The "whale" sound was another happy accident, it's convolution reverb applied to the harmonica recording.
Finally, there is a recording of a bayan street performer I made in a subway station, while coming home from work. I'd actually pop in to listen to this guy play often, I didn't actually take the subway station. The "mosquito" sounds were made by processing the recording with some bitwig plugins that isolate and follow the loudest pitch (and wave-shaping the sound after). There were like 10 of them, all parametrized and modulated over time.
Closing Words
I didn't get to talk about track names. All of them (except "Before") are references to events, phrases or lyrics. Coming up with satisfying names was actually quite a lengthy process as well.
I actually wanted to make the Director's Commentary part of the actual album before releasing in on SoundCloud or smth. It would be a fun thing to do. After realizing that I can just call a release a 'Demo' I felt liberated to experiment more. But, you know, I didn't have the time. I am planning on revisiting this project in the future.