Please pardon the potential long-windedness of this post - I guess I just have a lot to say about the ongoings of this current project, which I managed to get started on recording the guitars this past Saturday. Here is some more in-depth info about this project. Keep in mind, that this one is an “experimental” project, and may not be like any of my other music. Or it might be EXACTLY like my other music.This particular project is a combination of approaches:
Combines the sustaining doom-drone of “Leprosia Doom” with the improvisational nature of “Aetherial Art of Decay”. Instead of all the music being completely random, I decided to have some Chord Progressions created from my usual Word/Phrase technique, but the chords are from an entirely different set of song titles. I had come up with a series of song titles from the random black metal song title generator on the internet (search around, you’ll find it) and created chord progressions from these titles. And then got bored with the project in general.
I needed to do something a bit different to distinguish this project as its own manifestation. The original songs had about 3 sets of chords each, but I was finding this to be too complex for its own good, and wanted something far more simple. I had also just discovered “Pentemple”, the latest recording from Sunn O))), which I found fascinating. They had once again decided to visit the realm of black metal combined with their usual doom-drone. But this time around, they have Sin Nanna (of Striborg) on drums, providing wild blast beats and other improvised percussive chaos. His drumming adds such a unique feature to the already odd music, bringing Sunn O))) to a whole new level of extremity-en-musique.
So thus I began to deconstruct the current project, and re-focus once again on my own version of doom-drone, but this time with blast beats instead of ultra-slow drums. Even though blast beats are themselves very fast, I find they often provide almost the opposite feel, almost a hypnotic “floating” sound in the background - listen to Darkthrone’s “Transylvanian Hunger”, for example. Here we have 8 songs that are all almost the exact same song, with simple, repetitive chord progressions over blast beats, almost all the same tempo. But this recording is hailed in the underground metal scene as an absolute classic, and I heartily agree.
So, … as I re-approached the project, I decided to use far fewer chords, opting to use only the first page of the FOUR pages of chords I had originally composed, leaving only nine sets of chord progressions. Nine songs.
The chords would be similar to “Leprosia Doom”, in that I would write long, sustaining passages of these chords, holding them over two, or more measures. Once again, I would use “dirty” sounding synths as a backdrop, providing and almost guitar-like sound to start. I also began creating the blast beats under these synths, practically independent of any time signature or tempo in mind at all. But blast beats alone do not make an interesting song cycle, so as I went along, I decided to create some more “normal” beats, fills, percussive patterns, etc.
I actually had no idea of what the guitar parts themselves would be like, other than holding these sustaining chords. This would be the “improvisational” aspect that would occur at the actual recording stage. No real idea what the heck I would do until I actually did it. And then try to add a second or third layer as I go along.
That’s the idea, anyway. So when I decided on a whim to go ahead and actually start recording yesterday, I made a few decisions: Just play whatever comes to mind, don’t worry too much about it, and just play whatever comes to mind. Whether I feel like adding a solo, some slide guitar, some clean, some out-of-tune, some super-distorted, some slightly overdriven, … whatever. It all doesn’t even have to be “heavy”. After all, I’m Dimaension X, not Sunn O))), right? The whole point is to create my own thing, not copy someone else’s.
I got about 7 songs done, or at least I can say I recorded guitar parts for 7 of the songs. I really didn’t put too much though into the parts, just picked a guitar tone, listened to the track a bit, and just played along. This isn’t going to be a very “technical” or “melodic” project. It is an experiment in sound and atmosphere.
Nothing more or less.
No comments:
Post a Comment