{"id":194,"date":"2016-06-01T15:31:19","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T15:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/?p=194"},"modified":"2016-11-21T14:15:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T14:15:48","slug":"production-notes-drifter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/2016\/06\/01\/production-notes-drifter\/","title":{"rendered":"Production Notes: &#8220;Drifter&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/165334963?color=ff3300&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>My latest full-length album, <em>Drifter<\/em>, is <a href=\"http:\/\/nathanmoody.bandcamp.com\/album\/drifter\/\">available as of today\u00a0as a digital download and limited-edition CD<\/a> (100 copies, signed and numbered). I thought I\u2019d share some notes on how the album came together\u2026and use this as an opportunity to go into more details on what\u2019s coming in the future. (This post is unashamedly inspired by similar posts made by <a href=\"http:\/\/trashaudio.com\/\">Surachai<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<h2>Background<\/h2>\n<p>The period of recording that resulted in the <a href=\"https:\/\/nathanmoody.bandcamp.com\/album\/dissolver\"><em>Dissolver<\/em><\/a> album yielded a lot of tracks that just didn\u2019t fit that album, but which sat together nicely as a collection on its own, sonically and thematically. They were rhythmic but beatless, and more ethereal in nature. This theme begat new material, and over time that new material displaced almost all of the older sessions. And thus <em>Drifter<\/em> was born.<\/p>\n<p><em>Drifter<\/em> is the second release in an album trilogy that I\u2019m unofficially calling the &#8220;Form Cycle.&#8221; The third and final album in this series is described at the end of this article. (The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nathanmoody.bandcamp.com\/album\/dissolved\"><em>Dissolved<\/em> remix EP<\/a> isn\u2019t part of this trilogy.) During the recording of <em>Dissolver<\/em>, the\u00a0pieces really started to explore three related elements, aspects, and themes, and time and again I\u2019d keep hearing these relationships between tracks, emotionally speaking. For the first time, I realized that I had ideas to explore that wouldn\u2019t fit in a single,\u00a0time-constrained release.<\/p>\n<h2>Themes<\/h2>\n<p><em>Dissolver<\/em> was written during a time of great change for me; a number of big changes really left a lot of open questions as to what a new normal would be. Exploring this in-between space, where old forms are gone and new ones have yet to be formed, were the direct impetus for all the tracks on <em>Drifter.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Technique and Instruments<\/h2>\n<p>Technique-wise, not a whole lot changed from <em>Dissolver<\/em>: The tracks are a mix of sequencing and improvisation on both hardware and software, mixed in the DAW. However, there are a few differences from the last album.<\/p>\n<p>This album has very little in the way of percussion. The tracks span a range of compositional techniques from sequencing, unedited real-time performance, and aleatoric or randomized events, often all within a single track.<\/p>\n<p>There are <em>many<\/em> fewer virtual instruments on this album. I used pretty much everything I had in the studio at the time: old favorites like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vintagesynth.com\/waldorf\/pulse.php\">Waldorf Pulse Plus<\/a>, newer tools like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teenageengineering.com\/products\/op-1\">Teenage Engineering OP-1<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.modulargrid.net\/e\/users\/view\/50298\">my modular Eurorack synthesizer<\/a>, and my collection of wooden <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ciat-lonbarde.net\/\">Ciat Lonbarde<\/a> synths. I believe there is only one track with guitar material, but admittedly by the time I\u2019m mixing a track, the original sound sources become a bit murky.<\/p>\n<p>Field recordings make up a lot of the original sound sources: electromagnetic interference recorded by coil pickups, shortwave radio transmissions, rain dripping off the roof of an English manor house, creaking piers near San Francisco, metal pie weights, and much more. Sound processing is done, as usual, through any means necessary: plug-ins, boutique effects pedals, cassette tape, and granular synthesis.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Crying Bowl<\/em> interludes were unique in that they were created with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.synthmall.com\/tocante\/index.html\">Tocante Phashi<\/a> touch-plate synth played through a transducer connected to a metal bowl; transducers don\u2019t push air like speakers, they make other surfaces vibrate. I recorded this using a cassette tape recorder with a speaker, which played back the incoming signal; this created feedback that I controlled by moving the recorder closer or farther from the bowl. My arms and shoulders hurt for a day afterwards; those old cassette field recorders aren\u2019t the lightest-weight things. In fact, while it\u2019s hard to tell, my cat accidentally contributed vocals to one of these interludes.<\/p>\n<h2>What Comes Next<\/h2>\n<p>My next release will be the final one in the Form Cycle, completing the trilogy. It will be called\u00a0<em>Deceiver<\/em> and will be available in the fall of 2016. I look forward to sharing it with you soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My latest full-length album, Drifter, is available as of today\u00a0as a digital download and limited-edition CD (100 copies, signed and numbered). I thought I\u2019d share some notes on how the album came together\u2026and use this as an opportunity to go into more details on what\u2019s coming in the future. (This post is unashamedly inspired by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noisejockey.net\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}