Radical Face - Let The River In

Let the river in has caught my ear while I listen to this album for the first time. I think the combination of soundscape elements like children's voices and strings which are often associated with the cinema have helped paint a picture in my imagination. The track opens with these voices and their footsteps as they run around the stereo field whilst the piano opens the simplistic element of the track that is built on by bells and guitar (or perhaps lute). With a short pause, the strings make their entrance under a whispering vocal. There continues an interplay between vocals/strings with piano and lute in a call and response relationship that builds until all elements come together with the drums. I particularly like this call and response dynamic as the pairing of similar voices offset each other very nicely. The vocals and the strings support each other with flowing and swelling textures while the bells and guitar/lute are delicate yet staccato in comparison.

Juxtaposing the flow of the other elements in this track is the highly syncopated and complex rhythms of the drums and percussion. I count the groove in 3/4 with snare anchored to beat 3 and the metronome says it's 95bpm. There is an emphasis on the pairing of odd rhythms rather than a 'danceable' back beat. The rhythms of the bells I heard just before the drums enter lines up pretty well with the drums' pattern. As for the tone of the drums, it's quite variegated with many 'voices' utilized. In the second installment of drums the use of 'rim-knocks' are quite prevalent. It's these rim-knocks that make a strong impression for the reverb and delay that puts them in quite a large space. Additionally, there are two simultaneous 'performances' of the rim-knock with one panned to the left and the other to the right. The small differences in timing between them creates a nice natural texture to the sound whilst supporting the width of the stereo image.

There's so much to write about in this track, however I'm going to move on for now and maybe come back to it later.

Newton Faulkner - Clouds

This track is a 4/4 track at 84bpm powered with a 'stomp and clap' type of pulse that supports layers of acoustic guitar, vocals and some synths. The dynamics between sections are my focus for this entry as they quite impressive to me. In addition there are some heavily layered sounds in here that i'd like 'unpack'.

The first thing that impresses me in this track is the great impact that comes with each chorus. Listening at 1:43 (just before the second chorus) we can hear a subtle sweep of sounds that drop much heavier than expected. The reason I believe this works so well is the drop off in volume at the end of the verse which makes the next swell of volume build higher than expected. On my second listen I've noticed that the swell before the first chorus is far less intense. It consists of what sounds like a reverse cymbal where the second one holds the reverse cymbal and bass. The extra detail that goes into making the second chorus more powerful and impacting than the first is indeed very well executed. Jumping to 3 minutes in there's a massive snare drum accent that builds the third chorus to the maximum.

Listening to the 'snare' on beats two and four I feel I can hear three clap sounds above a tight snare that occasionally plays around the clap's back beat. This around the beat snare often acts as a drum fill that in other productions would be played around tom toms. The reason I've described this sound as the 'stomp and clap' is probably because of some other famous tracks that have used this sound and the fact that it is usually an audience participation thing so we hear many overlapping layers. As for vocals, they are clearly double-tracked and supported by backing vocals which are layered in the distance.

Bon Iver - Blood Bank

Taking a step in the direction of less 'extreme' forms of music, I've decided to talk about a track by Bon Iver. This track instantly satisfies my need for a smoother texture in music after listening to more of the 'hard' sounds in previous entries, The 'smoothness' comes from a clean guitar that washes over nothing more than a simple kick drum pulse. This provides the canvas for the vocals with nothing uncomfortable or distracting to compromise them. The overall effect is an extremely 'intimate' feeling piece of music.

There are certainly many layers activating at particular points in the track to frame the vocal lead. Backing vocals make their support throughout and the sound of guitar feedback takes the drone element of the music to the forefront in the conclusion. The drums are a subtle contributor to this piece, however, I feel like the choice to have the light touch of ride cymbal and pat of snare move in and out whilst not attracting too much attention adds an excellent element of additional intricacy. Without a doubt, this song is a 'grower' and makes excellent use of dynamics to build towards its conclusion.

A note should be made on the layering of vocals on this track. I feel like I'm always hearing at least two vocal tracks and at times, as many as three. Listening at 3:08, I particularly like the panning effect that differentiates these 'instances' of the vocal. You can hear the beginning and end of each voice separately, however each one occupies a different space in the stereo field also. They pan across your ears as they come in in harmony with each other. There's always a bit of distancing effect on the vocals (sounds like subtle reverb) but overall, the vocals are designed for multiplicity and intimacy.

And there's my thoughts for this track! Very refreshing sound for me to listen to. Here's some extra details for this entry. This was released on the Blood Bank EP in 2009 it was produced by Justin Vernon on the Jagjaguwar label.

Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes

Moving towards something more recent and not a remix, here's some thoughts on something from the new Flying Lotus. If you have not heard this track or seen the video clip you can click to play it above. In this entry I'd like to talk firstly about the some of the intertwining sounds in this track that create a sound landscape and make for some really beautiful visual/aural experiences.  

The music begins and ends in the ocean, symbolized by samples of deep, bubbling water layered with the 'pressurized' sounds of distant whale calls or perhaps just the sound of water currents flowing around your head. The mixing dynamics of beginning the track with predominantly bottom-end features which then support the higher sounds that filter in is something that I've noticed with a few of my listening diary tracks lately. I think the illusion of under-water sounds are great piece of symbolic sound 'imagery' or 'device' for employing this. We can all relate to the difference in sound we experience underwater and hence it's effective in making an intro grow into a larger spectrum with the progression of the piece. 

The drone of these layers eventually blend with the barking of dogs, the wind and a static 'interference' drone. From this point the sounds build up further with vocals, clicks and a gunshot among other processed percussive and droning sounds.

The next section is transitioned into with the rhythmic 'flutter' of a helicopter passing overhead. Bringing about the juxtaposition in sound is an acoustic guitar melody underpinned by a choir, bass guitar strings and chopped vocal samples. The result is a very smooth sound and release of tension from the drama that precedes it. 

We hear the return of the complex and primary percussive sounds that characterize the Flying Lotus in the next section. The melody set up by the acoustic guitar section is left behind and replaced with the inclusion of a loose and 'wonky' swung groove. The sparkling elements of this section are the focus with bells, cymbals and tambourines occupying a large amount of the mix. The space that this creates is taken advantage of with a couple of bass hits/drops that catch me off-guard (this is good) just before the finale.       

Bob Marley feat. 2pac - No Woman No Cry (remix)

On topic:
So I'm on the topic of remixes at the moment and No Woman No Cry is something I've thought would be quite fun to have a go at. So although I don't have a high audio quality version of this track to listen to this embedded YouTube clip might give me some inspiration for this idea.

What I can hear: 
The instrumental is driven primarily by the organ part with the occasional horn part attached to the end of a phase. The backing vocals can be heard mostly leading transitions between verses whilst the lead vocal part of the original supports Tupac in the chorus section. It's unexpected here but I can hear an occasional cheer and chant from a live audience.

Transitions:
There is some turntablism in this track punching in a 16th note 'roll' rounding out each 8 bar phase of the beat. The organ loop reaches its point of 'upward momentum' at this point also creating an effective anchor for the loop to sound congruent.

Chopping for variation: 
Within this genre, one easy way to create a break section for extra dynamics is to alternate a staccato variation of the loop. This can be heard clearly at 2:34 which fills the small need for variation at the point leading into the last chorus before the "Everything's Going to Be Alright" conclusion.

A final note on drums:
The consistent off-beat hi hat fills the space in the groove smoothing out the dynamics somewhat. It is effective in this case where it matches the up-beat feel of the rest of the sounds. The backbeat on two and four is a snare layered with a clap which is a common system used in the genre. My ear tells me that the clap is nudged slightly late to make it more audible in the mix.

Some thoughts:
After listening to this I've noted a couple of considerations to make for my remix. As I will not have access to vocalist in my project I need to ensure that my treatment of the original vocal is such that it still comes our differentiated from the original. Aside from that, my efforts in the instrumental side of the production must require some extra effort in variations to maintain interest throughout the track. I think I'd like to experiment more with the effects processing at my disposal. With that, this has been good to listen to a second take on an original to help me develop some ideas of my own.