Moto Perpetuo
Jun. 25th, 2009 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
antlerlandIt's probably about time I started a journal relating exclusively to Antlerland. It'll only get updated when I've got something to write about, but I think it'll be a good way for me to assess how I'm doing, as well as perhaps getting people agitated about what I'm doing. "Marketing", I believe they call it. But anyway, enough preamble, onto the journal proper!
With Intercapital Daylight out of the way, I've started working on the next few releases.
The first will be a set of remixes of "Wronghead". The song's had a long history and gone through quite a few different versions, and I'm looking at releasing all of these as a set in support of the album. At last count I think there were about 6 or 7, going way back to the beginning of when I was messing around with the damn tune. Anyway, I think it'll be an interesting insight into the evolution of the song.
I'll probably also do the same again with "The Sharpest Knife", as that also has a storied history.
As with the Dunga/Grow Up single (I like how we still cling to conventions that stem from when most music was released on two sides of plastic!) it'll probably get a limited run on Bandcamp, but they should appear later on another set, yet to be announced.
The next album is slowly finding its form. Like ICD, I had some grand vision for that in the processing of making it real it's having its own say about things. There's a heap of candidate tunes that I've had kicking around for a while, but it's likely not all of them will come up to scratch.
With some of them they clearly seem to have been cut from the same cloth while each having their own identity. Some of them still need a lot of work because they're basically sketches at the moment.
Whereas another handful can stand alone pretty well, again they'll take a bit of work but they're mostly there. Some might not make the final selection but they'll all eventually find homes.
The third bunch, however, is the most intriguing. Amongst these are "Four Weeks", which some people have heard versions of. The core chord progression of that is pretty simple but kind of odd, but over that I'm developing some pretty interesting melodic structures (somewhat reminiscent of things like Penguin Cafe Orchestra and that) that kind of relate as a group, either using the same progression or at least using it to bounce off, and can probably be built up to some longer piece, but like the other set mentioned above, have their own thing going on.
Probably the best part of this lot, though, is that these themes weren't worked up by me sitting around with the computer and messing around with it until something complex and weird emerges, but they come from, basically, me sitting down on the keyboard and just playing. So if I can ever stitch this lot together, at least it'll become something that I can perform convincingly live instead of just letting the laptop do all the work - and I may yet figure out how to play that stupid hook I wrote for "Dunga" as well! This is what you get when you write one that changes key three-and-a-half times in a few bars.
The piece may not turn out to be all that long, or I may decide to break it up and sequence bits throughout the album. But since I've got that other set of songs coming along that'll probably also form a "side" (referring to the conventions of the vinyl age again), plus the other disassociated material, sequencing issues will not even be contemplated until I know what I want on the album.
Things are still finding their form and it's going to be a fun process bringing them to that stage. I've sort of set myself November as the deadline, which means it'll probably actually come out in early 2010.
The other thing to note is that there'll be a bit more (badly played) guitar on the album, and I'll probably try and do some other new things with the recording process. Vocals? Wellll, I wouldn't count on it, but it's not completely out of the question that there may one or two such troublesome beasts on the thing.
I think that'll do for now.
With Intercapital Daylight out of the way, I've started working on the next few releases.
The first will be a set of remixes of "Wronghead". The song's had a long history and gone through quite a few different versions, and I'm looking at releasing all of these as a set in support of the album. At last count I think there were about 6 or 7, going way back to the beginning of when I was messing around with the damn tune. Anyway, I think it'll be an interesting insight into the evolution of the song.
I'll probably also do the same again with "The Sharpest Knife", as that also has a storied history.
As with the Dunga/Grow Up single (I like how we still cling to conventions that stem from when most music was released on two sides of plastic!) it'll probably get a limited run on Bandcamp, but they should appear later on another set, yet to be announced.
The next album is slowly finding its form. Like ICD, I had some grand vision for that in the processing of making it real it's having its own say about things. There's a heap of candidate tunes that I've had kicking around for a while, but it's likely not all of them will come up to scratch.
With some of them they clearly seem to have been cut from the same cloth while each having their own identity. Some of them still need a lot of work because they're basically sketches at the moment.
Whereas another handful can stand alone pretty well, again they'll take a bit of work but they're mostly there. Some might not make the final selection but they'll all eventually find homes.
The third bunch, however, is the most intriguing. Amongst these are "Four Weeks", which some people have heard versions of. The core chord progression of that is pretty simple but kind of odd, but over that I'm developing some pretty interesting melodic structures (somewhat reminiscent of things like Penguin Cafe Orchestra and that) that kind of relate as a group, either using the same progression or at least using it to bounce off, and can probably be built up to some longer piece, but like the other set mentioned above, have their own thing going on.
Probably the best part of this lot, though, is that these themes weren't worked up by me sitting around with the computer and messing around with it until something complex and weird emerges, but they come from, basically, me sitting down on the keyboard and just playing. So if I can ever stitch this lot together, at least it'll become something that I can perform convincingly live instead of just letting the laptop do all the work - and I may yet figure out how to play that stupid hook I wrote for "Dunga" as well! This is what you get when you write one that changes key three-and-a-half times in a few bars.
The piece may not turn out to be all that long, or I may decide to break it up and sequence bits throughout the album. But since I've got that other set of songs coming along that'll probably also form a "side" (referring to the conventions of the vinyl age again), plus the other disassociated material, sequencing issues will not even be contemplated until I know what I want on the album.
Things are still finding their form and it's going to be a fun process bringing them to that stage. I've sort of set myself November as the deadline, which means it'll probably actually come out in early 2010.
The other thing to note is that there'll be a bit more (badly played) guitar on the album, and I'll probably try and do some other new things with the recording process. Vocals? Wellll, I wouldn't count on it, but it's not completely out of the question that there may one or two such troublesome beasts on the thing.
I think that'll do for now.