Song #33: Not Aloud

The sound of this one is inspired from the bands Low (particularly the song "Over the Ocean") and Red House Painters. I would definitely call it minimalist approach (or "slow-core," as it is often cited). The elements of this sound that I emulated: soft clean electric guitar strums, use of brushes and ride cymbal on the drums, whispery vocals with a second voice an octave higher, and a hypnotic repetitive beat and bass line.   



This is one of the slowest and longest songs I've done. With the drummer in my band leaving his set at my house recently, I had access to a drum set for the first time in a while. When I had my studio at Muse, I would usually use 7-10 mics to record a drum set. Since now I'm only using an MBox Mini, I can only record two tracks at a time so it was a bit of challenge to get a good sound with just an a mic overhead and one on the kick but I think it works for this song. I used the Ebow on the guitar to add more texture, which is becoming my trademark sound these days. It ended up being 8 different Ebow tracks! I also added a minimal piano line. Hopefully it's not too long. Thoughts?

Song #14: Lonely Day

Growing up, I was a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins. Their discography (for better or worse) is all over the place stylistically, which I think has kept them interesting over the years. But this week's song is influenced by the electronica sound of the song "1979", along with some of dense guitar layers and octave distortion lines on the album Siamese Dream (the synth parts are also influenced by Broken Social Scene). While I'm talking about the Smashing Pumpkins, they are also somewhat the inspiration behind this whole project. Back in 2009, they started a 44-song concept album called "Teargarden by Kaleidyscope." They have released songs sporadically (on their website for free) as they were recorded one at a time. I think they are up to like song #12. I liked the idea of a massive project released one song at a time so I decided to put my own twist on it and try this out.

I recorded most of the guitar parts for this song using my trusty Marshall full stack. Killer tones, man! But seriously, although this is a little tiny novelty practice amp, the tones sound surprisingly big, wouldn't you say?!

The background of this song goes back to around 2001. When I started playing it live with Declaration,  it sounded much slower; more along the lines of Pedro the Lion or Low. Not having access to a drum set has caused me to use programmed beats a lot more lately, which has steered many of these songs so far in a new (and I hope exciting) direction. What do you think?