I Think They're Shooting At Us

Community Made With Ardour
#1

Friends, this is somewhere around the 15th album I’ve made, in about as many years, using Ardour on Linux.

I think it would be accurate to call it protest music. Sadly, it contains no feel-good dance hit of the summer. This is a goal I have yet to attain. Still it’s a rewarding hobby!

I also made heavy use of a half dozen LSP plugins and Overtone’s FC70 compressor. By facilitating my creation of art, the developers of Ardour and these other tools over the years have played a role in the direction my life has taken: I am in their debt.

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#2

Nice one Dan :metal: I’m listening on a pair of Koss KTXPRO1 headphones while enjoying a Saturday morning brew and the whole thing sounds nicely balanced, very clean but still quite energetic and lively :+1: Not an easy ground to land on…! So nice one on this :metal: There’s some unique interesting stuff happening here.

Track one, for example - it vibes really nicely to my ears and I think the narrow mix works really well here. A super nice vibey short sweet track that moves along really nicely with enough happening to stop you wanting to turn it off and the production quality (which is top) props the whole thing up really well.

And onwards - I love these drum loops and how you’ve mixed the vocals to occupy the same space as them yet they don’t fight. The vox are right up front but not right in your face in a dramatic, overly-emphasised type of way, while the drums underpin the whole shebang. Some of these guitars are really chimey and soft while also being loose and lively.

Very impressed :+1: AI music couldn’t get near this with a stick, no matter how hard it tries…!

Mind me asking for more details about the recording process? How you recorded / arranged the parts? How did you write these songs and realise the ideas? Etc.

No need to respond if you prefer to keep it enigmatic :upside_down_face: This is genuinely a very interesting, curious and very enjoyable listen and I want you to know that your sharing it here is hugely appreciated :+1:

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#3

Thanks so much Willy!

I really appreciate the feedback and your kind words; I really appreciate you listening!

On the recording and arrangement: for many years I wrote lyrics as a cathartic practice and then wrote the music later. In the last five or ten years I seem to have shifted to writing the music first.

This time around I didn’t really have any musical ideas either :slight_smile: so nothing was written when I started. I’d never used any of the MIDI rhythms and progressions that come bundled with Ardour, so on this I used them heavily. Nearly every song started with two, maybe three of the bundled rhythms dragged onto the timeline and then copy-pasted into some sort of form - usually repeating AABA. I’d sometimes combine two different rhythms to create something weirder. Or add a delay. Then I’d add two or three of the bundled chord progressions, often running them through the Raptor arpeggiator, which is absolutely my favorite arpeggiator I’ve ever used.

All the bass, guitar, and synth parts were overdubbed (except for the guitar on television, which is one sample duplicated and pitch-bended to three or four chords).

Tracks two and five came very late in the process and were produced very quickly - perhaps an hour or two for each. The rest involved my typical method of listening a few hundred times over the course of months, making little changes every few days (fixing wrong notes, playing more wrong notes to be fixed later, removing parts that don’t work, adding parts that don’t work…)

I can’t really comment on the lyrics other than I’m concerned for everyone’s welfare and I try to have a sense of humor.

On mixing, I tend to use subtractive EQ (LSP) followed by compression/saturation (FC70). I may add some highs after that (Luftikus) to restore transients. I feel like it took me many years to learn how to use a compressor and now I’m a few years into learning how to not use one. Or, at least, how to not use three! I can’t claim I’ve learned how to do any of this right yet, but I’m very pleased to read you think it sounds balanced yet lively!

I tend to use the LSP Stereo Limiter on the master bus, sometimes in conjunction with FC70.

After sequencing the whole thing I overdubbed a few more guitar and synth parts, then ran the whole thing through a tape emulator and another LSP Limiter.

I love enigma but I’m always happy to talk shop.

Thanks again!

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#4

Superb, thanks for the extra info Dan :+1:

Aye I find the mixing / compression on your album to be very tasteful and it’s interesting that, often times, lots of small amounts of rolling compression here and there is more effective than hyper-focussing on any particular elements and squashing them for emphasis or effect. The FC70 is excellent for that I find (especially on buses - I’m a huge fan of the ACMT plugins myself and use the ACM70SA a lot, which I believe is nigh identical to the FC70 that came before it).

I’ve always wondered how people manage this :upside_down_face: Like do you hear a meldoy and rhythm while writing text or is it like spoken word / poetry?

I’d love to put more focus into lyrics and just write song text for the catharsis (and also just so that I don’t forget ideas etc) but it doesn’t come naturally to me at all… Yet you’ve inspired me to just put pen to paper going forward and see if I can record any worthwhile words for future compositions etc :+1:

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#5

Re: lyrics

Music has been my main focus since 15 or so, but as a child I also spent a lot of time and attention on classical literature and poetry. There’s always an inherent rhythm to the text - I either intuitively write lines with the same number of syllables, or I receive/discover a way to lay strange numbers of syllables across a beat - a way that’s probably most inspired by Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong, and… I dunno… Robert Plant!!! haha I love rock music.

So - for myself the rhythm is typically there at conception. Melody presents itself alongside the words perhaps half the time.

If I then pick up a musical instrument and try to sing a song, the melody and rhythm that may have come with the words might survive the process - especially if they’re strong ideas AND I’m quick to find a supporting accompaniment - or they might change drastically in response to what i have managed to play. if a melody didn’t come along with the words, then we skip straight to what i play on the instrument informing the melody of the vocals.

But I’m not sure how important my experience is here: there are so many approaches to songwriting! As a listener, I dearly love meticulously crafted pieces but I also love dada sorts of things - aleatoric music, punk, improv, etc. I worry that I might give composition too little time and production too much, but I think my workflow blends the processes to such an extent that it’s perhaps fruitless to attempt to disentangle them from one another.

I think it’s a good idea to collect phrases and lines to have available for future works!

i’m not sure that they have to be worthwhile. You said “AI music couldn’t get near this with a stick, no matter how hard it tries…!” - I just follow my nose, whim, and sensibilities, and I very much appreciate the compliment, but I get the feeling AI music wouldn’t want to get near it! :slight_smile:

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#6

Finally found some time to listen - during house cleaning :-). Not on a headphone like Willy, but on my smallish speakers turned up as loud as possible before they start to clip too much.
This is such a well produced, unique piece of work. Something I have never heard before. Wish you could write down the words somewhere so for me - as a non-native speaker - it would be easier to understand the lyrics. Well, maybe not :wink: …
Thanks for sharing!

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#7

Welcome to the club Mate!

I’m most intruiged by what I hear, this is truly great stuff. What you write about conceiving the lyrics and particularly the cathartic aspect (is it why I hear a bit of Donald Fagen here and there?), is partly true for me, also the collection of phrases and lines.

Great musical ideas, superb production. I myself like it a bit more rough and garagy, but your approach here is cool shit Man.

A-hooga!

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#8

My favourite part is that the bass guitar sounds as if the bassist is playing something over the theme he just heard a few moments ago at the same reherasal.
The guitar is kind of overpowering everything but it sound good and intentional. Like the vocal is preaching for a bit, and then the guitar takes over the preaching, and so on.

#9

Aye, it’s either this or that. Sometimes a fully developed draft for a song, chord progression, melody, and lyrics, wells into your vocal chords and strings, like it happened when “A Nice Song” found me (not the other way around).

Or a note you scribbled down weeks, months or even years ago decides to go on without you and morphs into a full-grown song text, like the scraps of paper in “Sombrero Fallout” by the immortal Richard Brautigan… and then you find it, and you go: I know! A major, lalala… where’s the bleedin’ guitar! Haha, if only it was that easy.

As a songwriter, I’m a storyteller, and most of the time I have an idea and I toy around with it for some time, eventually it will mature. Just follow Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s postulate: A story isn’t fully thought through until it has taken the worst possible turn…! Either the chords are already there, hatched out independently some time ago and happen to fit, or the story has to wait for a melody, which will certainly come up.

It all takes time, there are no shortcuts.

I have pieces of rough paper and a voice recorder ready all the time to capture whatever the nutter I call my head puts out, it’s an adventurous journey.

Now, since you put pen to paper you’re already there as well, no need to wonder anymore, congrats!

But you’re dead wrong about one thing, sorry I have to say that :slightly_smiling_face::

Artificial “Intelligence” does not create music! It fabricates concoctions. I can only quote Ansel Adams again, from his 1936 article in “Camera Craft”:

Increased facility often progressively eliminates effort, and things in art are accomplished only through accumulated effort and practice and the clear knowledge of the objectives in view.

Cheers, have a good one!

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#11

I listened to it again and I’d like to go a bit further into detail. It truly is a masterpiece, no doubt.

Your elaborate bass lines are most impressing. They correspond to the minimalistic drums in a way that it becomes a lively rythmic whole!

Stellar guitar tones. Do we hear a real Les Paul Or better still, one of the big semi-acoustics like I love them myself?

Great vocal work, particularly the harmonizing. I love the reoccuring Dave Jones persiflage, even if it’s not intentional.

The boogie rythm of “American Exceptionalism” is awesome, as is the whole song, its subject, and the way the message is delivered.

What I like most about the album is it’s got a message, it feels authentic. And the lyrics are really clever.

Nothing sad about that. In fact, there are so many dance hit components built into nearly every song that the whole thing feels snappy all the time. Similar to what they said about the Pixies: Black Francis puts more hit potential in one line than others do on an entire album…

Very well done indeed, Man. This is one of the most imaginative and appealing pieces I’ve come across since…when? Pity one can only post one like at a time. Why are you not famous? What sort of loser is your manager? :grinning:

Cheerie-o!

Edit: I see there are a few other gems of yours on YT, like “Praise Every Day”. Fab!

#12

Thanks so much man! The bass lines on the title track and on American Exceptionalism are my friend Charlie’s. Everything else, not counting the Ardour-bundled drum loops and half the keys (which are bundled progressions run through Raptor) is played/sang by myself. I think having Charlie’s work on a couple tracks put the pressure on me to do a good job on my own bass parts. That said, Ljuba hits the nail on the head regarding the bass part on the first track - I don’t like to do too many takes. It’s occurred to me in the last few years that my albums represent me at my least practiced! One day I’d like to make a record of songs that I’ve actually practiced playing - as it is, I’m learning about them only slightly before the listener! :slight_smile:

I built the guitar myself from off-the-shelf components! It’s essentially a semi-hollowbody telecaster with Lindy Fralin’s “split blade tele” pickup in the neck and “split steel poled tele” in the bridge - both noiseless, the latter has a tone closer to a P90. I either ran direct or through a Line 6 Pod Go. On the first track, I ran direct through a UA Solo/610 with both knobs turned up to 10, which I found very exciting.

Thanks for the kind words on American Exceptionalism - I think it’s the heart of the piece, despite my misgivings over the vulgarity of the lyrics. I’d concede there are some clever rhymes in there. :slight_smile:

I have the worst manager in the world. His name is Dan Easley. He seems more interested in lounging about with the cats than leaving the house!

Thankfully, I find my day job rewarding.

I’m not sure who Dave Jones is, unless you’re referring to the Monkee! (Or Bowie before changing his name to not be confused with… the Monkee.) I just looked up the definition of persiflage and that’s definitely right! :slight_smile:

Thanks again for your very kind words!

#13

Thanks Peter! email me at daneasley@gmail.com and i’d be happy to send you the lyrics.

#14

You’re most welcome, honour where honour is due!

O that’s good. It is more than many of us can say.

As for the vulgarity, I find it perfectly justified if you want to express a strong opinion, and as such it can very well be an artistic element; this is not the Victorian age. But I do not really need to tell you that, do I.

And yes, you’re right about Bowie, I meant him. Intended or not, it’s unmistakable, which is a good thing again!

Well well well, a homebuild guitar, what do you know. So it must be the P90 that gives me the impression of listening to a Les Paul… cool thing. I looove the P90s on my Casino, which of course sounds quite different.

Funny you should say that, because I constantly find myself practicing my own guitar parts only as much as it takes to make them, well, work. No virtuosity, no brilliant fretwork. The same is true for my singing, I’m a lazy sod…

Final word about your album: it certainly deserves the attribute “fresh breeze of human air” which our esteemed colleague Dr. Dinglefinger once honoured me with, only in many more ways.

Go forth Lord Easley, and bring back lots more unique tunes!

#15

Dan

I have only so far listened to ‘Let’s bomb each other’ (I promise I shall get to the rest ASAP), and I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but the first things that came to my mind was ‘David Byrne - Talking Heads’, and believe me that is a good thing, I love his music, absolute genius. In short I am saying, ‘yep I like it. I would buy it’. It’s a great sound.

Cheers

TAndrewF

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#16

Over the weekend I did some interstate driving and listened to the record (yes, that old) multiple times on my evil streaming platform of choice. I too thought of David Byrne/Talking Heads, and was pleased to hear The Algorithm queued up @Dan_Easley and collaborators covering their most famous cover, Take Me to the River, which was also extremely well done. This whole record sounds great and unique.

Also, Dan, on a personal note I checked out your website and the story of The Deelycaster you described above. The Algorithm also blessed me with some tracks of you and your friend. My most sincere condolences.

I would say, “Keep making music”, though looking at your prolific output, I don’t expect that to be a problem.

Peace,
-Manuel

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