Ratgut wires vibrato
I wrote The Fen when I was in New Cross Gate. One of its parts was supposed to be played on mandolin, but I never performed it to my satisfaction, the anal retentive twat that I am. I am revisiting it now.
The initial problem with this part, which repeats once, is the attack / volume of the so-called Rhodes. I added phase and distortion to remedy that. Also, before this bit, whilst the dirgelike stomp is going on (and, indeed, before it), I added Hela. Yes, Hela. I took a small clip from a voice message she sent me last month and stretched it to 20 times its length. I then reversed it and mixed the two. The result is eerily beautiful.
Maintaining the same timbre between tracks in LMMS is becoming a problem. Perhaps there are unseen settings that affect parameters manipulated by me over three years ago. Ah! Well, part of this composition will be an injection of aleatoric aesthetics.
Where the fuck is that hissing buzz coming from?
I discovered earlier that Crossover Distortion can be fantastically noisy. I have employed it in the piece.
As I was riding in the pickup truck with my father on the way to the grocery store, I thought of the track that will follow The Fen. The name will be The Bog or possibly Silt. Or even I Swabbed Your Pet Gerbil’s Anus With a Fossilized Paramecium. My idea is this: firstly, layer many tracks of Hela’s voice strectched and contracted, forming chords. If plausible, create some bastardized version of the melody in the introduction of The Fen to swim erratically through the resulting sonic morass. Provide accompaniment consisting of mid-range distorted bass and the aformentioned Crossover Distortion of the pizzicato violin.
Fortunately, a part had been left unwritten. The erstwhile mandolin part of the second “verse” (I laughingly call it that) now exists. The counterpoint to the Rhodes part penned (I laughingly call it that) three and a half years ago contains many fun dissonaces. Only a select few were planned. I leave the rest because it is one of the wondrous features of aleatoric composition.
The final mixdown using Audacity, and as I remember, tends to muddle the sound a bit, although I did a bit of noise reduction, as well, so that may be the culprit. Where, in the name of the pungent liver of Jesus, did that buzzzzzzzzzz come from, anyhow?
The Fen is at this very moment uploading (itself - yes, it is a sentient being - fens are living ecospheres, don’t’cha know, ya leper?) to Soundcloud. I haven’t used Soundcloud for years, so deleted several tracks on the siralfrediv account. I tagged the mixed down flac with the artist Flavigula. My electronic and / or electroacoustic music will be under this moniker. In fact, I should create an entrely new Soundcloud account for these purposes.
Yah.
The Fen