The Imperfect / Nov.01.2024
RECAPTURES DAY / PRO TOOLS BREAKDOWN
today sees the release of “recaptures day,” the third single from my forthcoming Ash EP on Nettwerk. as i did last month with “looming brittle” i’d like to break down the Pro Tools session here and highlight a few of the key sounds.
RE-201 MOTOR
as Ash is all about noise, i figured i’d start with the main noise track. it actually comes from putting a microphone (in this case a mono microphone recording two different passes) on the motor of a Roland RE-201 space echo. synthesizing noise can be fun, but when you can find such great, textural noise happening mechanically, it ads a certain something to a recording. there’s a squeak in there that sometimes sounds like a bird.
CASSETTE PIANO
but that’s not the only source of noise. a cassette walkman capturing some piano playing layered with a loop of walkman motor:
NORNS_LEPIDOPTERY + EP
Lepidoptery is the scientific study of butterflies. it also happens to be the name of an amazing script for the Norns platform that allows you to capture 128 (as in the case of the number of grid point on my Grids controller) tiny loops and let them flutter along. i use this often in live performance but also to create textures in the studio. i’m not sure what the source of sound was here but Lepidoptery is responsible for the skittering texture while an electric piano performance (that i recorded in december, year unknown) lies on top.
WURLITZER 200a
finally, an un-amplified Wurlitzer 200a plays the main melodic line of the piece alongside a tape loop from an Uher tape machine.
the melody of this line was actually inspired by a song i used to listen to a lot by Daniel Martin Moore called “Stray Age.” i think the similarities will be obvious.
these are the main sounds that make up “recaptures day”… minus the mix balance, analog EQ and external reverbs and effects.
the song is available on Bandcamp now and on streaming services at large here.
The Ash EP will be out on November 15th and concludes the trilogy made by Eev and Aer before it.
in other news, i’ve been in the studio for the past week + with Corey Fuller working on a new Ohio album that we started a couple of years ago. Corey and i like to mainly work in person, so the albums take a while.. as new york and tokyo are on opposite sides of the planet.. but we’ve had a very productive week. you can see some photos of the sessions on instagram and i hope you’ll all be able to hear the new album in 2025. Ohio is a chance for both of us to step outside our comfort zones and create something unlike either of our solo projects. our first album Upward, Broken, Always was released in 2019 and we’re very proud of it.
thank you for listening and for your continued support.
my initial idea was to gather them all into a physical release. it would be a tough sell, but i sort of want to do it just to have it.
Very nice. I thought I was the only one doing music production breakdowns on Substack, so it’s really good to find your Substack!