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Musical System Lessons
“The album would not exist, really, without convert to harmony […] This system lets you produce a kind of trace, and its unreliability gives you this funny little grit of chaos that you can use to grow something cool.” Drew Daniel “I developed this system of taking samples of already existing components and extracting them… Continue reading
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Art About Music: Thomas Hart Benton’s “Evening Concert” (1952-1963) & “Sources of Country Music” (1973)
Thomas Hart Benton, Evening Concert (1952-1963) Thomas Hart Benton, Sources of Country Music (1973) Continue reading
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Same Walk, Different Music: Photek’s “The Hidden Camera” (1996)
Photek, “The Hidden Camera” (1996). This track is classic drum and bass that exemplifies the genre’s rhythmic inventiveness and orchestrational-arrangement resourcefulness. Photek (Rupert Parkes) builds seven minutes of music around eight or so parts that enter and exit the mix at 8- and 16-bar intervals. The through line is a skittish breakbeat (kick and snare… Continue reading
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Keywords: Quick Mixes
(Image: Fons Heijnsbroek) Quick mixes are brief sessions devoted to getting a track’s parts into a rough balance of volume, frequency, panning, texture-tone color, and presence. The track has been finished for a while and now you return to it with fresh ears to notice all that’s wrong. The voices sound dull and need a… Continue reading
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Keywords: Artistic North Stars
(Photo: NASA/Preston Dyches) Influence is everywhere and diffuse, but we know people whose work and life we turn to for concentrated inspiration, sympathetic vibration, and to re-orient ourselves on our own adventure. These people are our artistic North Stars. They’re our teachers, contemporaries, or figures distant in time and place who inspire us with how… Continue reading
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Database: JakoJako On Getting A Bit Of Distance
“As soon as a track is finished, or I think it’s time to put it to the side and start something new, at that point it’s good to actually leave some time in between before you listen to it again–you get a little bit of distance. As soon as you turn the track on you… Continue reading
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