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This week we looked into the advancement of technology in music, and how it has improved the quality of music, and the experience of both the creator and listener.

The earliest way of recording and playing back music was the wax cylinder (or phonograph), invented by Thomas Edison in 1877. This breakthrough allowed for a performance to be captured, replayed and distributed commercially.

While this breakthrough was significant in that it kick started recorded music and led to the industry today, the audio quality was very poor. Bass frequencies were hardly caught on the wax, and everything is very muffled and incoherent. This meant while the wax cylinder was useful for smaller ensembles such as blues players with a single voice and guitar, or a piano and violin, larger ensembles such as orchestras sounded terrible due to the low quality.

later developments like vinyl in 1948 advanced the distribution of music, however the next major breakthrough in the production side was multitracking. previously, bands had to be recorded all at once live, however multitracking, popularised by the mid 1950s, allowed for instruments and sections to be layered over each other, meaning multiple takes could be had and a singer could layer vocal harmonies without needing backup singers for a live take. This was utilised in all forms of music, however the best example of one 4 piece band utilising this technique is queens Bohemian rhapsody, which was said to have over 180 overdubs.

This was followed in the 90s with digital software, in the form of pro tools initially. While not massively affecting the distribution of music, it made the means of music making way more accessible. Anyone with a computer could now make music, when previously this was only achievable at a studio with a big budget. It was now cheaper to record and make music, as large reels of tape and hardware effects racks were now recorded from the equation. This has led to a debate between digital and tape, however as time goes on and technology advances, its harder and harder to discern a difference.

Over these 9 previous blogs, I’ve been pushed out of my natural comfort zone to discover different music and production methods. Similarly, this blog project has made me pay a lot more attention to music I already knew, becoming an active listener and noticing things that otherwise would have gone over my head on a casual listen.

Initially, the weekly blogs had a much broader scope, looking at the role of a music producer. While my view of certain topics has changed over these 9 blog posts, I still want to focus on the more technical aspect of production as I stated in that first blog. When later listening to lights in the sky by nine inch nails, there was so much that I realised I had never noticed, such as the subtle ambiences and synths towards the end. This idea of active listening was coined by Carl Rogers in 1957 during a psychological study, and it is something I mean to research more. In the mean time, I’ve been really listening to sings I already believed I knew, finding new things with every listen. I’ve noticed this the most in industrial music such as NIN songs.

Later we looked into culture within music, with a focus on the african record label Hakuna Kulala. I focused on the singer Adomaa and her song ‘smoke and mirrors’. I found her songwriting inspiring, and the combination of the gospel music she was bought up with in the church and the jazzy bossanova-esque chords made a really nice composition that felt authentic to her upbringing within her culture. Similarly the look at aesthetics and context via the cure was very fun for me, being a big fan of goth music. To research this I started reading ‘GOTH’ by lol tolhurst, which in parts documented the making of the cures music. I’m hoping to use this book again for my song report as its such a good resource, and Tolhurst has another called ‘CURED: the tale of two imaginary boys’ documenting the early days of the cure which I plan on reading.

The look into ambient and break core is what I mean by leaving my comfort zone. Through the break core research I discover Igorrr who I really like. While I find standard break core to be a bit dull and trapped in a certain era, Igorrr switches this up by bringing in other influences such as classical, industrial, flamenco and metal. This inspired, and I hope it somehow influences my work later on. Ambient music was a lot harder for me to get. While I understand it’s a close minded view, something about it feels inherently pretentious. Like modern art or elevated horror, it just felt impenetrable, leaving me unable to truly enjoy it. While I understand that for example Eno’s idea of ambient music is to be used as a tool, to put it on and zone out, somewhat meditatively, I just don’t see music that way and couldn’t truly connect with it.

Overall, these 9 blogposts have helped me reflect on music, giving me a greater appreciation of music that I perhaps wouldn’t have expected to like, and given me many ideas and tools to use in my music and later academic projects for UAL.

Breakcore is a genre of music that originated in the late 90s, however has had a resurgence in recent years. While it draws from many places and may be hard to pin initially, It regularly features fast and intense drums, often sampled and heavily distorted.

One artist who particularly grabbed me while researching break core was Igorrr, a French musician who stuck out to me due to his further experimentation within the genre. While break core is often associated with being mostly electronic and sampled, Igorrr plays around with instrumentation within his music, often recording his own drums and taking inspiration from classical, metal and industrial. This song ‘very noise’ differs from the typical break core song, using low tuned distorted metal guitars reminiscent of Gojira or something similar. The drums, while fulfilling the fast and distorted quota, is playing a blast beat which is commonly associated with heavier metal genres too. This sort of experimentation within an already experimental genre is what draws me to Igorrr’s work.

While Igorrr’s work is more reminiscent of the earlier era of break core (90’s), there’s been a resurgence in recent years, with artists such as Machinegirl and sewerslvt making break core more focused on nostalgia and ambience. This era is inherently connected to the internet, evolving from digital hardcore in the 2010s, and aesthetically linked to internet culture such as video games and anime. However, many people from the earlier breakcore scene view this new resurgence as a new genre, more akin to ambient or drum and bass.

This newer wave of break core has a lot more ambience and noise to it, more reminiscent of industrial. However, one massive similarity between old and new break core is the use of the ‘amen break’. Initially a soul beat, it was risen to fame within music circles when it was sampled countless times by hip hop and jungle music, and more recently within break core.

in conclusion, artists such as igorrr take break core to a new level, experimenting within the already experimental genre to bring in influences such as industrial and metal. These pairings work well and create unique and interesting tracks that rarely age, unlike some of Igorrrs break core peers. Earlier break core feels inherently dated to a late 90s/ early 2000s aesthetic, while the modern breacore revival is so infatuated with internet culture that when the zeitgeist moves on it’ll again seem very dated.

Breakcore (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakcore (Accessed: 27 November 2023). 

Igorrr (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igorrr (Accessed: 27 November 2023). 

Chapter 2 of ‘Ocean of Sound’ focuses on the experimental musician Sun Ra, his life experiences and his personal philosophies on music and the world. Initially Sun Ra seems like an odd choice In this book about ambient music due to his jazz leanings, however it becomes clear why he is focused upon when Toop discusses ‘space vibrations’ and the fast moving frequencies Sun Ra feels, similar I think to Brian Eno’s work.

Eno, as one of the pioneers of ambient and electronic music, has a lot in common with Sun Ra, both having ethereal and deeply experimental angles to their work. While Eno’s experimentation is more present within the music, many of his songs meandering and seemingly unstructured drones, Sun Ra’s experimentation, while still present in the music, is more evident In his aesthetic and themes. Sun Ra was known for his ‘otherworldly costumes and personnel’, as well as lyrics focusing on Sci-fi themes, politics, religion and African culture. One of the other greatest similarities which I think qualifies Sun Ra as an experimental and (if in spirit) ambient musician within the book, is his dedication to invoking a ‘strange atmosphere’ which is crucial to ambient and experimental art. Brian Eno states that his take on ambient music is more introspective and ‘something that creates space for quiet reflection’, whereas Sun Ra’s songs are more outward looking with greater social themes and space travel.

Sun Ra also talks a lot about spiritualism in the chapter, asking ‘how do you know im real?’ and retelling a story of waking someone up with a strong chord that he believes had some sort of spiritual significance. This spiritual angle ties back into the ambient focus of ‘ocean of sound’, as introspection is often one of the core elements of ambient music, as Eno said he aimed for.

One element of the chapter I wasn’t too keen on was the writing style. I found it confusing at times and had to reread the first paragraph several times to understand who was being talked about at any given moment, or how old Sun Ra was at the time of the writing. Similarly while I feel it can be argued that Sun Ra definitely had a similar ethos to experimenting and ambience as any other ambient musician, he does feel somewhat out of place when compared to artists like aphex twin and Brian Eno.

Overall, I found the chapter an interesting dive into an artist I knew little about. While quite common now, I found his genuinely odd perception of the world inspiring and quite endearing, in a way that can often come off as trying too hard to be different in the 21st century. I like the aim of introspection in ambient music, in my mind somewhat similar to meditation or reaching Nirvana in buddhism (although i’m sure I’ve deeply misunderstood that).

Brian Eno (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno (Accessed: 25 November 2023). Toop, D. and Faber, M. (2018) ‘if you find earth boring…’, in Ocean of sound: Aether talk, ambient sound and imaginary worlds. London: Serpent’s Tail, pp. 23–32. 

sleeping; eVerybo

The cure’s fourth album Pornography is one that could only exist within the specific context of its creation. While this could be said about many albums, the apathetic and gothic aesthetics of the album were greatly informed by the social and cultural context within Britain at the time, and the actions of and dynamic within the band leading up to the strained 3 weeks of studio time, in which the band recorded their most gothic and harrowing release to date.

One Hundred Years

The first track from Pornography immediately sets the apathetic and gothic tones for the album to come. The track starts off with a drum machine, which Lol Tolhurst States in his book ‘goth’, was a DR-55 ran through a bass amp and guitar amp. Parts of the drums such as the kick and snare were doubled by real drums played by Lol, recorded in a large cavernous room in the studio to capture the iconic reverb that’s now synonymous with goth. The bass and guitar enter, with the bass playing a C and a B note while the guitar plays a lead line in harmonic minor, contributing to the dark and eerie sound. The first line of the song is ‘it doesn’t matter if we all die’, reflecting the mindset of the band in the studio. For context, the band had been playing around 200 shows a year with little time to do anything else, leading them to all feel musically burnt out. In conjunction with this the band were drinking heavily and regularly abusing drugs, and Robert Smith later stated that at the time of recording he felt he only had two options, ‘either completely giving in or making a record of it and getting it out of me’. The album had no real single (with strange days begrudgingly released by the label) and was seen as too dark to be commercially viable. This was totally intended by the band, with Robert Smith saying that the album was meant to be the ‘ultimate fuck off record’, and he initially planned the end the band after its release.

Cold

Cold begins with a cello riff, played by Smith with the cello on his lap like a guitar. This echos the DIY punk ethos that the cure started on in the late 70s, which links to greater cultural themes within the UK at the time. In 1982 at the time of the recording Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, bringing her own brand of ultra-conservatism to post war Britain. The same month that the recording sessions took place, the Falklands war began. This greater social context bought a misery to the recording sessions, crucial to the gothic aesthetic. In addition, most of the bands personal relations had disintegrated due to their intensive touring and growing ‘rock band’ status, leaving them to feel isolated and sleeping in the studio. The lyrics ‘curled up like an embryo’ show a vulnerability in the bands work, setting them apart from their musical peers at the time and contributing to the gothic aesthetic of the album. Lol Tolhurst in his book ‘goth’ names this as the most gothic track on the album, and potentially in their entire catalogue, citing drug abuse as one if the focuses of the song.

Context and Aesthetic

Contextually, Pornography was born from the social and personal experiences of the band in the early 80s. The bands personal relations had fallen apart and Simon Gallup the bassist briefly left after the albums supporting tour. The state of the government and post war Britain also heavily influenced the band, bringing apathy to the record in abundance, and the music industries pressure was felt, with the band feeling chastised for not making a lighter more commercial album, as well as a touring schedule that almost broke them. Aesthetically, the album is the gold standard of gothic music. The supporting tour for Pornography was when the band finally accepted their now famous stage style, big messy hair, lipstick, eye shadow and strictly black clothing. The harsher and more robotic synth and drums almost touch on industrial at points and the lyrics reflect the nihilism and depression felt by the band, and more broadly the UK at the time.

references:

Tolhurst, L., 2023. Goth. 1st ed. London: Quercus.

Smoke and Mirrors is a track from Adomaa’s most recent album, released by Hakuna Kulala in 2022. Adomaa describes her style as blending jazz, soul and elements of African beats and traditional music. Each of these elements is faithfully represented within the track, with an emphasis on the more soul based elements of the composition utilising choir vocals and extended chord voicings throughout.

The acoustic guitar heard at the beginning is reminiscent of a blues or jazz style guitar riff, playing a syncopated arpeggio of the chords D minor add9, E minor and A7, utilising the jazz scale of melodic minor throughout. Similarly the occasional chromatic rundowns across the song add to this jazz guitar vibe. Production wise, the guitar sounds very full, due to being the only instrument, and seems to have some room reverb applied, as well as a very subtle saturation that’s only really noticeable on some of the lower and more aggressively picked notes.

The lead vocals on the track are very clear throughout, however the more ethereal and choir like lower and higher harmonies seem to be sent to a more intense hall type reverb, fostering a more gospel or soul-y vibe. This gospel influence is mentioned frequently by Adomaa, whose father was a preacher in Ghana and Nigeria as she grew up. This furthered influenced her musical journey, as when she was young she would join a church choir. The choir influence is obvious through the track, lending itself to a faithful representation of Adomaa’s experience growing up in Nigeria and Ghana.

The subtle ambient layers throughout (I’m unsure if they’re very reverbed vocals or something else?) also lend to this ethereal and chapel-like feeling, from a production view help to fill out the track as its instrumentation is so thin, and from a compositional stand point helps build dynamics, as it doesn’t enter immediately but instead builds across the song.

Adomaa (no date) Design233. Available at: https://www.design233.com/articles/adomaa (Accessed: 02 December 2023). 

Ockot, T. (2022) And through it all, adomaa rises again, PAM – Pan African Music. Available at: https://pan-african-music.com/en/adomaa-becoming-adomaa/ (Accessed: 02 December 2023). 

Idioteque is a Radiohead song from their 2000 album Kid A, which is one of their earliest, most obviously electronic and sampled songs. The song primarily revolves around a 5 bar sequence of sampled chords, a drum loop made from a modular synthesiser and Thom Yorke’s vocals. The unconventional use of synthesiser modules and filters to create the drum machine lends a very unique sound to the rhythms of the song, along with the samples from the experimental track ‘short piece’ used as ambient noise and swells throughout the song.

The songs starts with the drum machine, which was made up of synthesiser modules and components such as filters to shape the sounds into discernible parts of a pattern (kick, snare, etc.). Johnny Greenwood also stated that he used field recordings to create ambience and texture inwithinthe track, but also as parts of the drum machine, using filters and other editing techniques to alter the samples to become more rhythmic. This is quickly joined by an ambient sample from ‘Short Piece’ by Arthur Kreiger, an experimental electronic track similar to music concrete. This sample seems to have been put through some sort of filter, as it swells into the next sample used. This sample is the core harmony of the song, taken from Paul Lansky’s 1973 computer generated piece ‘mild und leise‘. The original sample was played through an FM synthesiser and constructed by an early algorithm created by Lansky, which was discovered by Johnny Greenwood on an American CD ‘First Recordings – Electronic Music Winners‘. However, Lanky himself stated that he had already ‘sampled’ the chord progression from an operatic piece that used the ‘Tristan chord’. Paul Lansky Is known for his experimental use of technology and sampling within his composition, with one interesting piece being ‘idle chatter’, which sampled and ‘fragmented’ voices to create rhythmic and percussive patterns which he likened to rap. This is reflected in Radiohead’s experimentation too, with later songs from the recording sessions such as ‘like spinning plates’ and ‘pulk/pull revolving doors’ manipulating the vocal lines in similar ways to Lansky.

Field recordings are also used throughout, such as what sounds like pennies rattling starting at about 0.40 seconds. These samples all seem to be manipulated using similar techniques and principles as music concrete, speeding up and slowing down audio in rhythmic ways, in Radiohead’s case to make them more musical within the composition. The instrumental break at 3.10 sounds very reminiscent of the tape manipulation techniques used in music concrete, and ambient field recordings/samples are used more prominently from here within the song.

While there isn’t too much information I could find about the samples in ‘idioteque’ except from Paul lansky’s and ‘short piece’, it is clear that this song is primarily an electronic synthesis and sample based track, being one of the first in Radiohead’s catalogue. This was evidently a turning point for the band, setting them on a path based around experimenting with synthesis and sampled based methods, used extensively in their later career.

My radiohead adventure (no date) Princeton University. Available at: http://paul.mycpanel.princeton.edu/radiohead.ml.html (Accessed: 02 December 2023). 

Thom Yorke talks about life in the public eye (2007) NPR. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2007/10/12/15226006/thom-yorke-talks-about-life-in-the-public-eye (Accessed: 02 December 2023). 

Lights In The Sky is a song by Nine Inch Nails that arrangement wise, is extremely stripped back. It’s extremely minimalist with its instrumentation, however it’s a deeply emotional song that I feel couldn’t work with any other instrumental set up. While somewhat cliched, the solo nature of just a piano and sole vocal creates a very isolated and depressing atmosphere across the track. Similarly, this instrumentation and arrangement, while not unheard of, was rarer within the bands discography as they had established themselves as an industrial rock/electronic act.

The piano chords pulsing throughout the verse are played at a low register, and accompanied by a vocal in a similar low register. this seems to reflect the verse’s lyrical themes, mentioning loss and finding ways in which the singer is ‘getting by’ afterwards. This arrangement of just a piano and vocal and the lower register of both immediately capture an apathetic, depressed tone which perfectly sync with the lyrical theme’s of the song, feeling beaten down already. When we reach the first chorus, a higher piano counter-melody enters, to me symbolising either a potential hope in the character, or perhaps the ‘lights in the sky’ mentioned in the lyrics. The piano continues its lower register quarter note pulses, except rather than the chords ascending at the beginning of each phrase like the verse, they descend here, mirroring the lyrics of ‘watching you drown, i’ll follow you down’.

Again, the song repeats the verse and chorus again with the piano and vocal capturing this low and Beaton down atmosphere. During the second and last chorus there’s a change, as we finally have another instrument. A violin or flute-like synth plays a high pitch pedal note lightly, jarring against the descending chords, until the last bar of the passage, playing a descending harmony. I feel this was chosen in terms of arrangement and instrumentation as it fills out the higher range of the track for the final chorus, but also could symbolise the ease of missing help or a ‘light in the sky,’ as its mixed very low in the track and is easy to miss on the first few listens.

While not arrangement based, I feel that the production is also crucial to creating this worn down atmosphere, with the vocal and piano feeling almost meshed into one, with little clarity.

In conclusion, the instrumentation and arrangement feels like the perfect artistic choice for the song, mirroring the lyrical themes of isolation and capturing a down-beat depressing tone. I feel that the song wouldn’t be able to carry the same emotional weight with any other instrumentation or arrangement.

While Nine Inch Nail’s song ‘March of the Pigs’ doesn’t have a largely unorthodox structure, the contrast between sections and the use of dynamics and tension is very strange for such a popular song within the band’s catalogue.

The song starts with a drum beat consisting of 3 bars of 7/8 and a bar of 8/8 and after 2 loops of this is joined by the bass for another 2 loops of this time signature switch. This could be considered the intro as after these 4 repetitions the guitar and vocals enter for a verse. The verse feels frantic with lyrics about ‘losing it’ and talking pieces of something. After this comes a pre chorus which goes half time from the 269 bpm of the verse. The use of dynamics here is crucial to the structure as the pre chorus feels more steady, the instrumentation goes back to just the drums and bass in 4/4 now with a 8th note riff on the bass and a quarter note kick pattern. The chorus then hits, being the greatest dynamic shift in the song. The instrumentation strips back to just piano and vocals, as the piano plays three jazz inspired chords over 2 bars. The lyrics here are at odds with the frantic and uneasy verse, singing ‘doesn’t it make you feel better’. This verse/pre chorus/chorus structure repeats again after a few seconds of rest, however the second chorus is extended with the jazzy chords playing 3 times more this time.

While nothing here is individually that odd, it’s a polar opposite use of this structure than the usual in a pop song. Rather than having a sparse verse, a dramatic pre chorus that builds up and a huge anthemic chorus, this song goes in reverse with a hard & fast verse, a less dramatic pre chorus and an anti-climactic almost non-chorus of just a few seconds. Despite this the song still works as intended, working as a metaphor for a high and a subsequent come down. The verse is almost incoherent, while the pre chorus strips back and the chorus has the most clarity to any section, telling a story not only through the lyrics but through the structure and production of the track.

I’d like to try a song similarly structured, with hard dynamic shifts from section to section and instrumental switch ups out of nowhere. Similarly using production and songwriting as tools to add to a narrative is a fascinating idea i’d like to study and implement in my own songwriting.

Krovatin, C. (2019) Nine inch nails’ March of the pigs is still as intense as ever, Kerrang! Available at: https://www.kerrang.com/remembering-nine-inch-nails-march-of-the-pigs-25-years-later (Accessed: 02 December 2023). 

The role of a music producer is hard to define, and any definition given will most certainly have outliers unless extremely vague. The spectrum is wide with some producers handling almost everything outside of the initial idea of the song, such as Steve Albini on Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’ producing, mixing, engineering and even helping out to some degree with arrangement and songwriting, evident through the use of cello on the album. Some producers take a significantly more laid back approach to making records such as Rick Rubin who under his own admission has ‘no technical ability’ and rather works as a music producer through giving the band suggestions and drawing the best performances out of a musician that he can. Similarly there are producers who are highly technical, such as Trent Reznor working with synths, samples and creative & odd artistic choices when recording live instruments, such as recording guitars through amp heads but then bypassing speaker cones and going straight to the desk.

This got me thinking about what sort of producer I would want to be, and where I want to specifically hone my skills as a music producer. While the production style of Rick Rubin has proven itself to be massively successful such as when working with Johnny Cash or System Of A Down, I feel that it only works when an artist is open to suggestion or unsure about their direction. For example, it worked for Johnny Cash as he was unsure about his place in the modern music industry and wanted to revitalise his career, however Black Sabbath and Slipknot have both been critical of his approach to records, as both bands already appeared to know what they wanted and seemingly found his input (or lack of in Slipknot’s case) very unhelpful. On the other side, there are highly technical producers such as Steve Albini who allowed Nirvana to pick their own takes when mixing in the studio, as he saw they clearly had a vision fully formed already and instead worked technically by engineering and mixing the album. This is the example I would like to follow, honing my skills in a way that makes the producers role more technical, offering guidance in the form of songwriting or arrangement when required, however able to work with appropriate mixing and production tools with little input into the creative vision when needed.