it's been a few months since we posted our 20th tracks on the blog (which reminds me, there's a small backlog of them which i'll gradually post up). being a school holiday, bec and i had a little more time than normal to work on things, so there's two tracks. the first is one i did inspired by a book i'm reading at the moment called 'haunted weather' by david toop. it's about sound as music and music and sound as memory and lots of interesting offshoots of those kinds of things. this track is called 'fourthirtythree in a suburban backyard'. it's a decumulation of recordings of nothing, inpired by john cage, made by sticking two microphones just outside the studio door. of course, 'nothing' is very relative. the piece starts out with 9 recordings of 'nothing', working down to one recording of 'nothing'.
second up is the more regular song thing. musically, i've been listening to animal collective lots over the past few days, which is the most obvious inspiration. the drums are a sample ripped from a track called 'down' by p major from a great sydney free download compilation i got recently called 'free the beats vol 3'. very worth downloading (featuring our friend m.o.r.). i made a very skeletal piece of music with just the straight drum loop, the chopped up electric guitars and a bit of glockenspiel. bec wrote the lyrics. for one of the first times ever, ellie contributed as she was over for dinner, so she made up the melody to sing the words over the music. you'll have to ask bec and ellie where their inspirations came from.
here are the lyrics...
to me
go, go
get up on your feet
you stayed too long
you've been asleep
put on your shoes
and open the door
get into the seat
put your foot to the floor
you've been sleeping in dust
you've got dirt in your brain
if you don't get out now
you'll be sleeping again
get out of this suburb
it's making you cold
get out of this city
before it takes hold
lift your thoughts from a whisper
get your heart up to speed
set your face to the headlights
you know there's nothing you need
so go!
push out into the road
travel on 'til the outside
go on out into the known
second up is the more regular song thing. musically, i've been listening to animal collective lots over the past few days, which is the most obvious inspiration. the drums are a sample ripped from a track called 'down' by p major from a great sydney free download compilation i got recently called 'free the beats vol 3'. very worth downloading (featuring our friend m.o.r.). i made a very skeletal piece of music with just the straight drum loop, the chopped up electric guitars and a bit of glockenspiel. bec wrote the lyrics. for one of the first times ever, ellie contributed as she was over for dinner, so she made up the melody to sing the words over the music. you'll have to ask bec and ellie where their inspirations came from.
here are the lyrics...
to me
go, go
get up on your feet
you stayed too long
you've been asleep
put on your shoes
and open the door
get into the seat
put your foot to the floor
you've been sleeping in dust
you've got dirt in your brain
if you don't get out now
you'll be sleeping again
get out of this suburb
it's making you cold
get out of this city
before it takes hold
lift your thoughts from a whisper
get your heart up to speed
set your face to the headlights
you know there's nothing you need
so go!
push out into the road
travel on 'til the outside
go on out into the known
Comments
As to my inspiration, it is - obviously - a lecture to myself. I know what I believe. I know what I should do. I am lulled into apathy. It could have easily been titled, "Get Off Your Metaphorical Arse, Bec".
it will sound great live