Lutz: Two songs for your earholes.

[NancyJohnson]

I've been working on this studio project for the last two or three months, just trying to break the fastball monotony of formulaic punkish stuff and just throwing loops, samples, different time signatures and oddities into the overall mix.  I'd like some honest responses to this please.

I'm really enjoying the workflow, the process and the end results, but it has been a hard slog at times.  Overall, I've never worked harder at trying to do more while sounding like I'm doing less.  I'm not a fan of the idea of this being an album as such, the work we've done is more this body of work and when the whole thing is mixed it's planned that the songs should just crossfade into each other forming 40-45 minutes of continual listening.

These are the first two tracks, Countdown Sequence and Governing, Regulating, Managing.  It's not an easy listen.  Please fasten you seatbelts and assume the crash position.

 

 

[Dad3353]

7 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

;;;some honest responses to this please.

S'not bad; certainly not as bad as your rather dire warning. To my ears, it falls a bit short of of reaching the escape velocity needed to be entirely rid of the 'formulistic punkish stuff', whilst admitting more than a glimmer of hope for final release from that gravitational pull. I'm not fond of the 'repeat four times then change' method; even less enamoured by the unintelligible vocals (be warned in turn, though, that I'm an 'old school fuddy-duddy finding it hard to pick out the lyrics of many, or even most, stuff these days  ; you're certainly not helping by burying the lot in a smother of Fx...).
There is a positive side, however, with an interesting take on the sonic landscape. Again, the danger of turning pure gold into mush is always present, and you skim darned close to that fine line, but it's healthy experimentation, and shows promise. The overall effect I took from this pair of tracks was a sentiment that I'd like to see/hear stuff like this played live more than I would be tempted to listen to it at home. There is energy in there; I'd like a bit more quality risk-taking in the initial composition, more daring, more 'out' than that, without going completely bananas (well, just a little bit, then...).
Good work, then, encouraging, worth pursuing, so push on, taking greater strides still. There's a wide margin left before I'll really need the seat-belts, so you can up the ante, we're not in the danger zone at all yet. Light the fuse; you've more to give than that, I'm confident.
Just my tuppence-worth; hope this helps.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Dad3353

[NancyJohnson]

Thanks for the input.

The material is quite a departure from the old school punky material I've done in the past, my wife doesn't like it one bit and describes it as being gnarly and gritty.  I'd concur (to a degree!) that the vocals are borderline unintelligible; these are being added after the music is recorded and there's two people singing (regular vocalist and the guitarist).  We will roll it out live at some point, at which juncture I'm sure things will sound a bit different, but given the samples and loops, we'll likely be having to utilise backing tracks and clicks.

On the point about risk-taking, mark my words, there's a lot of very interesting stuff going on on the more recently recorded material.

On the upside, my work here is now done; I finally finished tracking basses about two hours ago and I'm happy me and the other guys are still speaking to be honest.  Vocals should be done in the next week or two.

[adamg67]

I really think that's got something. The punk side of it is not my thing, but the way you've pulled it away from the punk formula is. If you did the same thing from a blues rock "base" I'd be raving about it. Go for it.