Thursday, August 7, 2014

it's funny how sometimes the simplest parts are the hardest ones to get right
so, this is my posting schedule for the next year, taking me out of my noise/punk/emo/grunge stage (inri001-inri003) and into my synthpop stage (beginning with inri005 and carrying through to about inri010). inri004 is a plunderphonics piece that i constructed a few months ago out of experiments i did over the fall of 1997.

i've got this worked out to mid-2001 and will add to it as i go forward. it's partially because i'm going to want somebody to do this for me if i don't make it past 2015.

yeah. it'll make more sense if i make the jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj lp more inclusive of all of the 2001 and 2002 material and then park it in the middle of 2002 as a 2xcd that is roughly chronological. i have unformed sequenced material up until about that point. so, that means i'll also put the guitarland stuff on there, a few instrumental rabit tracks and the ideas i was working out over the summer.

if i go with the comprehensive approach, the other option is to split it into two records, one placed in september '01 and the other some time after that. but, that would mean i'd have to split up some things from the fall that i've always considered to be conceptually linked to the stuff from the spring. and i've always considered time machine conceptually linked to guitarland, too.

if i choose to not be comprehensive, i'm going to have several stranded eps and more than 80 minutes to try and pare down into an lp. so, i'll have to leave tracks off.

i could still change my mind. i really never know how i'm organizing things until everything is front of me.

angular momentum

this is a short section from the song i'm working on. the idea is to put it on repeat and listen to it for hours. i throw these sorts of loops up periodically, but i haven't included any in any releases. i'm going to start doing it...

there's a pizzicato bass line for the piece that i may or may not add to the loop. i'm expecting not to.

but, i just love the way the syncopated cowboy ramones drums interact with the slightly metallic psychedelic grunge riff and the soaring gazey guitar tremolo. the thing that makes the loop, though, is that carefully placed minor seventh chord.

i can listen to this for hours. maybe you might, too.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/angular-momentum



i compose/record by ear and work out the details after the fact (mostly for soloing), but i think the reason the minor seventh works so well is the microtonal tuning. all of the guitars are purposefully slightly "out of tune", with the b and g strings down an eighth tone and the low e string down a quarter tone. that removes the song from the boundaries of western theory. while there's a prominent accidental on the b-flat (tuned down a quartertone), it's otherwise basically in g (but centered around it's relative minor, e, tuned down a quartertone).

the minor seventh strums through all the microtones and ends on the high e, which is correctly in tune and sort of rings out of the piece. so, it brings your ear to it - it's tonal clarity in a sea of harmonic confusion.

loop isolated on aug 7, 2014.