Past lives

Released: June 2018

Equipment: Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer, Korg Volca synthesizers

Listen:

Four months passed before the release of my next album, a reflection on some ongoing turbulence in my home life. The longer time taken is reflected in the resulting tracks, there's more structure & development through the length of each piece and a greater variety of tones used. The Volcas appear on two tracks but I was using them less & less.

Sevensteps was based around a syncopated bleepy arpeggiator pattern with slow chords and a tinkly melody line. The name comes from the length of the chord sequence.

Soulless used the Volcas (Keys, Sample, & Bass) to provide a 'mechanical' base for the song to build around. I like the variation between verses on this one.

Diurnal has a very traditional arpeggiator pattern and alternates between major & minor verses, quite a daring musical leap for me!

On Boptoid I imagined an alien who'd visited Earth and was trying to 'sing' a half-remembered human song to their friends back home. Bass & Sample Volcas made up the rhythm section.

Inturbulent was made up of smooth chords around a sharp & choppy arpeggiator sequence. A nice feeling of flow builds as it progresses.

Lagrange has an almost randomised note pattern with the same tone used for the melody line. Lots of echo adds to the 'spacey' atmosphere. The name comes from Lagrange points, positions in space where gravity fields cancel out and provide stable orbits.

Labyrate uses a deliberately long & meandering chord sequence which is further obscured by accompaniment changes not matching the 'verse' structure. The intended result was a feeling of being in a musical labyrinth, 'lost' but intentionally so.

Exercise six was another experiment in starting with a chord sequence and seeing where it led. Unusually for me this included a long middle eight section.