'Silly String Redux' - Individual Song Breakdowns ____________________________________________________________ Individual Song Breakdowns All of what was previously written about these tunes in the original 'Silly String' EP song breakdowns applies, so check those out here. Thus, this section will be used to elaborate on the remaining pieces "Stentorian Echolalia" and, of course, "Redux". ____________________________________________________________ "Stentorian" "Stentorian" came about one night not long after I had purchased an iPad and a bunch of software synth apps. After some droning notes in the low register, the dyads I'm cycling through are based on the progression played on the guitar in the A sections of "Hold On". There are sound design decorations and embellishments aplenty, most with filters/effects: crickets chirping, beating on my face, tapping a coffee mug, tearing into a roll of packing tape, drumming on my recording desk, sipping water, breathing and whispering. "Redux" "Redux" was an outcropping of my experience with "35 Going on Infinity", further impelled by a desire to not only redo 'Silly String' but to also supplement it with fresh material. Although after realizing the MASSIVE amount of work that encompassed '35', I certainly was hesitant to embark on another such adventure; this feeling obviously subsided pretty quickly, haha. As always, it started initially with the drums. I recorded around three hours of improv over three nights. For the first two nights I used the same kit, then changed it up on the third. On the first night, I recorded to some custom clicks, i.e. 'melody soloing'. The first was an intro click (at 84 BPM) that transitions into the first 11-4 chunk. Then, I had a click in 5 with the "Lollygag" chorus progression and a click in 11 with the "Hand of the Giant" progression; I had both of these clicks on my phone, each at 104, 124, 144, 164, 184, and 204. Because this was all improvised, in the original demo with the MIDI synths (and perhaps even in the final version!) you can hear me 'finding' the pulse sometimes, especially at the higher tempi, and especially trying to nail that damn triplet that occurs on the upbeat in the 11 loop. It's cool though - adds excitement methinks. I also had a sterile click with no melody, phrased in quintuplets; I had these at the same tempi, although I had 16th quints programmed for 104 and 124 and 8th quints for the others. This provided an interesting contrast, as the pulse falls polyrhythmically all over the place in correlation to the loops. Also, even though the quint feel is mostly strong, I still transitioned into other subdivisions. On the second night, I recorded to just my metronome at the same tempi with a solid quarter pulse. The way this was integrated is interesting because sometimes there was unplanned stuff that works out beautifully, sometimes I was actually playing something in 5 or 11, and in the other instances I just edited it so it'd fit better. On the third night, I drank an entire bottle of red wine and played without a click. As mentioned above, the chord progressions utilized within this epic are from the C/chorus sections of "Lollygag (Clown Nose)" - from 'Silly String' - and the B/version sections of "Hand of the Giant", from 'Silly String II'. There was a lot more harmonic content information present, as opposed to '35'. The intro and outro contain snippets of all of the themes from the original six tunes. As with '35', I wanted Greg to play whatever he felt within the confines of the progressions, but I also highlighted a few grooves that needed special attention rather than just the chordal stabs. Greg played a crucial part in helping shape this into what it is, so here are some words from him: "Rumblings in the air: March 2nd, 2019. Experimentation beckons. Soon. Before the world went away. Utter personal chaos through the spring and early summer of 2019. Life-defining changes. Nothing musical, little fun, the satisfaction of finishing something started. Besides the point. Then, it begins. Redux begins. Over 50 minutes, many styles to attend to, references to other moments on the record the track will belong to. It's a lot. A lot, a lot. But when your friend Travis Orbin says "will you ride" and when the crew involves homies from prior adventures (Aaron Deal) and others you have immense respect for from other releases (Sophia Uddin) the answer, of course, a resounding: yes. Yes the fuck you will. My basic goal for this bass track was to create enough deliberate, revolving key signature repetitions to produce moments of familiarity while leaning into the chaos and fun as much as possible.vI hope you enjoy it. I'm so, so happy I got to be a part of this experiment. Stay safe." I finished tracking and editing the drums with the MIDI synths containing both progressions in early July 2019. Greg miraculously finished a MIDI bass draft by the end of the month! What a madman. I preferred having final synths before any of the soloists tracked, but schedules don't always align ideally. So, next up was orchestral percussion. My perennial mobile tracking producer Gabriel Riccio convinced me to book time at a real-deal studio, so we went with Decade Music Studios. Peter tracked "Redux" along with the other material in one afternoon in late September, feeding off of the drums/MIDI synths/MIDI bass and Gabe's suggestions. Although she tracked "Desensitization" in December, Sophia didn't get the opportunity to lay anything down until April of 2020, deep into quarantine (between tracking 'Finite III' as well). After receiving her tracks, I now had 4/5 of the puzzle, so I went to work comping. This is where this experiment greatly deviates from '35'. With '35', I dropped in Rafael's guitar track and my job was pretty much done. I had four takes of Patrick's sax, so I chose the best bits for each section, acting as more of a traditional comp. I flirted with moving a few lines to better coincide with the drums, but little did I know back then that that was practice for "Redux". I went through each section (which usually correlated to the tempi), picking my favorite melodies and layers. Sometimes I repeated them, and I usually locked them in with whatever the drums were doing; this was applied much more adamantly to the strings rather than the orchestral percussion, since most of what Peter played was accompaniment rather than a solo (thankfully!). Overall, from a top-down perspective, the comping moved from left to right, meaning whatever the soloists performed in the section was utilized within the respective section. However, there's a pretty acute exception about 35 minutes in, when the first chunk of 11-4 is reprised; I also reprised the string and bell melodies that I kept. I think this is a cornerstone section and anchors the whole experiment. After comping, which took about ten days, Aaron was nearly finished with synths. I sent him a draft of the isolated strings and bells to finish up and he had his final draft ready in late April. Unfortunately, after dropping the synths into the session, I then had to go through each and every single string part (and some of the bells) and redo the volume automation, haha. This took another week. This ended up being FAR more work than '35', validating my initial hesitation. But damn if it wasn't worth it! As with '35', I think we all created something entirely unique, provoking, and entertaining. I can now say with utmost certainty that I do not foresee myself commencing another such experiment for quite some time. I'd like to issue a super-duper-mega-turbo, mammoth-gargantuan-cyclopean-stupendous-sized thank-you to everyone for their contributions: my rhythm section (more like rhythm/aesthetic section!) in Greg and Deal, as well as the soloists Peter and Soph. Oh yeah, and that's Peter at the very end.

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