Yet Another Movie
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
A gruelling schedule of Christmas parties and shopping has delayed my write up of last week's session. Please accept all apologies.
Last Wednesday's session was typical, and completely out of the ordinary all rolled into one neat 13 hour package. I've been listening to a lot of harmocially simple music lately, and it's starting to show. I arrived at the studio with nothing more than a basic chord progression in mind and a drive to make something from scratch. This was obviously helped by Vanessa and I not having much left up our sleeves as far as existing material goes.
I built the song up from my Hohner, really dirty, and a little loop I found, made from a Tic Tacs container. Slowly but surely it grew into another 7 minute beast with all the signs of a Manzuma song but disguised as an 80's power ballad. Are you confused? I am. Let's list the elements. (1) Anthemic chorus. (2) Clean muted guitar riffs. (3) Big clean acoutic drums that are slow, really slow. (4) Words that really mean nothing at all but could probably find some relevance to anyone listening. (5) The "end of a movie" factor. Emphasis on the "end of a movie" factor. Have a listen to the second chorus...
Full Circle Sample (Chorus 2) 670kb
As you've read twice already now, that is the second chorus. Allow me to backtrack a little bit (right now it's too hot to even breathe let alone think in logical steps). I had all the music done by about 7pm. Upon Vanessa's arrival, and after convincing a family member that looking at random old photos was not a priority, we sat with her lyric book and found nothing that would slot straight in. We looped a verse and a chorus. Listening to this I wrote the lyrics while Vanessa wrote the melody. We slammed the two together without any trouble. We recorded the vocal in one long take and went back and replaced verses, then choruses, then middle 8 (yep, we have a standard middle 8 in this one, no extended solo, no weird bits, ambient messy bits). The first verse vocal is just dirty Hohner and dirty voice. The second verse is dirty Hohner and clean voice and 80's muted guitars. The Hammond swells and the first chorus hits. Not as hard as I'd like but I'll fix that. The vocals in all choruses are doubled and panned a little. This gives it great space and the slight intonation makes it sound big. And big is what power ballads are all about. Agree? I've got my voice on this one too, and when we're done there will be a little bit more of it, right at the end. The middle 8 features some sitar and ethnic drums just so we can feel like it fits with our other material. The chorus repeats at the end and the whole song fades into a blur of strings, slide and a repeated piano note which eventually warps into a fuzzy little thing in the distance. Done.
As far as the title goes, it's another working title. If you'd like to offer suggestions just post a comment. Obviously we'll give you a free CD and some credit or something if we use it. But no money.
And it's been birthdays all round, for everyone! The day we recorded this song, November 30, was Vanessa's borthday. And she didn't tell anyone. Not even her parents.
The Full Circle Perculiarity List:
(1) This is the first completely new song we've written since Darker Spaces, also recorded impulsively on the second day of recording Serpent. (2) This is the first song we've used the Hohner in. It's been used numerous times on other people's music, just not Manzuma's. (3) As the album stands the shortest song is still 6 minutes something giving us a total of 30 minutes after only 4 songs. (4) This is the only song we've ever written/recorded to not have a solo/instrumental of some sort.
Last Wednesday's session was typical, and completely out of the ordinary all rolled into one neat 13 hour package. I've been listening to a lot of harmocially simple music lately, and it's starting to show. I arrived at the studio with nothing more than a basic chord progression in mind and a drive to make something from scratch. This was obviously helped by Vanessa and I not having much left up our sleeves as far as existing material goes.
I built the song up from my Hohner, really dirty, and a little loop I found, made from a Tic Tacs container. Slowly but surely it grew into another 7 minute beast with all the signs of a Manzuma song but disguised as an 80's power ballad. Are you confused? I am. Let's list the elements. (1) Anthemic chorus. (2) Clean muted guitar riffs. (3) Big clean acoutic drums that are slow, really slow. (4) Words that really mean nothing at all but could probably find some relevance to anyone listening. (5) The "end of a movie" factor. Emphasis on the "end of a movie" factor. Have a listen to the second chorus...
Full Circle Sample (Chorus 2) 670kbAs you've read twice already now, that is the second chorus. Allow me to backtrack a little bit (right now it's too hot to even breathe let alone think in logical steps). I had all the music done by about 7pm. Upon Vanessa's arrival, and after convincing a family member that looking at random old photos was not a priority, we sat with her lyric book and found nothing that would slot straight in. We looped a verse and a chorus. Listening to this I wrote the lyrics while Vanessa wrote the melody. We slammed the two together without any trouble. We recorded the vocal in one long take and went back and replaced verses, then choruses, then middle 8 (yep, we have a standard middle 8 in this one, no extended solo, no weird bits, ambient messy bits). The first verse vocal is just dirty Hohner and dirty voice. The second verse is dirty Hohner and clean voice and 80's muted guitars. The Hammond swells and the first chorus hits. Not as hard as I'd like but I'll fix that. The vocals in all choruses are doubled and panned a little. This gives it great space and the slight intonation makes it sound big. And big is what power ballads are all about. Agree? I've got my voice on this one too, and when we're done there will be a little bit more of it, right at the end. The middle 8 features some sitar and ethnic drums just so we can feel like it fits with our other material. The chorus repeats at the end and the whole song fades into a blur of strings, slide and a repeated piano note which eventually warps into a fuzzy little thing in the distance. Done.As far as the title goes, it's another working title. If you'd like to offer suggestions just post a comment. Obviously we'll give you a free CD and some credit or something if we use it. But no money.
And it's been birthdays all round, for everyone! The day we recorded this song, November 30, was Vanessa's borthday. And she didn't tell anyone. Not even her parents.
The Full Circle Perculiarity List:
(1) This is the first completely new song we've written since Darker Spaces, also recorded impulsively on the second day of recording Serpent. (2) This is the first song we've used the Hohner in. It's been used numerous times on other people's music, just not Manzuma's. (3) As the album stands the shortest song is still 6 minutes something giving us a total of 30 minutes after only 4 songs. (4) This is the only song we've ever written/recorded to not have a solo/instrumental of some sort.
