One influential, mind blowing moment growing up was in high school when my friend Travis shared his headphones listening to Ween’s The Pod. It wasn’t like anything I had heard but was completely familiar in it’s loose 4track sound. They jumped genre’s, followed the effects wherever it took them on the cheapest gear with settings no one would touch with a ten foot microphone. I was obsessed with their mythology, the experimentation and goofball antics. I still wish I could be this free in creating.
The second influence here was a memory of the resurgence of the beats in the late 90’s like Jack Kerouac showing up in GAP ad’s. I worshiped On The Road and Naked Lunch and met Ginsberg in Washington square park to sign my copy of Howl. I bought an old typewriter and took disastrous roadtrips.
I was trying to bring back that naive freedom with no responsibility and endless time. The stream of consciousness and a struggle with those existential questions.
I started with a sketch from a cassette of a modular soundscape, which immediately led me into this train theme which is layered with slight reverb. A simple beat/bassline from a 1st gen kaossilator, about 46 BPM, in the key of A. Forced some weird glitching, leaning into the mistakes. EQ’d with LFO on redux ‘rate’ with slow autopan. Electric picking with Obscura Altered Delay pedal, more LFO modulated chorus in Ableton and some pitched down vocal channeling Dean and Gene. I’m happy to not overthink this one and get weird. I could use more of that.
5 Likes
