Because of being more behind on this project more than I would like to have been, the final week of the project has been full of a lot of work as well. I took to trimming down the work to 12 minutes (which I guess is still maybe overkill, but it really works with the track I think, there is no specified maximum length for the track so I feel like this is generous, short tracks aren’t as fun), as well as structuring the work a little more through the use of adding some extra drones around the halfway point of the track using chords taken from the Greg Haines track “Sehnsucht” (yearning; wistful longing.)

I think the contrast between the beautiful drones and the extremely harsh sound is an exciting use of the two sonic extremes, but is also a good deviation from Power Electronics traditions as it adds too much of a ‘musical’ element than is usually preferred. It also leans into my own interpretation of noise approaching the sublime, and in the written work relates to the use of ‘extremity’ in Power Electronics to force a reaction in this context through the use of sampling conventionally ‘sad’, ‘beautiful’ music. The contrast also relates to the genre’s focus on cruelty and victimisation; this way, something beautiful is being turned monstrous and violent sonically. But also, rather, the ‘extremity’ of the work I find enhances the beauty of the couple chords I sampled, the contrast between it and the constant aggression surrounding it is exciting. I also made the looping chords slightly off from the ‘beat’ in the track to appeal to my own love of the ‘primitivist’ side of the genre, where things are manually triggered and a bit shaky.

Another addition I made to substitute for the fact I can’t re-record vocals is the famous rant from the 1976 film Network (which will never not be relevant), as it is sampled in quite a few Power Electronics records I’ve heard and I find it kind of iconic to include within my own track. It adds an extra layer of Power Electronics canonisation and another vocal layer of shouting, which is buried and stretched, which is something I like to do a lot with my work, as well as torn up with tape emulation to provide more grit and drop outs. It also is just generally a great speech and is enough to get a listener righteously angry, as Power Electronics (at least to me) tries to do with its samples.

I didn’t add much automation since the priority is that it has ‘liveness’ and most elements were performed, but I added a couple of exciting moments with interaction between the sample and the noise takes, and raising the level of the vocal take I did towards the end for some more fun. I don’t usually like editing in FL studio because the cuts feel worse than in Audacity, but I gave it a go for the effects chains I wanted on the Master (I added a limiter because I don’t want to be too obtuse) and it actually went alright I feel like. The creation of a Power Electronics track after spending so long writing about it (and feeling like I was being extremely negative about it in the process) is exciting to practice some of the techniques I like listening to (I tried a rug pull at the start!) and make something more suited to my own personal tastes within Noise. I am extremely pleased with the track as well, I feel like it should be worth releasing in some form somewhere at some point and as a start of making Power Electronics, I feel like it is pretty effective in relation to the grander scheme of work.