The track is finished, I added a drone made from Nick Drake’s They’re Leaving Me Behind track with reverb and low pass like Cory does that appears toward the latter half, as well as some better mixing and more thoughtful structuring. It is clipping in places but I enjoy the sound of it, it is more crackly than being annoying digital clipping, so I think it adds more sound to the excessive sound pallet. The wall structure is good I think, there’s a section toward the middle where the vocal presence takes focus because of the excessive delay layer, as well as a wonderfully stagnant part with subtly rising drone layer before the main one, it reminds me of my friend Angel’s Narehate stuff in the structure and sound kind of.
I made the ending abrupt. I recorded some droning I had forgotten about and decided to just ignore what was intended for the ending, but I kind of just prefer the sound of the mixer being turned off to anything more dramatic. I sent the mix over to Jack C a few times, and he mentioned that in my earlier mixes, things towards the end just become more mushy and indiscernible, so I added some automation to layers so things will poke out more during those parts.
I sent some of the track over to my friend in Finland (they are an anon, so I can’t credit them), and they sent me back this drawing that I wanted to use for the cover in some way. It is pretty beautiful I think, the arms are outstretched like paws, and the knelt down posture is depressive and gorgeous (kind of therian). I made an edit with my usual cover aesthetics of excess.
I’m pretty excited with how this turned out and plan to release this on Bandcamp somewhere after the hand-in. The title I have at the moment is “Now take away my hand and talk about the love you had to let go”, which are lyrics from Your Hand by The Dead C. I have been having a very rough time the past couple of months emotionally, and The Dead C has been keeping me afloat, so it seems like an apt closer for the year to use some of their lyrics, it speaks to the depressive atmosphere of the release as well, it just clicks in my head I don’t know. Jack C is happy with the mix too, he likes the role of his voice and language, which I’m glad about since he will be M.I.A for a while to do his finals for his law degree. This feels like a good capstone for the year. I decided against doing an abridged version of the track as it would, I think, make it more confusing to mark. The length of the piece is something I enjoy, so I wouldn’t have it any other way. In regards to the collaborative experience I guess I spent too much time scrambling about for ideas to work out doing a more lengthy collaborative piece, and stayed in my comfort zone of ‘Jam Sessions’ instead, but I think what Jack brought was a challenge for me to extract as much as possible from the voice, and for him exciting to be part of some noise for the first time in I think 3 years, marrying his long time interest in writing poetry with it as well. It has been a very positive experience working with a very close friend, basically, and I am happy with the results.