Welcome to part 2 of the first installment of Track Notes, wherein I take a few minutes to talk about songs from the latest album, giving you a brief glimpse inside of my head. At this rate, I’ll have four total parts here to get through all of the stuff on Results Not Typical.
But before I get into that, I just want to take an opportunity to get you plugged into The Electric Goodies Newsletter. Subscribers have already gotten six free MP3s of behind-the-scenes works in progress. I’m also running a small contest available to list subscribers only. Join today, check out the archives, and have fun!
Ghosts of Persistence
Sometimes echoes of the past remain long after the presence of memory was last called upon.
This is one of those lilting progressions that I came up with just sitting at the piano one evening. Thankfully, I keep a small digital recorder sitting on top of said piano to capture the neat things like this that decide to show up. I was trying to figure out what to do with this bit, but it kept wanting to stand on its own. The bridge in the middle keeps it from becoming a completely repetitive affair.
Unfurled
As the sun sets on another day, you feel everything that had once bothered you begin to melt in the crimson rays that bathe the horizon. Breath slowly comes easier, deeper. The universe is yours to contemplate as your mind and soul unwrap and spread, billowing into the breeze. Contemplation is now your only goal, until the sun should choose to meet you again.
This is a song of quiet reflection, with the complexities of a day’s thoughts shown by layered and extended chords. You really should listen to this one with your eyes closed while taking a deep, slow breath. Or maybe a few breaths, as this is the longest song on the album. It’s also one of only a couple songs I’ve ever produced without a metronome of any kind. I actually tried to clean it up and quantize things when I first recorded it, but doing so completely destroyed the soft and loosening feel of the original demo. So here you have it, wobbly tempo, mashed chords, and all.
Whether or Not
Some choices in life are simple. To be or not to be, to do or not to do. And some things remain unaffected by these choices, a steady constant in a stream of binary waverings.
One of the things I really like about this song is that the left hand of the piano is fairly constant the whole song, never actually changing the bass note. It’s entirely up to the right hand to add tone and color, and it makes the otherwise steadfast left hand take on a whole new and exciting life in context.
Ligature/Signature
When is a signature something more? When it is a flourish of personality completely tying itself to the heart and drive of the one whose hand is the only that could truly make it. A flourish in life that identifies more so than the words it makes.
This goofy little tune is really an excuse for me to pay homage to ragtime, honkeytonk, and hot jazz. I like the off-kilter chord progression, and it was one of the first times I’d tried for some of the weirder harmonics in a song. Somehow, it still sounds OK. Also, the piano was a bit tricky to get to sound right and fit with the feel of the track, but I think the chorusing does its job well there. As cheesy as it is, it’s the kind of song that I think would be a blast to play live with a jazz trio sometime.
The Clock on the Wall in Limbo
The longest wait in the most boring waiting room in the universe. You watch the clock wondering if the ticking will ever stop. Here, it does not.
This was a literal 11th-hour addition to the album, replacing another track that I had planned but scrapped at the last minute since it wasn’t working out at all. That’s always a hard thing to do, but it’s important to know when something isn’t working. Maybe that other song will come back later. I like the simple, loopable 12-bar blues on this one, and the melody and bassline that counter each other and play off each other’s rhythm. Fun fact: this was recorded with a single sound patch from my Korg X3, with the bass in the left hand and the vibes in the right. I nearly added drums and some other stuff on top of it, and even almost put a ticking clock effect in there, but in the end I’m very glad I didn’t.
Stay tuned, parts 3 and 4 will be coming soon!
Psycliq Musical Productions 