In Depth on 'Control - Take 2'
Basis
I created a spotify playlist in early 2019 to capture ideas for this album. It doesn’t resemble the end result much at all. I eventually stopped curating tracks because it was too much pressure to learn so many things at once. I gave up on adding any electronics because I wanted to focus on getting the production quality where I wanted it to be.
For 90% of the project’s duration, I had assumed the character of the album would be similar, if not identical, to Str. It was only in the final month or two of production that it became completely different.
Struggling with Style, Sound, and Skill
After writing many of the pieces, I recorded them and found the audio to be considerably lower quality compared to the recordings from Str. Although those were of course done by a professional, I thought my amateur-grade recordings could at least be passable, but they were not for a number of reasons:
My studio is untreated, uninsulated (even for heat), and has a huge sliding glass door on one side. This caused lots of sonic reflections and the low- to mid-frequencies were very muddy and resonant. Lots of notes dipped in and out of the songs. It sounded bad.
remove was the track that inspired the rest of the album. I wanted to write an interlude that harkened to an already written piece, add, and came up with the basic repeating pattern with three chords in the base. Since I wanted the piece to be melodically weaker than add, I textured up the piece with some rain and random plinking on the top register of the piano in the same key. To guide the piece, I added an improvised monovoice melody.
The melody was interacting too much with the chords and repeating pattern, so I filtered all of the low frequencies out as much as possible on that track. I recorded it to tape, played it through a broken Walkman, and it was as if everything came into focus - this style helped stifle the ugly characteristics of my sound and brought out the beautiful imperfections in all of it.
Tracks
remove
remove is the most edited track on the record. I’ve attempted to capture the same mood in a live performance, but usually it ends up pretty different. I really enjoy having two separate experiences when listening to the recording or listening to a live performance. Writing more songs that intentionally force this dichotomy is a goal of mine for future projects.
commit
This song went through a lot of revisions. There was a third part that I cut out once I started recording takes for this song, as the piece felt complete on its own. Adding another section just felt like it needed to rise to another level, which I couldn’t manage to compose. Keeping it short and simple helped to define its character a bit more.
reset
This is an improvised take on a couple of core elements that I have purposely left sparse and undeveloped. I wanted to have an idea of a song that I could perform differently each time I played a live show. I happened to use a similar scale to Emser, so I use it as an intro into that piece now. I’ve never really been satisfied with another take or performance of these ideas other than the one I recorded. I feel almost content with the fact that I might never attain the same emotion that I recorded this song to. It’s strange.
The track is accompanied by some subway noises from my regular station, Hermannstraße, on the U8 line in Berlin.
origin
This is recorded outside a cathedral in Mitte, Berlin. I had just gotten my Tascam field recorder and wanted to capture some sounds in Berlin that characterized the city for me. I miss hearing the bells.
add
Honestly, I think this song is a bit cheesy. But it represents a happier, less brooding character of myself. My friend David really encouraged me to lean on the melody of this song and not draw any attention away from it in the second section.
The second section was actually inspired by the idea that I came up with for remove, which itself was inspired by add in the first place. It’s a neat little cycle of reflecting ideas.
squash
The sound in this track is an old man playing accordion in the Moritzplatz station in Berlin. This was the stop I got off the train to go to work. I always loved the reverb in this station. Courtney and I pondered the idea of learning a few covers on guitar and recording ourselves playing in it. We never got around to it, but maybe one day we’ll go back.
merge
This short idea was supposed to be a parallel of Averys, a minimal intro tune that I could use in a live performance. Since remove really stood out for me as an intro, I relegated this one to another break in the album.
The ambient noise is from a cafe in Kreuzberg, Berlin called Five Elephant. I was probably drinking a cappuccino and sharing a slice of cheesecake with Courtney during this recording. The strange sounds at the beginning of the recording is an artifact of taking my field recorder out of my pocket after it had already started recording.
branch
This is one of the last songs I wrote for the album. It still always surprises me when I manage to write a complete song in minutes and feel confident in it. Many songs take me days of turning over the idea in my mind, but this one clicked as soon as I began to improvise the pattern. It actually stole the place and name of another rhythmic arpeggiated song that I now call untitled rhythmic song #1. That one relies too much on the lower register, and so didn’t work with the production style of this album. Maybe it will show its face again on another album, but for now it will only be played live.
fork
Of course, this one is essentially a newer version of Mesford, plus an “outerlude” at the end. The name represents taking a different path than something else while always knowing if you turn around, both paths still lead back to the same thing.
I included this to make it clear how different the sound of this album is from my previous one. I want my recordings to become as professional as the ones that Martyn created for me, but I’m clearly not there yet. If I have no shame in that, then I wanted to show it clearly. I’m still deciding if I feel bad about my amateurisms.
This was the last time I set up my microphones for recording, so it felt natural to include the sound of me getting up and shutting off the recording, closing the book on this album.
Of course, there was still a lot of work to be done after the recordings were finished, but it still symbolizes something important for me - my first work, almost completely created and crafted by myself.
Final Thoughts
This album turned out to almost be an homage to my time in Berlin. I’m not surprised that this manifested itself, since I have so many complicated and mixed feelings about my life there. I don’t know if I’ll feel the same about Seattle, as my life here is largely comfortable and isn’t changing me all that much.
If I were to reflect on this music, and what it says about me, I do think I’ve changed a bit from my previously ultra-serious and dark self. I still have an innate notion that it’s cool and edgy to be dark and pessimistic, but I am slowly finding more value in brighter, more optimistic songs and feelings.
Thanks
I got a lot of musical support, encouragement, and feedback about all of these songs from my friend David McLaughlin. It is a bit weird to realize that only he and I are privy to some aborted ideas that will never be recorded.
My girlfriend, Courtney, listened to these songs so much over the past year and a half that she started to forget I wrote them in the first place. It means a lot to me that she will always listen to them again and again.
My family members are always up for listening to my work, and even though I can’t bring myself to trust their positive opinions of my material, it still feels good to have undying fans. Love you all.
The album cover was designed by Connor Pierce, a friend of a friend of a friend who helped me out without much notice. Even though we never met during our correspondence, I feel he captured the idea of the album precisely, and I appreciate his work greatly.