My Serious Side
Completed - 23rd March, 2010
Guitars, Bass, Synth - Shane
Tuning - Standard
This piece is very much centred on creating a mood - it's not really a song, as much as it is a soundscape, and a curious way to set-up the second side of the album. It does have fairly typical verse and chorus sections, but it was primarily an experiment using a simple guitar line (and varying degrees of echo) that gradually becomes enveloped in something more complex, something slightly sinister, before the happy release. There is a musical motif here that I may revisit some day, but for now it serves as the perfect segway to the main songs on side two.
The Farmer & The Fisherman's Daughter
Completed - 23rd December, 2010
Guitars, Bass, Synth - Shane
Tuning - Standard (with capo at 2nd fret)
Drums* - Michael Shreve, Matt Cameron
I would say I have never put as much into one song as on this piece. Starting life as a 25 second clip - 3 half ideas for chord progressions on an acoustic guitar - it became the most challenging piece to write, record, and mix (3 rewrites and at least 4 remixes). This is a pretty all emcompassing piece, and says quite a lot about me and the way I think about the craft of music making.
I had been inspired by working with Bat Kinane, and started noodling on the acoustic guitar during July, 2010. Initially, it might have been something for us to collaborate on - see if we could pull a song from this innocuous little demo. Anyway, that wasn't meant to be, so it was lying idle as an idea, but nagging me at the same time. Is it destined to be a lost gem? Can I convert it into a production track? Would I like an acoustic number for my Cellardoor catalogue? There was no album at this point, remember.
Only when the snow hit us for the second time in the year did I get the impetus and drive to see it through. I believed in the quality of the ideas, and I knew I needed something like this to give me a more rounded album. It became the missing link.
There are all manner of textures, rhythms and sounds on offer here: African beats, tempo changes, shifting time signatures, 12-string acoustic, 6-string acoustic, sitar, orchestral string sections, mandolin, accordian, electric guitars (of course!), 3 guitar solos (minimum, depending on your interpretation). Somehow, it all works in the sense that you really are on a journey with the 2 protagonists.
The title came to me when walking in the fields near my childhood home (an AONB that I think is unmatched anywhere in the world), and there really is a Farmer and a Fisherman's Daughter.
The Condition of My Condition
Completed - 1st August, 2010
Guitars, Bass, Synth - Shane
Tuning - Standard
Drums* - Stephen Perkins
This tune first started coming together at the end of 2009, when I was looking at fresh ideas for the second phase of writing for One More Outnumbered. With a decidedly twisted funk groove, and challenging arrangement it was definitely going to take the band into new territory. Even though it made it to the room for inspection, and some demo work was completed, it got lost amid the mixing sessions for the OMO album - and, in truth, was never really going to work in the band context.
It was another piece that I believed in very strongly - I didn't want to lose it altogether, but didn't hear it as a viable production number for library pitches and so forth. Therefore, a band song but not fot that band. Naturally, I took it into the Cellardoor fold.
The resultant song demonstrates my love of mixing styles and sounds, with exploration of both the percussive rhythms and the synth tones. I played around with some classic Moog and Mellotron noises to add some retro flavour to the distinctly modern drum and guitar sounds. There is a nifty breakdown section after the first chorus that I am particularly pleased with, especially as it lifts to a very expansive and open middle section, and subsequent key change. I extracted as much as possible from just a few core parts - this song mostly being propelled by subtle key changes and myriad rhythm / arrangement shifts. The 3 part chorus is a favourite of mine - equally challenging and musically pleasing.
I think I got lucky (with an appropriate amount of perseverance, too) and created a piece that is easy on the ear and musically muscular. It's something that I have admired greatly in the songs of Rush, U2, Tears for Fears and The Police. Though, as my good friend Chris Stynes said about the early demos: 'Primus called, and they want their tone back'
The Sound of Muse (sic)
Completed - 28th April, 2010
Guitars, Bass - Shane
Tuning - Drop D
Drums* - John Tempesta
The partner in crime to Don't Eat the Yellow Snow, and the song that really set the ball rolling. The initial ideas came together in mid February, but I had a difficult time finalising the arrangement, and could not decide on the tones for the best part of a couple of months. In the end, it was simpler to complete once I accepted that the guide guitar tracks already had the tone I wanted - a trashy, lively, over distorted, almost uncontrollable wash of a sound - so they are still on there, mixed with various overdubs.
Inspired by the guitar playing of Matt Bellamy, there is a loosely Devonshire twang to some of the parts. Notably in the chorus, where I tried for a big, open wash of chords and used a simple lead line to thread them together. Ok, and then in the immediate sections that follow the first chorus - deranged sense of melody, quirky effects, gradually ascending runs overlaid with roving octaves. Overall, it's a little more metal than Muse, but it's similar to the vibe you get from the live experience with the band - where Bellamy really lets the dogs out.
Invitation to the Meltdown Fiasco
Completed - 1st December, 2010
Guitars, Bass, Synth - Shane
Tuning - Custom
Drums* - Stephen Perkins
The letters I, M and F were pretty prominent in the news headlines around this time, so I enjoyed playing with words to get the title for this one. I'm not overtly political by any stretch, but it seemed pertinent, and I also created a couple of electonica pieces that week using the same point of reference - Invest My Future and Instigate More Fear...you get the drift.
Written and recorded over the course of a weekend, I went back to my custom tuning (B, G#, D#, F#, A#, D#), but decided to use mostly clean guitars to create the light and shade appropriate for the title. This one is a little schizophrenic - using pianos and synths to create a sneaky kind of drama over the ominous dirge of the verses. Then the chorus parts are much more genteel - pretty naive, really.
Naturally, there has to be some low end chug when using this tuning, so there is a noticeable shift in gears at 2:49 - stylistically somewhere between Faith No More, Porcupine Tree, Dream Theater and Opeth.
*courtesy of submersible music
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