Artist: Andy Pickford
P: 2021
I used several creative processes on Caca De Luna and I think it’s better when I write a little about each piece.
Part 1
Sept 23-27.
Whereas I didn’t produce a track intentionally to open this collection, Kim thought this one would work. Yep. It works. It’s a slowish 6/8 rock rhythm. I keyboard tapped in the drums myself because I wanted to get that 80’s gated drum sound. Took some fine tuning with various plugins but it ain’t bad! One thing I noticed all the pieces here have in common, is they don’t use a lot of studio tracks. They sound just as colossally huge, but as rule I achieved that by tweaking what was already there and by playing -louder- or -softer-. Yes, it appears at some point I may have stumbled upon the notion of touch-sensitivity. Isn’t that amazing?
Part 2
Oct 7-10.
It’s a nice tune but then I’d have to say the same thing for several of these pieces. I found a 1970’s farting drum-machine sound, by Jove! The melody is kinda pretty in an innocent sounding way, almost sentimental. I dunno. It was there and I did it. Anyway it stays nice and simple without getting vastly OTT in the middle and purveys, yeah, pretty much what I envisioned it should. Nice :-)
Part 3
Sept 27-29.
Ahh, you can’t beat a good old one-chord drone/sequence piece with solo bits. It is rather catchy all told, well once it gets going it is. Me making use of my now antiquated sample libraries. They really don’t pick up the same kudos as synths as they get older do they?! Anyway, it’s nothing too loud or pervasive. Quite calm and meditational in fact. Also a bit uplifting but I do think that’s maybe because my coffee’s just kicked in.
Part 4
Sept 29 - Oct 03.
So now here comes something loud and pervasive. Quite an orchestral sounding approach but with mostly synth underpinning everything. More of my key-tapping drums and, from the sound of it, a bit more alcoholic than on Part 1! Nice classical sounding 8-part chord pattern, which isn’t as tricky as it sounds. Quite chuffed with the percussion dynamics on this, little of which is down to track volume changes. Nah, I played the louder and quieter bits myself, generally in one take because I can and because that’s the most fun bit.
Part 5
Sept 12-16.
8-part chord pattern again, but wholly more chilled out this time. Another gorgeous tune from the annals of the inspirational abyss! By this point I distinctly hope you’ve noticed the bass on this collection! I gained a good deal of consistency throughout by using the same bass patch on almost every piece. I varied its envelope and tweaked the waveform a little but otherwise it’s all about that bass ;-) Oh you’ll be terribly shocked to learn it’s using Omnisphere however! lol
Part 6
Sept 20-13.
Hold onto your knickers, this is Liquid DnB! It’s still very much in keeping with the collective album style however. It’s just ruddy quick! Great for torpedo-beats :-) It’s been done before, so it shouldn’t surprise you too much!
Part 7
Sept 16-20.
Time for the smoking jacket and lounge creepers, dudes! Here’s me sample surfing again and trying out a bit of mellow jazz trumpet. Or something like that. Anyway, it’s a most chilled piece, with one of those backbeats the Gallagher Bros. might refer to as ‘Reggae’, but is in fact as authentic as crab-sticks or genuine rocking-horse shite. Anyway it’s another 8-part chord pattern. Well, it’s 4 but the bass notes change so really it’s 8.
Part 8
Oct 14.
Another nice, chilled melody. Sounds a little more traditional than its predecessor, but still has those interesting chord modulations which sound characteristic of this set. Has some more string ostinatos in it. Gotta love ya some string ostinato. It’s just.. stringy. Innit. You can tell I rather enjoyed doing this one because it only took me a day.
Part 9
Oct 17-18.
Chronologically, the final piece of the set. The fact wasn’t unknown to me at the time, hence this is another piece constructed around a simple drone. 3/4 time which, for me isn’t common. I knew I still needed more traditional sounding Electronica sounds in this set, so I decided this was the best way to round it off as a session.
Part 10
Oct 03-05.
And oh yes, guess what? It’s another nice melody. Anyone would think I’m known for nice melodies. Not that we live in a world which appreciates them much. The cats seem to like what I’m doing though and this, like all the other pieces, got 2 or even 3 cat approval :-) That’s when they all come in here to sleep while I’m making music. That’s after they’ve walked all over everything first. I’ve become an expert at ctrl-cmd-q and can key it in within a second of a cat coming through the flap. It’s about all I’ve got when Trubz, the tuxedo, is around. Like 2 seconds after appearing, he lands on my Kronos or iMac keyboard. So I’ve had no cat sabotage this session! I did leave one note the cats played in though, but that's on Part 9, so I don't even know why I'm discussing it here on Part 10!
Part 11
Oct 12-14.
Now what was I saying earlier about Reggae beats? Eh.. yeah and as usual I’m about as authentic as a dodo sandwich. Still y’know, it’s the thought which counts and when you’ve got this ear-worm melody in your head you kinda just give it the groove it needs to (f*ck soundly off) sound great. Actually, this piece started with its bass line in mind. It’s a p*ss-take - it’s based rhythmically on Happy Together, the old Turtles song. So nothing serious here, just fun :-)
Part 12
Oct 10-12.
And the reason for it’s crazy predecessor on this listing! Like, another lovely melody. They’re great and wondrous and all that, but you can clearly see what doing too much of them does to me! This is nice Chill-out and I do like an awful lot of nice Chill-out. Production-wise, one thing I’ve learned to do habitually these days, is duck all my sub-mix tracks very slightly under my drums. That way I can mix those down a tad yet they’ll still sound really punchy in the end result. Not that you can hear it especially on this piece. It’s a thing throughout the album.
Part 13
Oct 05-07.
If you check the chronology, this is indeed another post-melodic reaction piece :-D You know it only helps with getting a good variation of sound and feel on the whole album. This certainly has a nice shade of dark about it, which we like, don’t we boyz n gurlz?! Another star of this session has been the Fabfilter Pro-R reverb. It makes some clear space in the mix and never goes muddy. I’ve had it for ages, I’m just tweaking its knobs better!
Part 14
Sept 10-12.
First piece of the album session then. I guess it gathers together all the vision I was having at the time ie: wonky, trip-hoppy melodics and all in the same vein as Harmonics in The Silence / Shadow at The Gate / Orgonon and Pareidolia. 8-part quite strangely modulating chord pattern.
Part 15
Oct 15-17.
Awww… the prettiest melody on here? Perhaps, but it’s not for me to judge. However, it is consciously a sister piece to my 1983 original Sayonara, not the Replicant version. Believe it or not, that solo sound which was obtainable in seconds on a Juno 6, wasn’t easy to mimic in 2021. Having perfectly in-tune DCO resonance like that does not seem to be a straightforward thing these days. In the end I approached the thing completely from another angle and winged it! It works :-)
Weight:
0,105
kg per
piece
