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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / HoolieBrown's music / Where Lies the Strangling Fruit

Where Lies the Strangling Fruit

By HoolieBrown on March 15, 2026 7:08 am

WEEK 11 BABY!  I read the Southern Reach trilogy by Vandermeer last summer - that's the first time in a long time that a book - or series of books - really got in my head and started changing the way I looked at things.  The way JV writes makes it easy to visualize:  Florida coast but rockier, and something is very, very wrong.  I scratched out this melody, call and answer, but never spent enough time on it until my original plans for week 11 fell through due to decision fatigue.

No spoilers, but for those familiar with the books I intended to grab kind of the low rumbling, uncertain vibe of the biologist's journeys between the base camp and the lighthouse in Annihilation.  A sense of wonder and discovery mixed with the unsettling reality in that world.  The call and answer, with the latter becoming more like the initial line was a major objective.  Working through this was like reading it all over again.  If you haven't read these books, I highly recommend it.

No samples this time, all instruments were built/designed on the m8.

I did spend quite a bit of time on the mix to see how some nice analog compressions could thicken up the leads a bit.  Also - even though the reverb on the m8 is God Tier imo and incredibly versatile when you play with params, I killed it during the mix and subbed in a Valhalla verb bus, then swapped it for a RAUM cathedralesque verb, and listening back it sounds surprisingly close to what I had in the original mix in the M8. xD  When it's right, it's right.

March 16, 2026 2:52 am

Paisleyfrog

Man, when the track starts, that mix just sounds HUGE. Love how subtle the call and response starts, but builds over the track. That sorta skittering around sounds amazing. Great mood. 

Also, as someone who worked as a biologist in another life, I think I need to check out those books.

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March 29, 2026 5:31 am

HoolieBrown

Paisleyfrog wrote:

Man, when the track starts, that mix just sounds HUGE. Love how subtle the call and response starts, but builds over the track. That sorta skittering around sounds amazing. Great mood. 

Also, as someone who worked as a biologist in another life, I think I need to check out those books.

Thanks so much, PF - and I highly recommend checking those out.  He's also written another series called Borne that's more of a post apocalyptic sci fi adventure vibe - it's excellent but The Southern Reach books are what got me onto his talent as a writer, especially the first in the series "Annihilation."
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