Sorta long song warning. WALL OF SOUND WARNING. Also lots of text part four. Also part 4 of Titan City Nights. Also starts off fairly narrative-foley-esque with the sound of techno playing at a club but don't be fooled. Or maybe be fooled. It's fun.
This week was a struggle. Part 5 may have to wait a week depending on how shit goes.
‹ story
Same night, wrong club. Wrong crowd, wrong music, I just can't escape tonight, brain working over time, the pounding rumble of techno just won't push me out of my head, and the place stinks of sweat and metal shavings and not in the way I like. The others like me just aren't here tonight. They weren't at Cowboys either; *he* wasn't at Cowboys, our shared cigarette, the glint of his eyes and that smile all I can remember him by, didn't get a name, barely saw his face, but I'd know him again to see him.
We always know each other when we're near, it's survival, it's desperation, sometimes it's love.
Out in the alley, dance music muffled by synthetic concrete and the ever-present rain, sheltering my steps under the leaning overhang of the scaffolding above. Still hours to go before dawn, out of work for the night, running out of opportunities. Anything to quell the numbness. Anything to dampen the memory of the yellow sky.
I start climbing a fire escape, wondering if I might get a chance to see the stars before the night is out, when I smell that cigarette again, spiced with something it shouldn't, smoke lingering up through the iron. More steps on the steel, and an unmistakable silhouette smiles at me as he joins me for the rooftops.
Few more hours to go, maybe not for nothing after all.
‹ composition notes
This is another edited live performance with semi-modular/modular gear:
Subharmonicon makes its inevitable appearance on bass chords
ASM Hydrasynth on an analog-sounding pad accompaniment
Moog Grandmother on Bladerunner-esque lead that sorta didn't work out
Pulsar-23 doing its thing with the big booms and phantom fog horns
Various effect pedals and modular effects
Recorded to a 1010 bluebox eurorack version.
Again, a struggle. Could not get a patch working on the hydra that I liked, and then decided I wanted a slightly jazz/blues sound and got he Subharmonicon to fill in the base layer for that, with Hydra on some pads. Grandmother had a sorta overdriven flute sound which sounded nice but I couldn't get the legato working the way I wanted so 90% of what I recorded went into the trash. Two takes, second was like 18 minutes long and I edited that down to half the time.
Arranged in DAW after in a rather slapdash fashion, with piano and some other elements added there alongside the usual ambience. Schedule for this stuff just isn't working.
