the message (starry night cowboy)

By neon liminal on September 1, 2024 9:45 pm

This was a monster. Full notes and lyrics below, but a big thank you to jwh for exchanging guitar riffs this week (borrowed a cup of sugar!), it was a really fun little story to build into a full track.

And before the notes - I've finally pulled the trigger, set up a Bandcamp, and my song from a few weeks past, "summer forever", is now available there:
summer forever - neon liminal.

Onto the song! While shooting the shit this past week Josh and I joked about a cabin-in-the-woods fantasy, where we'd play guitar riffs off the backs of our respective porches across an expanse of forest and lake to send a message, 'can I borrow a cup of sugar?'. But you know, in space. Cuz it's always in space.

Josh spontaneously - kindly - sent me a riff, and I sent him one back, and thus this song was born. I've been playing with a sound I want - an album probably called Starry Night Cowboy, with an "ambient post-rock industrial feel with an unmistakable country/folk twang" - and it seemed an apt exercise for this project.

Me on guitar, Josh on guitar are the featured call-an-response, some asteroid-field-radio vocals from me, and the Lyra8 doing its best to sound like a post-rock bowed guitar. Some drums and a little low-synth pad fill out the rest.

Thursday night this sounded like a fucking disaster. By Saturday afternoon it'd become a complete monster of a track and I sorta love it. (it's sunday afternoon now and Ableton is once again wasting my time as I try to master this...)

That being said - this isn't the song in its totality as I imagined it. There's some parts I wanna add for the "album" version, so I guess this might be a pre-release "radio edit" (ha).

It's a little silly to be planning/recording the next album when the first one isn't done but ... Weekly Beats seems to be teaching me multitasking and planning ahead.

› Lyrics

Thanks for listening everyone. This has been a roller coaster year and Weekly Beats is definitely been an exciting part of that ride. Honestly never imagined being able to make something that sounds like this, and I wouldn't have without the wonderful folks I've met here.

Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)

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Tags: country, cowboy, guitar, lyra8, postrock, space cowboy, twang, vocals, week 35 2024, View by:neon liminal

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September 2, 2024 4:17 am

Paisleyfrog

Oh my god. Oh my good oh my god.

The sense of space and place in your songs is always on point, but this is amazing. It’s feelings of spaghetti westerns and playing Borderlands and space and dust and distance. Vocals add to the desolation perfectly. The trem guitar is fantastic, and how the whole piece just builds. And when it all just opens up at 3:25? Epic.

This may be my favorite piece you’ve done this year.

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September 2, 2024 4:59 am

Napear

This is an intensely beautiful piece. Really great work. Dark, and morose, and lovely all at the same time. The drums fit the track so well, and that tem on the guitars... just perfect.

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September 2, 2024 2:55 pm

rplktr

This builds slowly but surely towards the distorted guitars and when they explode, the song becomes properly badass. I enjoyed this a lot, especially with the added context about who it's dedicated to.

I also went for a piece with vocals this week! But mine is much more minimal and doesn't have the awesome guitar riffs and Lyra.

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September 2, 2024 5:07 pm

Q-Rosh

WOW. The intensity of your track goes under the skin. There is a good bit of Nick Cave feeling to my pleasure.
Very very good music.

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September 2, 2024 11:25 pm

jwh

NEON

i'm so glad i got to hear the "in process" version (which wasn't a mess, btw ), but i am completely floored by where this song ended up! that build at the end - just massive and beautiful and beautifully massive.
thanks again for including my guitar message in the mix, an honor!
keep going

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September 3, 2024 5:49 pm

mzunguko

Deep down we're all space cowboys, weary from the trip, and in many ways welcoming the end to what has been a very long and winding journey. Really love to work on this track.

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September 3, 2024 9:15 pm

BarristerPlong

Fucking amazing. Absolutely love the vibrato western guitar, it's extremely effective at painting a scene.
Phenomenal work. The instrumental section at 3:20 is huge and wonderful.

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September 5, 2024 4:34 pm

Cursory

This is so oozy, love the whole aesthetic and premise of this track. Both the feeling of space at the beginning/end and the intensity of the climax are so dialed in, such a cool song.

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September 5, 2024 6:24 pm

miraclemiles

Love it, the message across the expanse. Big, nice work, cool direction to go - I think a bit different from things I remember recently of yours? Which is awesome. Go forth cowboy into the starry night. Love the story of how this came together, huzzah for WB and collabs!

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September 5, 2024 9:09 pm

Tone Matrix

Ooof damn love the whole mood and atmosphere that is set with the guitar and massive drums. Gave me visuals of Timothy Olyphant as a Justified/Mandalorian space cowboy. That guitar line around 3:28 sounds awesome and so damn heroic. Like the character just got up, wiped the blood from his face and picked up his stetson to keep trudging towards his destination. The outro **chefs kiss**

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September 8, 2024 4:54 pm

friendlyperiscope

this is amazing from start to finish, such a cool ambience to this and the cowboy/western thing is so much there!

so nice, will come back to this one. (and thanks to jwh for sending me/us here.)

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September 8, 2024 9:56 pm

neon liminal

Paisleyfrog wrote:

Oh my god. Oh my good oh my god.
The sense of space and place in your songs is always on point, but this is amazing. It’s feelings of spaghetti westerns and playing Borderlands and space and dust and distance. Vocals add to the desolation perfectly. The trem guitar is fantastic, and how the whole piece just builds. And when it all just opens up at 3:25? Epic.
This may be my favorite piece you’ve done this year.

Thank you It was a struggle but worthwhile! Now I just gotta do the album version and do all the things I didn't have time for lol.

Napear wrote:

This is an intensely beautiful piece. Really great work. Dark, and morose, and lovely all at the same time. The drums fit the track so well, and that tem on the guitars... just perfect.

Thank you! The drums were kinda funny - I went through like six different permutations that I hated, did these ones, didn't like them but left them a night - next day sounded kinda perfect. Sometimes we need a break.

rplktr wrote:

This builds slowly but surely towards the distorted guitars and when they explode, the song becomes properly badass. I enjoyed this a lot, especially with the added context about who it's dedicated to.
I also went for a piece with vocals this week! But mine is much more minimal and doesn't have the awesome guitar riffs and Lyra.

Thank you! I really liked your vocal piece you should keep pursuing that, it worked so well!

Q-Rosh wrote:

WOW. The intensity of your track goes under the skin. There is a good bit of Nick Cave feeling to my pleasure.
Very very good music.

Oh, Nick Cave, high compliment! Thank you!

jwh wrote:

NEON
i'm so glad i got to hear the "in process" version (which wasn't a mess, btw ), but i am completely floored by where this song ended up! that build at the end - just massive and beautiful and beautifully massive.
thanks again for including my guitar message in the mix, an honor!
keep going

Thank you You can borrow some sugar any time!

mzunguko wrote:

Deep down we're all space cowboys, weary from the trip, and in many ways welcoming the end to what has been a very long and winding journey. Really love to work on this track.

Thank you . Hopefully this can translate to a whole album lol.

BarristerPlong wrote:

Fucking amazing. Absolutely love the vibrato western guitar, it's extremely effective at painting a scene.
Phenomenal work. The instrumental section at 3:20 is huge and wonderful.

Thank you! I do love my guitar.

Cursory wrote:

This is so oozy, love the whole aesthetic and premise of this track. Both the feeling of space at the beginning/end and the intensity of the climax are so dialed in, such a cool song.

Thank you!

miraclemiles wrote:

Love it, the message across the expanse. Big, nice work, cool direction to go - I think a bit different from things I remember recently of yours? Which is awesome. Go forth cowboy into the starry night. Love the story of how this came together, huzzah for WB and collabs!

Thank you! I started the year off with a lot of M8 techno and tend to oscillate between techno and other post-rock-ambient-vocal stuff. There's probably a techno album coming eventually too but right now it tends to just teach me a lot about energy and arrangement.

Tone Matrix wrote:

Ooof damn love the whole mood and atmosphere that is set with the guitar and massive drums. Gave me visuals of Timothy Olyphant as a Justified/Mandalorian space cowboy. That guitar line around 3:28 sounds awesome and so damn heroic. Like the character just got up, wiped the blood from his face and picked up his stetson to keep trudging towards his destination. The outro **chefs kiss**

Thank you! I was honestly surprised by the outro too lol ... there were a lot of happy accidents of feedback and reverb there.

friendlyperiscope wrote:

this is amazing from start to finish, such a cool ambience to this and the cowboy/western thing is so much there!
so nice, will come back to this one. (and thanks to jwh for sending me/us here.)

Thank you! And welcome lol.

[quote=Paisleyfrog]Oh my god. Oh my good oh my god. The sense of space and place in your songs is always on point, but this is amazing. It’s feelings of spaghetti westerns and playing Borderlands and space and dust and distance. Vocals add to the desolation perfectly. The trem guitar is fantastic, and how the whole piece just builds. And when it all just opens up at 3:25? Epic. This may be my favorite piece you’ve done this year. [/quote] Thank you <3 It was a struggle but worthwhile! Now I just gotta do the album version and do all the things I didn't have time for lol. [quote=Napear]This is an intensely beautiful piece. Really great work. Dark, and morose, and lovely all at the same time. The drums fit the track so well, and that tem on the guitars... just perfect. [/quote] Thank you! The drums were kinda funny - I went through like six different permutations that I hated, did these ones, didn't like them but left them a night - next day sounded kinda perfect. Sometimes we need a break. [quote=rplktr]This builds slowly but surely towards the distorted guitars and when they explode, the song becomes properly badass. I enjoyed this a lot, especially with the added context about who it's dedicated to. I also went for a piece with vocals this week! But mine is much more minimal and doesn't have the awesome guitar riffs and Lyra.[/quote] Thank you! I really liked your vocal piece you should keep pursuing that, it worked so well! [quote=Q-Rosh]WOW. The intensity of your track goes under the skin. There is a good bit of Nick Cave feeling to my pleasure. Very very good music.[/quote] Oh, Nick Cave, high compliment! Thank you! [quote=jwh]NEON i'm so glad i got to hear the "in process" version (which wasn't a mess, btw :P ), but i am completely floored by where this song ended up! that build at the end - just massive and beautiful and beautifully massive. thanks again for including my guitar message in the mix, an honor! keep going <3[/quote] Thank you <3 You can borrow some sugar any time! [quote=mzunguko]Deep down we're all space cowboys, weary from the trip, and in many ways welcoming the end to what has been a very long and winding journey. Really love to work on this track.[/quote] Thank you <3. Hopefully this can translate to a whole album lol. [quote=BarristerPlong]Fucking amazing. Absolutely love the vibrato western guitar, it's extremely effective at painting a scene. Phenomenal work. The instrumental section at 3:20 is huge and wonderful.[/quote] Thank you! I do love my guitar. [quote=Cursory]This is so oozy, love the whole aesthetic and premise of this track. Both the feeling of space at the beginning/end and the intensity of the climax are so dialed in, such a cool song. [/quote] Thank you! [quote=miraclemiles]Love it, the message across the expanse. Big, nice work, cool direction to go - I think a bit different from things I remember recently of yours? Which is awesome. Go forth cowboy into the starry night. Love the story of how this came together, huzzah for WB and collabs![/quote] Thank you! I started the year off with a lot of M8 techno and tend to oscillate between techno and other post-rock-ambient-vocal stuff. There's probably a techno album coming eventually too but right now it tends to just teach me a lot about energy and arrangement. [quote=Tone Matrix]Ooof damn love the whole mood and atmosphere that is set with the guitar and massive drums. Gave me visuals of Timothy Olyphant as a Justified/Mandalorian space cowboy. That guitar line around 3:28 sounds awesome and so damn heroic. Like the character just got up, wiped the blood from his face and picked up his stetson to keep trudging towards his destination. The outro **chefs kiss**[/quote] Thank you! I was honestly surprised by the outro too lol ... there were a lot of happy accidents of feedback and reverb there. [quote=friendlyperiscope]this is amazing from start to finish, such a cool ambience to this and the cowboy/western thing is so much there! so nice, will come back to this one. (and thanks to jwh for sending me/us here.)[/quote] Thank you! And welcome lol.

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