Weeklybeats is a 52 week long music project in which artists compose and publicly release 1 song a week for the entire year.
Starting January 1st 2024 GMT each participant will have one week to upload one finished composition. Any style of music or selection of instruments are welcomed and encouraged. Sign up or Login to get started or check our FAQ for any help or questions you may have.

The Gorilla

By Paisleyfrog on April 26, 2024 10:29 pm

Back to noisy music!

I was in Goodwill checking out the toy aisle (as one does), when I found a musical mechanical gorilla. What made it special was that the batteries were almost dead, so it produced this otherworldly scream when it was on its back. In theory, it played Rock and Roll Part 1, but there's no way you could tell by listening to it. Anyway, the gorilla didn't follow me home, but a recording of it did...and I knew that it needed to be the noise bed for this week's track.

When I started working, I thought it would be funny to use samples from The Gorilla (1939, public domain, awful) to double down on the theme.

I've had Dub on the brain since Record Store Day (although alas, I was not able to get one of the Lee Perry albums for this year), so I ended up going in something of that direction. (Connection with the theme: Lee Perry's album "Super Ape".) There's also more than a little influence from Gorillaz here.

It's apes all the way down, man.

TD-3
VSMini Pro
RD-6
XV-5080
Guitar
Bass
And assorted soft synths

This is giving me a "pirates of the swamp land" vibe. I think it's because it reminds me a bit of the soundtrack of one of the "return to monkey island" games. HOLY SHIT, ANOTHER APE REFERENCE!!! HAHAHAHAHA, I swear that wasn't on purpose, hahahahaha... Anyways, super fun track!!!

This just made me laugh and smile. It sounds just great, absolutely love what starts happening at the 2 min mark and after... but it's just got a great sense of humour too. Awesome. And live the super echoey percussion!

Cool to read the origin/inspo for this one smile
Dub vibes fo real. That bass line carries this so well with all the cool spacey shit happening over the top (improvs?). Works well to give it structure but also kept loose. The synths are spacey as shit smile

Nice origin story haha

Feelin the dub

jegasus wrote:

This is giving me a "pirates of the swamp land" vibe. I think it's because it reminds me a bit of the soundtrack of one of the "return to monkey island" games. HOLY SHIT, ANOTHER APE REFERENCE!!! HAHAHAHAHA, I swear that wasn't on purpose, hahahahaha... Anyways, super fun track!!!

Oh, that's FUNNY. Apes, man...apes. smile Thanks!

neon liminal wrote:

This just made me laugh and smile. It sounds just great, absolutely love what starts happening at the 2 min mark and after... but it's just got a great sense of humour too. Awesome. And live the super echoey percussion!

Thanks! Something I love about Dub is how it has all the extreme echoes going on, but has an immense sense of space. My normal music style is rather...busy...so I'm glad the extra echoes didn't get too cluttered!

myfirstpunksong wrote:

Cool to read the origin/inspo for this one smile
Dub vibes fo real. That bass line carries this so well with all the cool spacey shit happening over the top (improvs?). Works well to give it structure but also kept loose. The synths are spacey as shit smile

Thanks! I've never tried Dub before, glad it came across.

I triple layered the bassline! A software sub-bass synth, the TD3 for some texture, and fretless for some organic feel and transients. The spacey sounds at the beginning and end are a sample from the movie, and the rest is a patch from the XV-5080 called Sci-Fi Sweep. Random midi notes for eight bars and then looping it got the job done smile

ONE HIT KILL wrote:

Nice origin story haha

Feelin the dub

Thanks! Now I'm imagining songs with origin stories and intertwining into an extended universe...

Triple layering the bass... that's how you do it! haha nice

Paisleyfrog wrote:

Thanks! Now I'm imagining songs with origin stories and intertwining into an extended universe...

lel, yea and every few decades you do a reboot. Some multiverses will have a musical mechanical zebra, others will have a musical live gorilla. I love this.

https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExZTFiNDBhc3dlazh1MWM2c3V3bGJtc2V5M2N1cDRxY240MHd6Mzk1aSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/gEY1ubpnxeDkrsO8MK/giphy.gif
Nice vibe.

Suhweet dub feels when that snare comes in.  The head starts to nod along when the guitar comes in.  Hearing some of that Plastic Beach vibe in there as well.  Sweet story about the gorilla.  I need to check out my local goodwill for samples smile

Finally catching up and I LOVE this! Laid back, but a little dark, like the dub is coming to get me! The voices certainly help in that respect, and the textures of all the effects are loads of fun!

mzunguko wrote:

https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExZTFiNDBhc3dlazh1MWM2c3V3bGJtc2V5M2N1cDRxY240MHd6Mzk1aSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/gEY1ubpnxeDkrsO8MK/giphy.gif
Nice vibe.

Irie!

Tone Matrix wrote:

Suhweet dub feels when that snare comes in.  The head starts to nod along when the guitar comes in.  Hearing some of that Plastic Beach vibe in there as well.  Sweet story about the gorilla.  I need to check out my local goodwill for samples smile

I love Gorillaz, so happy you can hear that. Never listened to Plastic Beach much, I should revisit that….

MRDRCAT wrote:

Finally catching up and I LOVE this! Laid back, but a little dark, like the dub is coming to get me! The voices certainly help in that respect, and the textures of all the effects are loads of fun!

Thanks! I like the idea of dub “coming to get you”…to me, the genre has a feeling of menace that I love.

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