Weeklybeats is a 52 week long music project in which artists compose and publicly release 1 song a week for the entire year.
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Vois-tu?

By ViridianLoom on June 21, 2020 10:59 pm

Been listening to a lot of Magma this week. This sounds nothing like that but their unconventional song writing methods got me in a mood to say "Fuck it" and write something that isn't particularly pleasing to my own ear. I figured I'd throw together some weird chord progressions that have too much tension and key changes that don't make sense and try my best to compose around it in a way that might make it sound nice. Some parts are better than others, I even threw in some more traditional sounding porcupine tree-esqe chord progressions against my better judgment which I think defeats the purpose of the aforementioned experiment, making me dislike them in this song. But eh, too far into this project to scrap it and rewrite sections. Anyways, that's the thinking surrounding the first half of the song.

At some point I decided to record a stream of consciousness piano improv (I'm not really a pianist so I don't know what I'm doing) and then try to clean it up and put that at the end. I recorded a bit of guitar with an E-bow (a handheld device with a magnet that vibrates the strings to make the guitar sound like violin) over the top. Even though that's also rough, I kind of enjoy the melancholic vibe and some of the more dissonant chords remind me of chord tones someone like Maurice Ravel would use. He really embraces dissonance in a way that sounds beautiful.

Overall, I don't know if this song ended up being any good but I stayed committed to it since I want to be able to improve my skills turning meh ideas into decent ones. Then again, back in Q1 I wrote a song called Inland Empire which I wrote with the intention of no one liking and I think it turned out to be one of my more personal and favorite tunes. We'll see what kind of impression this one leaves on me with time. Not so bad for a day of work I suppose (5:00am - 4:00pm) 

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Ooo this is awesome! I love how it evolves, and I love the piano part.

Je suis aveugle... (No just kidding) I do like the guitars work into this. Piano works good to me.

No idea what you're talking about, this progression is fantastic. Or maybe I'm just thinking it is because of the way the guitars handles it. I guess it depends on what sort of mood you're going for, right now it's rather mysterious.

WOW, WOW, WOW. So many brilliant parts and moods. your jazzy guitar is awesome, together with that superior tense drumbeat. I was sinking in deep relaxation during that piano was playing. You should be release this on ECM records. Bravo!!

That string section adds some beautiful character to the track. smile The second half of the track is quite a surprise.

Did you really work from 5am to 4pm?  WOW

People keep talking to me about Porcupine Tree, I really need to get on board.

Key changes that don't make sense = my favorite kind of jazz music

This is so atmospheric and clean!

Reilly Farrell wrote:

That string section adds some beautiful character to the track. smile The second half of the track is quite a surprise.

Yes and YES

This is definitely two songs in one

orangedrink wrote:

Did you really work from 5am to 4pm?  WOW

People keep talking to me about Porcupine Tree, I really need to get on board.

Key changes that don't make sense = my favorite kind of jazz music

This is so atmospheric and clean!

Reilly Farrell wrote:

That string section adds some beautiful character to the track. smile The second half of the track is quite a surprise.

Yes and YES

This is definitely two songs in one

Well I mean, I took some breaks to play video games haha. But yeah, start to finish was 5am to 4pm. And yes, Porcupine Tree is a really great band. "Way out of here" and "Blackest eyes" were the songs that got me into em. Their album Fear of a Blank planet is really well written lyrically and, dare I say, pretty deep. tongue

Thank you smile glad you enjoyed the song.


Reilly Farrell wrote:

That string section adds some beautiful character to the track. smile The second half of the track is quite a surprise.

Thank you so much, glad to hear the piano was a unexpected but hopefully pleasant turn for the song.


Q-Rosh wrote:

WOW, WOW, WOW. So many brilliant parts and moods. your jazzy guitar is awesome, together with that superior tense drumbeat. I was sinking in deep relaxation during that piano was playing. You should be release this on ECM records. Bravo!!

Thanks! If I hadn't procrastinated I would have put more effort into the drums but I think they got the vibe across that I was going for. I'm glad you enjoyed the second half too, I haven't heard of ECM records before but I'll check out the kind of artists associated with them smile


Devieus wrote:

No idea what you're talking about, this progression is fantastic. Or maybe I'm just thinking it is because of the way the guitars handles it. I guess it depends on what sort of mood you're going for, right now it's rather mysterious.

I guess I mostly meant the bones of the song. If I isolated the original chord progression it sounds kind of dull and uninteresting. Looks like I succeeded in turning it into something enjoyable to listen to though, thanks smile

I simply assumed that "magma" was an atmospheric doom metal band and that is what I would be hearing. But it wasn't the case. Although the length, progression, and technicality is all here ;D

Very nice tune.

codydjango wrote:

I simply assumed that "magma" was an atmospheric doom metal band and that is what I would be hearing. But it wasn't the case. Although the length, progression, and technicality is all here ;D

Very nice tune.

I mean, atmospheric Doom metal is par for the course for me normally, haha. But yeah, they're a semiobscure french progressive rock band from the 70's. I tried listening to them once a long time ago and I didn't like them but since then I've listened to a bunch of bands influenced by them (and the genre/sound they created called Zhuel) so I gave them another shot. The gateway song for me was Kohntark from Live/Hhai, it has a lot of movement's and once I got used to the song I started to notice how cool the bass lines were, how the vocals were actually really beautiful and ear wormy, the drum rhythms are very deliberately composed to enhance the cinematic atmosphere, etc. I've kind of gotten adjusted to their vibe so now I can listen to their music with greater appreciation than before. They're definitely not for everyone though, I think they're in the "Detached from the social dogma" tier from that old meme about types of music listeners haha.

woaaaaah this is neat! yeah okay I'll give this a whirl for sure big_smile

Great effort here with the writing/recording here.  Production is probably the weaker element tbh.  Doesn't allow some of the parts to shine through.  Lots of cool ideas though and really liked the ending.  So keen to do some guitar tracks myself.  It's been in the back of my mind for a while now.  Hopefully soon.

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