Senses Intertwined
This acts as an introduction to the EP and introduces the concept of a person lost in thought or daydreaming while listening to the radio. We hear the diegetic radio sounds and the first of our characters.
Our voice on the radio reads the following script, explaining the phenomenon known as synaesthesia, ending with a poem in order to introduce the artistic notion.
“Synaesthesia is the name given to a perceptual condition in which the stimulation of one sense triggers an automatic, involuntary response in another. Those who experience this may not just hear a person’s voice, but also feel it as a touch on the arm or see shapes in the mind’s eye. The smell of freshly cut grass may conjure the sound of music, as may your morning cup of tea. Even a name may bring forth a barrage of sensory experience.
We are red with anger, green with envy or white with fear. So I ask. What colours do you hear?“
Enough
This is the first musical track and is non-diegetic to the setting of the concept. It is the manifestation of the first thoughts our listener has while thinking to themselves. Lyrically, it covers the feeling of guilt someone might feel if they upset a person, even if what they did was noble or right.
It begins softly with a melancholic soundworld of acoustic guitar, Mellotron flutes and clean electric guitar (utilising the ‘Lonely Swede’ tone made famous by Opeth and Steven Wilson, a neck humbucker with the tone rolled back to half). This then escalates into a classic progressive rock ending featuring a saxophone solo from Llŷr Wyn Williams. This simulates the way the feeling of guilt and sadness may transform into anger or frustration at the injustice of the situation. The layered arpeggios, while in a different key, are from the original proof of concept I wrote for the record and help to build the idea of a dreamscape due to the shimmering nature of the harmony they create.
“I know that it’s a lot for you to take
And I hate to be a burden, but I’m scared
Hindsight is the shadow on my mind
For no matter what you do it’s always there
I don’t deserve your love
And I can never give enough
I never wanted this yet here I am
The future so uncertain, yet closer every day
The lights that you see in my eyes are embers
Old fears have ripped the radiance from me
I didn’t understand
Now it’s way out of my hands
Though confidence I feign
I just want my peace again“
A Memory
The only instrumental on the EP, our listener has managed to quell his upset and is now thinking about a particular event, perhaps involving the person he was previously thinking about. I created a synth bed using a sound that is similar in ways to the String Machines of the 1970s. This combined with a Hammond B3 made for a bed with a pulsing movement due to the rotary cabinet and parallel fifths. The chord used was a sus2 over multiple octaves so as to give a sense of neither positivity or negativity. This ambiguity adds to the idea of a dream. Over this I added sound effects such as waves and gulls and used my guitar to create whale sounds. Perhaps this was a day out by the sea.
To add musical interest, I added a theme played by the piano in octaves. This was drenched in a lush reverb and also reversed as an echo to make this feel like a dreamscape rather than a current event. This was followed by an ambient guitar improvisation with the reversed piano returning and delay time manipulation creating other dream like sounds.
While the synth bed creates the basis of the dream, the transitions between contrasting sounds and instrumental timbres simulate the sometimes erratic nature of human thought.
Voices On the Tapes
I wrote this as a break from the long, extended and non-standard song structures that make up most of the rest of the record. This was inspired by songs such as ‘Transience’ by Steven Wilson from his album Hand. Cannot. Erase. It uses the DADGAD tuning on the acoustic guitar as I felt a lilting, folky feel would add a nice new emotion to the range displayed throughout the record. I added some rich three-part harmonies during the creation of the demo but felt that it sounded a little bit flat with all parts being sung by me. I asked Zoe Ping to contribute some vocals here as the softness of her voice and the contrast of our ranges would enrich the tonal palate of the number. This worked wonderfully and I feel the choruses in this track are a highlight of the work. An extract of the isolated vocals can be found below.
Lyrically, this track voices the confusion felt after a relationship ends but the other person continues to publicly show aspects of their tastes that you introduced to them such as a band or album and to keep doing this with each consecutive relationship.
“What do you see when you look around?
Are you going nowhere at the speed of sound?
Day by day this life it takes its toll
So you find yourself another soul
Are the faces all you’ll ever remember
Along with the voices on the tapes?
What do you feel when you look at me?
Is there something more that I should see?
I can take the truth so rest assured
Common courtesy is all I’m looking for
Are the faces all you’ll ever remember
Along with the voices on the tapes?
Are the faces all you’ll ever remember
Along with the voices on the tapes?
And when the record has worn through
Will it make you think again?“
A World Without Music
Originally, this formed the beginning of ‘Pariah’ but I later decided that it would make a nice interlude as it is placed in the middle of the record. The words here were written by Izzy Robertson after I provided her with a brief (discussed in the Creating the Voices, Characters and Setting section). Unlike those on the radio, this voice is non-diegetic like the music and so I decided not to filter it as it would be clear in the head of the character.
The piano sound used here is from the SoniVox EightyEight module. It simulates the sound of a grand with the practice pedal held down, creating a dark and muted sound and lonely atmosphere.
“A world without music is a world with a hole in its heart. Music is the pulse that underpins so much in our lives, experience and emotion; it runs through our beings like the blood through our veins and speaks to us in a universal language. It brings strangers together, it unifies people across language, cultures and continents.
You know that feeling. When you hear those chords and the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end and suddenly you’re somewhere else completely. You are swept away, perhaps to somewhere new, but sometimes to a place of memory, the music woven inextricably into your being with the silken threads of melody.
I’m never sure if my mood dictates the music I listen to, or if the music dictates my mood. A bit of both, maybe. Is there anyone who hasn’t been touched by music in some way?“
Pariah
This flows directly from ‘A World Without Music’ and also uses the same piano sound and spoken voice. Later on, a second piano layer is added to help it cut through the fuller instrumentation. This features a high pass filter and a phaser for intrigue. The sections of the track that feature drums are heavily tom driven, I wanted this to add dynamic power to these sections of the track.
The lyrics here again describe the loss of a friend but this time due to the toxic behaviour of a mutual contact. The end of the chorus is sent to a delay unit that is made to self-oscillate and fade in a burst of sound to give the impression that these feelings are subsiding and being replaced by fond memories of the friend as the spoken voice returns.
“I’m tired of the way I have become
I live in fear of those who came before
Hindsight will not heal my mind
If the quickest route to pain is through those times
Pariah
You were benign
Pariah
The fault is mine
Twisted, is your view of things you see
The whispers in your ear are there to break me
Let’s stay here
Between the mangled truths
I’ll leave it up to you who you believe
Pariah
You were benign
Pariah
The fault is mine
The notes dance like stars, glittering constellations in a sky of silence. Colours swirl and coalesce, landscapes appear and disappear, people wander in and become as familiar as your friends. You might feel a breeze on your skin or smell the dirty city air. You might even fall in love and all in the space of a song. Music is magic.
And though we still remain
The empathy is gone
It couldn’t be contained
And so we soldier on
Haunting notes pipe through soft, lazy summer air. The leaves shimmer silver as the slightest breeze stirs them. Otherwise, everything is still. The insects settle on flower and twig to listen. The birds fall silent. Small paws pause mid step, whiskers twitch. The world stops, just for a moment, as the music passes through.“
Can’t You Tell?
This is the last of the songs on the EP, it is a reworked version of a track that was written last year. To place it in the soundworld of the work, I added a multitude of ambient layers such as synth pads, guitars sent through delays set to self-oscillate and bell effects. I also manipulated the EQ on many of the recorded parts to make them sound similar to the other tracks. I considered replacing the electronic drums with an acoustic kit but decided that this might be a nice variation and left it. This was also partially inspired Steven Wilson’s ‘Ancestral’ which uses a similar drum sound within a progressive rock album.
As well as the ambient layers, this track features interlocking parts that play against each other to add to the dream like feel. The acoustic guitar and piano arpeggios are on the same beat on the first repetition but the piano is then rhythmically transposed by a quaver creating a shifting feel as they are panned on opposite sides. Later on, a celeste part is added which furthers this. Harmonically, each of these adds extensions to the chords adding to the richness.
It also features Klementyna Wąsiewska on lead vocals. Originally, this was due to the fact that I struggled to play it and sing it at the same time during performances and while this is no longer the case, I fell in love with the way her voice sounded on this particular track and so I asked her to sing on the final version.
The lyrics are in a sense, the culmination of all those that came before. Almost pleading with the lost friend to see both sides and realise that there may be fault in their actions.
“Is this the end of you and me
That I see before me now
The strife is too much to bear
I’m blinded by its shroud
Can’t you tell
It’s like all the skin is gone
From my body?
Who are you anymore?
Your words are burning and your thoughts they freeze
Elements assaulting me
My mind is a mess of nostalgia
I don’t know what to believe
Can’t you tell
It’s like all the skin is gone
From my body?
Who are you anymore?“
The Importance of Emotion
To close the EP, we return to the diegetic sound of the radio where the listener wakes from his daydream and switches it off. There is a quiet metallic sound in the radio sample that I considered removing. However, I decided that maybe it would give the sense that the character was sorting himself out before getting up to switch off his radio.
“Sounds mean nothing until you use them in emotional ways. Otherwise, all you have is air, particles moving through space.
Art becomes science, feeling becomes base understanding, and the world loses its colour.“
What Colours Do You Hear? 