S O U N D S
A picture paints a thousand words, but most sounds cycle thousands of times a second. Speaking of sounds, a substantial number of new ones are in work, and here are some rough mixes and other goodies to whet your appetite. Or discourage it. Occasionally we get asked about influences - see what we have to say about that here.
Zuwarah! Recorded in 2009 with Garry Brunson as
Wild Sky Tribal,
and included in most of our live shows in one form or another.
Zuwarah started out as a quick solo guitar/beat box improv for a WST appearance at
Fort Worth's Rose Marine Theater on 20 June 2009, but quickly evolved to its current form.
This is the amped out, all electric, studio version.
Roland HPD-10 and Gibson Les Paul / Adrenalinn.
Zuwarah is a small town on the south shore of the Mediterranian, and
is generally considered (by WST, anyway) to be surfing capital of Libya.
Sticks & Stones (two rough mixes)
Moth in the Mailbox
Grone ("Bug" music)
Dar Es Salaam - in elementary school we seemed to spend a lot of our afternoons
watching films in the auditorium, classics such as "Just Joking,"
"Are You Popular," and countless episodes of "Inside Out."
Most of the films were made in the 1960s, and the boys all had very short hair,
which seemed strange to us.
This is a recreation of a snippet from the main title music from a film on
Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania.
The organ patch seemed appropriate because we've heard lots of Middle Eastern music that uses cheesey 60's electronic organs, though the music in this particular film did not. No idea who wrote it.
Curious Yellow - Named for Vilgot Sjoman's "I Am Curious-Yellow," one of the most controversial films of all time, this tune has little to do with the movie other than a period feel. Listen and you'll understand. Uses period instruments, or emulations of them: 67 Gibson Melody Maker, 60's Eko Electric 12 (both through AdrenaLinn), 74 Fender J-Bass, and Kurzweil PC2 percussion, organ, and piano. A companion tune "Curious Blue" is in work.
Cue 21 (Seattle) - Minimalist. Ambient. The minimalist part is PC2X piano. The ambient part is a tape of rain and road noise made on a cassette 4-track in 1986 or so. It was mono, so we ran it through a stereo reverb to fatten it up. There was also some piano picked up by the microphone - someone was playing, but no idea who.
Hope - Synths are Xpander & VS (pads and basses), ESQ-M (bellsound, probably a factory patch), and 2600 (mournful, psychotic cat sound).
The recitations are all from the same text, some whispered, some spoken.
All manipulation is digital.
Elements -
This had several working titles, like "Spark It Up" and "Triboelectric" - but "Elements" occurred to us during the first mix, and it stuck.
It may be because this has fundamental elements of a lot our influences - the cheesy Ray Manzerek 60's organ, fuzzy Les Paul guitar, very basic shuffle percussion, and round-sounding J-bass.
Guitar is Les Paul through the AdrenaLinn, bass is Jazz Bass direct in to the Mackie, piano is Kurzweil PC2x, vibs and the "tooby" sound are VS, and the organ patch is an Xpander organ patch that sounds like my old Yamaha YC-20 through a phaser.
Percussion is PC2x, except kick drum, which is D4.
As Bruce Campbell's character said in Evil Dead II - Groovy.
A message from Sooterkin....
Friday the 13th, April, 1984.
Puff the Magic Dragon (or what can happen to you after a few drinks)