Its been a pretty weird and wild year. A pretty confusing one as well. When people ask me what Im working on I often have a hard time remembering what Im actually up to which is strange as Im in the studio pretty much every day working on stuff. The year ended with finishing the debut album of Norwegian experimental proggers Pixie Ninja. The album is really interesting as they arrange the material in a fairly unique way. Pretty much no themes come twice. This means that the production has to lead the listener between the themes and melodies. I have realized that this is crucial in how I view music I work with. I am aware that this is only how I view it and its possibly pretty abstract from the outside but in my head a piece doesnt work if you confuse a listener without cathing their fall or showing them the right card at the end of the trick. There has to be a narrative in the production.
Yesterday was supposed to be some kind of new beginning in the studio as I got a really good solid vinyl player to the studio. A direct drive vinyl player. The idea was to start messing with scratching and manipulating vinyl. Not a very revolutionary idea but for a 41 year old prog rock drummer it is really exciting. I hooked it up and started messing with some LPs but I couldnt get it to work properly because the LP stuck to the mat I guess so a bit more tweaking needs to be done. The 45s work better.
One cool thing is that I got a chance to hear some of the vinyl Ive bought at fleamarkets over the last couple of travels. Just before christmas I visited Houston to go to Andy McWilliams and Lindsay Burns wedding and went to a Mexican flea market in the afternoon before the wedding.
The fleamarket was massive and there were possibly 3-400 stalls. Great for weird and unique last minute christmas shopping. My son is into the whole Pokemongo thing so I bought a couple of cards for him. I have been going to fleamarkets for over 20 years so I think I have developed a fairly good eye for the different levels and sublevels of crap that seems to be in abundance.
At one of the stalls they had some vinyl and vintage video games. Everything was pretty dusty and it all had that classic Flea Market sticky surface. I picked up two or three little 45s. One thing that I have really enjoyed about getting the turntable is that its like the the birthplace of ideas. I have been walking around thinking about the infinite possibilities of this new piece of equipment.
So yesterday I had the chance to try it out. One of the discs was a 45 called education in sound. I put it on and found that it was an educational disc about the wedding night and how it works which I found to be a bit eerie considering I was going to a wedding 3 hours later. It was oddly enough fairly modern (not graphic at all) and ttalked about how the groom needs to be patient with the bride.
Anyways...I recorded a little piece yesterday using the Volca Sample and some little words from the Education in sound...
https://soundcloud.com/rothhandlestudios/beginnings
There is something very rewarding doing these pieces as they feel like a scavenger hunt. I also like how one sounds triggers your imagination to find the next.
So there we are. The last day of 2016. Scavenger hunts and intently listening to wedding night 45s.
Ill see you on the other side.
Love, Always.
// Mattias
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