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Uboa - Live @ Night Heron (TOomD prototype / on composing with jams)
🕑 Added 2024-03-12 03:43:17 +0000 UTCSo, here's the live set that eventually became edited into into The Origin of My Depression, specifically the title track, lay down and rot as well as cut-up over the other songs (such as An Angel, Please Don't Leave Me). Circa 2018-2019, I believe with Micheal Ellingford (Deafault), a big influence on my sound.
Preparing last-minute-ish for the roadbun set meant I had to find all the sound sources on the record, and it isn't easy as it was never intended to be played live, and indeed some parts are impossible due to the improvisational, mostly rhythm-free and through-composed nature of the piece, and can only be 'approximated' with a 'remixed' song. even as a backing track. However I have never liked seeing songs performed identically live anyway.
Also, ADHD makes remembering lyrics and structure a nightmare. I have some autism auditory processing things too, so I often can't discern lyrics in other people's songs without a sheet. Hence the boomer phrase "screamed vocals are bad because u can't hear what they say" i never really understood pre-diagnosis. People can hear lyrics???
I was hesitant to release it at first as it was such a central part of TOomD, but I think its important to get out there not only for archival, but also teaching a composition technique/philosophy I have (which I basically got from Swans' Soundtracks For The Blind, but its super common in a lot of noise i think) - using your own live recording as samples or guides for songwriting, or even just overdubbing them later to complete them.
It's super hacky/cheaty, but it absolutely works as a technique for getting out of writers block and helping create more 'organic', decentralised and unusual compositions and sound design. It's a technique I still often use to be the impetus to start a set, as seen on the last live set I posted up which became the latter half of The Sky May Be.
I was recording with a Zoom H5 not from the desk, but from the condesor mics it has in it. So it means a lot of clanking, equalisation, reverb and incidental noises are coming from the room rather than samples. Generally now I prefer to either record from ableton directly or from the desk and maybe add a room recording later, but I think theres still a lot to be said for having a 'shitty' recording of yourself jamming in front of a few unfortunate strangers. Indeed sometimes a desk mix sounds worse without the room reverb and some doofus going "woo" in the background.
Basically, the title track of TOoMD is basically the first part of the set with overdubs. Here's an image of the Ableton file (which I might one day clean up enough to put here, although I gotta find a way to hide the uncleared samples lol). The WAV of the night heron set is at the top, with overdubs (main vocals, additional drones and foley, the VST gamelan).
One way of composing structure is I put markers where a sudden or big change happens in the recording (say a main sample drops out), and use that as a guide of what to overdub or where to stop the song. So, if in the jam you suddenly start increasing the volume in your jam, that could be used as a cue to overdub more layers to make a crescendo.
I did not use all of the above set for the title track, and cut it at the gap in the middle where the silent hill/yume nikki drones stop. I used the length of the 'ambient' section to give me a guide to how long the song should be. However sometimes jams are too long or short, and occasionally I just cut things shorter or loop things longer if the pacing feels off.
Finally, I often just use my live recordings not only as a compositional reference, but as a sample to be manipulated. You can hear the noise section of this jam in the stems for An Angel of Terrible Light and even Misspent Youth. Hell, it could be in other releases too.
It should be noted this is very much a distinctly noise music thing to do. I obviously didn't invent it. Even if my music gets super melodic, this is a very noise (and punk) way of making a record. All a recording or composition really is is an improvisation that can be played twice. You can see this method also in the works of John Cage and other modern classical composers who worked with aleatory music (say using the I Ching).
Anyway, I'd recommend always trying to record your own jams and sets in any way possible, and using them later. I disagree with the hard distinction between 'live' and 'studio' recordings in the world of laptop noise music, and I also disagree all studio recordings should be played identically or even faithfully live (why? just listen to it at home lol). It's not a cheat, but an exploit, similar to what speedrunners do to finish a game in 15 seconds. Or if it is cheating I don't care if it makes a good song. If you feel something helps make the composition process easier, do it, even if it doesn't conform to dominant models of what composition should be (which often limit the artist anyway, or lead to boring music).
As long as it isn't AI (although, technically generative music *is* AI, and sampling *is stealing* but you know the kind of AI I mean. its the artistic lifelessness and exploiting of poor artists thats the problem. elon musk-core) it's fine. Try it out if you have never done it this way before, or are stuck on making a new song/record. Although be careful if you ever had to learn them live later.
