Many Things

So, I mentioned earlier this year that I'd launched a new project, screams. Since my other projects (Face Tat, Girl-Face) were mostly in the reformation stage as people moved and adjusted to life changes, this is was mostly going to be a solo side project, with the goal of finishing up a bunch of songs I'd started over the years but didn't get finished as other projects got in the way. But as these things go, ended up writing up a bunch of new material.

Since it was just going to me with my friends helping me to flesh out the ideas and appearing as guests on the tracks, I really wanted to go for a lo-fi electronic sounds, a la Black Moth Super Rainbow, Suicide, early Grimes, with just a tinge of industrial, a real stripped down lo-fi sound. So I released the first screams song: Many Things.

I wrote the principle music for Many Things in one go (as I'm sure you can tell) and messed with it here and there. The bassline is a MicroKORG, the lead is a Roland Gaia, and the drums I built off a  Roland Octapad SPD-30. The Gaia is killer, but not as easy to interface with as the MicroKORG or the Octapad (though the Octapad has a bit of a learning curve and there's plenty of things that it can do [looper, sequencer] that I don't use cause I have other machines that can do the same and a lot easier to use). I initially recorded it just to save an idea, but really like the grittiness so I decided to round it out. Found a killer movie quote from Dune, when the Guild Navigator tells Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV that little Paul Atreides need to get whacked, and threw it on there. It took me a while to clean up the sample, there's all sorts of machine and hissing noises cause those Navigators are weird mutants and that white noise was part of the scene so I just decided to include in the song cause to take much more of it out would have taken some from the voice quality of the Navigator.

I looped the "plans with in plans" part at the end and got it to extend out so far by automating the volume on that track so that it kept increasing as the loop faded out, thus making it last nearly five minutes. Which is longer than the music. Studio magic, my friends. 

Behold: Face Tat - Open Up Your Arms

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat!? Face Tat's got a new single out! It's off our upcoming Spring 2016 full length. The track is called "Open Up Your Arms."

Check it:

We wrote this pretty quick, in early 2015, with the first batch of songs ideas for this album. I bought a new keyboard off a main damie of mine, Roger Thomasson, a Roland Gaia SH-01, and started futzing around with it, trying to figure that beast out and quickly came across this massive crackly bass sound. It just booms. Especially live. After that, we put that drone on it, which came off my microKORG, which is probably the best most capable little synth I've ever had the pleasure to work with. It comes with so many good stock sounds that you can easily manipulate into your own. The knobs at the top are pretty intuitive and if you really want to get deep in it, you can actually build sounds from the ground up with the function selectors that change what the knobbies affect. I mean, you really can do that with any modern synth: Akai, Nord, even the Gaia, it's just that I learned on the mK first and their approach is so easy to interact with, it's my go-to. And I hear it everywhere. Everyone's got one but they're so customizable that its sound doesn't get played out. I saw Flying Lotus last year and heard him drop this bass line that I immediately knew came from a mK. And sure enough, later on I saw an interview with him talking about his gear and bam, right there is a mK and he even goes on to talk about it. Anyhow, enough of the Korg plug here. (Korg, sponsor our next tour, dammit!)

That weird chime sound is actually from my Roland Octapad SPD-30, which is a cool little midi drum pad. Got some stock effects. Ran some chimes on the Octapad with some reverse delay and then futzed with the tuning of each cluster of notes. Meaning, lots of microtones. Like I'm playing A-C-A in the first part, but the C is tuned a few cents up, while the second A is actually a different pad and it's tuned a few cents down from the other A. With the delay it creates this shimmery, pretty, slightly discordant effect that lends itself to the dark feel of the song. Like our engineer who mixed this for us said: "This song is all about the feels." And they're pretty dark feels.

I rounded it out with that key solo also off the Gaia, which is a great sound that just dominates. Which is why it's only played twice in the song.

Mike started channeling more metal with his guitar around the time we started this album, which I'm sure you noticed. He put a ton of layers, different guitars, a bass guitar, and different room and close mic position, tried a few different amps, all to get that deep, deep chug. I'm sure he could say more about the guitars, a lot more, but he's not here right now. We through on vox and even some vocoder and used Ableton Live to write up some drums, and boom, there you have it. It didn't take us long to separate out the backing vocals into that more round-like give and take at the end, which he and I were both pumped about.

We mixed it over at Different Fur and then threw it up onto Bandcamp and into your ears. You are welcome.