Cut-Up
Ryan
Fifth Element
No one said a damn thing about a sixth, seventh or fortieth element.
Don’t mind the mix lol yikes. This assignment blew my brain apart and this track is me trying to put it back together, which only went so well. Good to feel the rush of sharing something that’s so unfinished. I think there are some good ideas in here, which the assignment of course gets the credit for helping birth into the world. But at a certain point, the parameters were pushing me away from where the song wanted to go. So it goes, baby. It did get me thinking about some deep stuff.
Bells do most of the looping, but then electric guitars take over the same loops for a bit here and there. The “fifth element” is actually two verses and a whole-ass B section. But the loops are goin’ the whole time, promise. At the very end (as the loops fall away), we end up on the less dominant side of the polyrhythm that started things off. Neat!
Runnin’ around
as if I’ve never changed.
I’d been thinking
I killed off the only thing
loveable or good inside of me.
Sure, I should have known
that you always saw
the better part of me.
Looked and I was
a spectacle for shame.
A cut-up locking up
the smaller lonely thing
I was scared
would take a hold of me.
Sure, I should have known
that you only saw
the bigger part of me.
Looking for feedback on
Which parts of this get redundant and which parts feel fresh?
Discussion
Ben October 7, 2023 7:24pm
This is so clean. The drums with that light melody in the background in my left ear really reminds me of the Bad Plus cover of “Flim” by Aphex Twin, especially around 0:30-40.
Ryan October 9, 2023 12:36pm
Oh shit, had never heard this track. This is awesome. Yeah this one was definitely heavily inspired by Four tet / Aphex / Bibio.
Ben October 9, 2023 12:47pm
yeah, definitely Bibio vibes too
alechutson April 10, 2023 6:57pm
i love how your loops become more of a texture/ drone than the main structure of your track.
the only part that feels a like it could use some freshening to me is the snare loop, everything else feels like it’s serving a purpose
Ryan April 13, 2023 1:31pm
Thanks, yeah, I was into the loops becoming a texture, too! Keeping the chord progression out of the loops helped a lot. Got to later reframe the length of the loops, harmony, etc.
Totally agreed on the drum loop—kind of ended up locked into using it because it’s a full kit loop and then was dissatisfied with my attempts at making small variations on it. Then ran out of time to experiment more lol. I think it could work if it showed up in one less section. Or if I threw in another kit layer that varied it up? Maybe that’s the move.