Author: Alasdair Husk

During this unit, I learned a variety of new skills and workflows for creating music, as well as ideas that have influenced my overall philosophy around music.

One thing I learned how to do over the course of this unit was sound design with modular synthesis through the analysis of Rashad Becker. This was not only very fun to play around with, but inspired me to broaden my horizons and experiment much more with the type of sounds and tones I can get out of my computer. Since studying him, I have gotten much more in to sound design and experimentation.

Something that I learned about myself as a producer through this unit is that I need to refresh my workflow every now and again to refresh the joy and experimentation that can come from music. The workflow of sampling, inspired by RZA, the workflow of writing around a pre-recorded poem, inspired by Moor Mother, and the process of writing around sound design and experimentation with free flowing structures, inspired by Rashad Becker, gave me the experience of making music in ways I never had before, all of which unlocking different feelings and parts of myself to put in to the music in their own unique ways.

One thing I would love to develop more is my ability to channel ideas and politics in to every part of the music, not just the lyrics. Moor Mother especially inspired me in this and has shifted my perspective on how instrumentation can be used to express ideas through the workflow I discovered while making music inspired by her. I would also love to delve even deeper in to Rashad Becker style sound design, as the song structure of both Becker and Moor Mother break out of the traditional in their own unique ways that both inspire me to explore the concept more in my own work.

On October 10th, 1989, the New York Times published an opinion piece written by David King Dunaway about politics and music and the relationship between them.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/10/opinion/politics-and-music.html

In the article, Dunaway argues that there are inherent limitations to music as a tool for political advocacy, partly due to its outcomes being impossible to quantify. Dunaway suggests that music is a ‘barometer’ for society, something that is reflective of material conditions. That being said, he also acknowledges that music is something that connects with people in ways few things can and that the effects of music as organisation are not non-existent, arguing that much of the political effects of music play out “separate in time and space from the original singer”.

In the article, David King Dunaway touches on something which many a politically inclined musician, including myself, grapple with quite consistently. Dunaway claims that as musicians, despite our best efforts, songs can seem “ephemeral when compared with bullets or votes”. The dichotomy between having first hand experience of how music can connect and inspire individuals and communities and the sentiment expressed here, that political advocacy that starts and ends with music can feel futile, is something I believe to be very potent in my own understanding of music’s place in politics.

Despite this, Dunaway goes on in the following paragraphs to talk of how music has a profound impact on people and has been tied to political movements since the dawn of time, so why is it that both of these things can be true? My interpretation of Dunaway’s thoughts on this requires going back to the ‘barometer’ quote. Music may not have the political power that a bullet has, but music will remain as much a part of the political process as bullets will. This is because music is, as Dunaway states, a barometer for society, a reflection of material conditions. Therefore, political music will inherently be created as a reflection of political ideas and values growing and spreading in response to the current political state. This political music’s effects on the movement, Dunaway argues, can have positive and negative effects. It can bring people together in their struggle and inspire people, however it can also dull people and give them an escape.

In 2011, Dirty Projectors and Björk released one of my favourite albums of all time, Mount Wittenberg Orca. The album makes use of experimental vocal chops and effects to deliver some emotions and sounds that I have never heard anything like before or since. One of my favourite songs on the album is called ‘No Embrace’. In this track, Dirty Projectors and Björk use incredibly stripped back production and writing with precise execution to create a palette of sound that is both minimalistic and refreshing.

The song features Björk’s soft background vocals as the main foundation of the song. Underneath this, we can hear bass guitar, quiet drums and some electric guitar, however these are all used to accent and uplift what is going on vocally.

As a producer and a songwriter, when it comes to me writing lyrics I tend to focus on the sound of the vowels and feeling of the melody before I even think about the words. I usually record mumbles and vocal sounds and then write words to fit that. This process works for me because often times I feel that the most authentic expression comes through these vague gestures of emotion as supposed to meticulously detailed lyrics – this is why I love bands like Cocteau Twins. On the song ‘No Embrace’, Björk provides a perfect exhibit of this theory. Throughout the track, Björk sings these warm, beautiful ‘Oo’ sound vowels that the lead singer, David Longstreth, sings over. These Oo’s make you feel as if you’re floating gently above the clouds. When the chorus comes, however, the song opens up in to this explosion in which Björk sings with ‘Aa’ vowels instead – the clouds have parted. Though this seems simple, the difference between the Oo and the Aa sound is so vast and the emotional colours expressed from this switch up are astonishing. The open vowels create a liberated and explosive feeling, where as the closed ones create a warm and closed environment. This album as a whole is a perfect example of how writing is about more than just lyrics and that the vocal can be used as an instrument.

In class, we were tasked with learning the program ‘VCV Rack’ which is a digital modular synth that allows for some incredibly interesting results when utilised effectively. After some experimentation, I ended up with this short track idea as a result.

My favourite part about Rashad Becker’s production is the feeling of constantly changing and flowing dynamics and emotions. This was not something I had time to capture, so I instead opted on making something simply as an exercise of Becker style sound design.

I spent a lot of my time getting familiar with VCV rack, and ended up with a few different synth patches. I then ran these through resonator plugins that gave them a gnarled, twisted sound.

For one of the patches, I created a synth with an LFO that moves consistently up and down in pitch, much like Rashad Becker does on tracks such as ‘Theme VI’. This became the main melodic line in the track. The resonator added to the synth afterwards made the pitch feel more cohesive as there is a subtle movement in pitch running underneath the resonating frequency.

The next patch was less melodic and more of an ear candy FX sound. I used an unfathomable quantity of LFO’s to create this spiralling, laser like sound. This runs in the background of the track to fill out some space.

The final patch was a melodic ear candy line that comes in every 4 bars or so. This was a more regular sounding synth when I designed it in VCV rack, not using too many LFO’s or weird noises, however when ran through the resonators it turned in to a more textural sound.

This workflow was very enjoyable and felt more like sounds were being discovered than created. The magic in the modular synthesis displayed here comes from the unexpected, not knowing exactly what will happen if you change this setting or re-route your signal flow differently. This is not to say that there is not room for intentionality, as many decisions made are very purposeful in achieving a desired sound, however there is always room for experimenting and not knowing exactly what the outcome is going to be with modular synthesis and that is the most exciting part to me.

Another part of studying Rashad Becker that has inspired me is his free-flowing structure of songs. Although not expressed in the song I made for this specific project, the mentality has spread to me to break out of traditional song structure in my own unrelated work. As someone who is sick of writing with traditional song structure and music theory, this form of musical expression is extremely enticing to me.

Rashad Becker is an experimental producer/musician from Berlin. His music typically involves extremely unique, flowing synthesisers that have a constant fluctuating feeling to them. Whether they be drifting in and out of pitch, volume, panning or rhythm, they are constantly moving. The way each of these sounds, which are entirely on their own path, interact with each other is where the magic of his music lays. The momentary cohesion of each element can completely reshape the context of the elements on their own.

Rashad Becker’s music feels like a world and an atmosphere as opposed to a song. His work feels like a fluid and dynamic expression of emotion, not a defined and rigid song structure.

Rashad Becker relies heavily on modular synthesis to get his wacky, mesmerising sounds. Part of his fluid, dynamic feel comes from his use of LFO’s and everything feels like it is constantly modulating and growing because of it. Becker does not stick to a singular key in most of his work, either. Looking at the track ‘Themes VI’, we can hear synths constantly sliding up and down in pitch. The individual notes of this song are less important than the journey it takes us on. The way that Rashad Becker expresses emotion through music goes against all that is typically taught to musicians. He doesn’t express anxiety through the use of dissonant intervals over an upbeat 4/4 drum pattern, he expresses it by making each sound feel like it has its own personality that exists outside of the confines of music theory and what you are ‘supposed’ to do.

Rashad Becker’s music is raw expression, and the emotions felt while listening to him are ones I have never felt from listening to music before. The constant fluctuation and incredible sound design lends itself to a rich and detailed world that takes you on a journey between all sorts of emotions, though a crippling sense of dread and anxiety can often be felt running underneath it all.

Tasked with creating a Moor Mother inspired track using an excerpt from a Howard Zinn speech, I decided not to attempt to recreate her sound one to one. This would feel like missing the point to me, as her sound is very explicitly tied to her identity, of which I can not relate or draw from as influence. Instead, I tried to apply some of the philosophy and production techniques to my own style.

One part of Moor Mother’s work that I personally love is the use of vocal effects on the poem, so I tried doing this on my own track. I added a short gated reverb with a long pre-delay, essentially working as a slapback, to create the ‘topsy turvy’ atmosphere mentioned within the poem.

Most of the synths in my track are created out of the speakers voice by dragging the audio in to a granulizer. This gave each instrument a unique tone and helped to create a cohesivity within the song, as there as a feeling that everything is built around the poem.

I also drew inspiration from the foley used in her tracks, especially in the last 15 seconds. The instrumental switch up at the end of my track, to me, sounds like miners in a big quarry hitting away at their rocks as the poem goes on, reflecting the civil obedience to the state the speaker mentions.

Another technique I pulled from Moor Mother is the use of a sudden tone change by pulling instruments out and in for emphasis. I did this first at around 0:40 when the speaker begins to mention the distractions provided to us that stifle our ability to see the horrors of the world for what they are by having more instruments come in and drown out the vocal a little. The idea is to move the listeners concentration away from the vocals a little to reflect what is being said, before pulling it back and dropping all the instruments and reverb out when she says “…and then come back and look at the world…”. I did this again when she says “We’re going to need to go outside the law” to reflect the fear and immediate reaction many feel to breaking civil obedience as most have had this drilled in to them since birth by dropping out all the instruments and having a low droning sound that feels like a pit in your stomach.

This form of creation was very freeing for me, as I was forced not to think about song structure as verse chorus etc., but by having the music live and breathe and respond to the structure of the pre-recorded poem. This also allowed me to have a good idea of what I’m trying to say with my music before even starting, as usually lyrics come after for me. This meant I could use the instrumentation as part of the message much more than I ever have before and it opened my eyes to the possibilities of delivering a purposeful message through music in a way I have never been able to grasp quite as effectively. Although the track I made was under limited time and does not fully encapsulate the potential of this process of creation, it has opened me up to future possibilities and given me many ideas of how I can incorporate my political beliefs in to the instrumentation of the song, something I have been trying to capture for a long time.

Moor Mother is a singer, poet and activist from Philadelphia. Her music reflects political realities and ideas through haunting yet beautiful production, centring black liberation at the core of her work. Moor Mother, because of this, pulls influences from jazz, blues, and rap, tying different historical elements of black culture together and creating a world for her music to breathe in. There is an ambient quality to her work, as much of the instrumentation feels like world building around the central poem that is being performed.

On the track ‘Liverpool Wins’, Moor Mother delivers a poem about the abolition of slavery of the ways that systemic racism and oppression reinvented itself to spread in to the veins of society through the huge sums of money slave owners were compensated. After slavery was abolished, slave owners were given about £20 million, which was roughly 40% of the annual treasury spending budget at the time. Reparations were in fact offered after slavery, but not to the slaves. These slave owners used the money given to them to set up schools, banks, churches, castles – the infrastructure of our society. Moor Mother tackles this on ‘Liverpool Wins’, while dissecting how the colonisers continue to see themselves as the saviours of humanity.

Moor Mother builds the track around the poem, having the instrumentation feel like a living, breathing entity responding and communicating to the words. She pulls in almost industrial feeling sounds and uses foley and experimental synths to create an underlying sense of dread and horror that reflects the subject matter perfectly. She manages to make the song feel like a poison slowly spreading through your veins as the track goes on, much like the poison spreading throughout society funded on the back of the payouts.

There are moments throughout the song in which Moor Mother directs your attention back to the poem by cutting everything else in a sudden tone change. One such example is when she speaks on ‘The Secrets of England’s Greatness’, a painting of Queen Elizabeth giving a bible to an African chief, kneeling by her feet, a representation of the colonialist mindset and the subject matter touched on throughout the rest of the song – an acknowledgement that the money used from these payouts was funnelled in to creating whiter religions and infrastructure that funnelled the same colonialist attitudes and outcomes right back in to the veins of society.

Making use of RZA’s production techniques mentioned in the previous blog post, I created a Wu-Tang/RZA inspired beat.

To start with, I found a sample that inspired me enough to use. The sample I chose was Mystical Dreamer by Lonnie Liston Smith.

I dragged the sample in to Ableton, matching the bpm to the project. I then dragged a loop I selected in to Simpler to chop and rearrange. I ended up reversing the loop before finding the chops to add to the creeping eerie vibe I was going for. I then found two patterns that I liked and started working on drums.

For the drums, I used a Wu-Tang inspired drum kit I found online. After deconstructing RZA’s productions, I found that he vary rarely used drum samples and just left them as is, so I attempted to manipulate them as he would. To do this, I layered some of the kicks with low mid range percussion noises to give them some very subtle accents and added an Omnipressor emulation on the drum buss with a relatively slow release to really tighten up the drums and have them feel cohesive with the sample.

I then did what RZA did on C.R.E.A.M and added my own bassline to the sample, I did this by playing writing and recording a bassline DI in to the DAW, with an amp emulation, tape emulation, compression and EQ to tuck it in to the mix a little more and have it sound like it was sampled from a different record. I also through in a few sound effects throughout the beat as well as some fill type alternate drum patterns to keep things interesting.

I then searched for film or dialogue samples to use, inspired by the intertextuality displayed by RZA’s kung fu samples. I ended up stumbling upon this video from 1949 about the techniques of propaganda.

I then chopped up some of these vocals (can be heard from 0:22 – 0:44 in my beat) to create two different patterns. One, panned to the right, is supposed to emulate a similar effect as the record scratch vocals found throughout many RZA beats, which I created by pitching up and stretching the vocals on beats warp mode, giving it a glitchy stutter effect similar to turntables scratching. The other, panned to the left, is a pitched down voice chopped to sound like he’s saying ‘Wu-Tang’ with some similar turntable like stuttering effects.

To me, this sampled based way of working is a very liberating and workflow orientated way of creating music. As someone who spends hours obsessing over tiny mixing or recording details to the point that I get too sick of what I’m making to finish it, allowing myself to use sampling heavily and let go of all the minute details of each individual piece to serve the greater picture as a whole allows me to get in a creative flow without interruptions. I also love sampling for its ability to represent intertextuality in very intentional ways, whether it be Earl Sweatshirt sampling his own parents on ‘Playing Possum’ or RZA sampling kung-fu all across his discography, the art form allows for deep and meaningful reinterpretations of existing media.

The suggestion that sampling is any less valid of an art form as playing everything yourself is bothersome to me, as I could not see someone making the same statement about an artist cutting up newspapers to create their own collage, and it seems that the animosity toward sampling tends to be more linked to the middle to upper class gatekeeping access to music creation and discrediting sampling as an art form because of its history in black working class culture.

RZA, known best for his work as the iconic producer behind Wu-Tang Clan, is an incredibly influential and forward-thinking musician.

RZA’s work is primarily built up from a collage-style method, taking a small handful of samples and turning them in to something new by looping sections or chopping smaller parts to rearrange.

Taking a look at the song C.R.E.A.M, by Wu-Tang Clan (produced by RZA), we can see that the song “As Long as I’ve Got You” by The Charmels has been sampled. The sample in question is a small loop which is repeated throughout the track. In the loop, we hear some drums coming from the original sample, however RZA has layered these with his own drum samples as well as a bassline. The combination of these simple pieces together creates a memorable and infectious foundation for the group to write over.

The small details RZA puts in to his beats are what really elevate them, for example, listening to C.R.E.A.M, you can hear some alternate snare samples coming in occasionally for effect, as well as some alternate sample chops for the intro and some FX being used to keep things fresh. This is extremely important to make repetitive loops feel exciting.

Another part of RZA’s production to note is the lack of quantisation, meaning the drums are not perfectly on time. This creates a human, swung feel that can be heard all throughout RZA and other producers in the style’s work.

RZA also makes use of intertextuality, the relationship between media and other media. This can be exampled through concepts such as parody, in which a piece of media draws conventions from another for its own purpose, or through references, in which media is mentioned and referred to in other media for whatever intended goal the originator desires. RZA’s use of intertextuality lays in his use of sampling – taking a look at the classic soul and jazz records he consistently samples evidences the intertextuality between art forms that have originated from black culture (Soul, Jazz & Hip-Hop) and the way sampling has re-contextualised them in modern media. Another example is his use of sampling kung-fu films and the cultural references from them put in to his own work and the work of Wu-Tang Clan.

---

What kind of producer am I?

Since I started producing music in 2018, I have found myself entering a variety of phases in which I attach myself to new styles, genres and aesthetics in an attempt to limit the mundanity of creative repetition. More recently, however, I have come closer and closer to doing something I believe to be unique using the amalgamation of influences from all my phases, and have started to recognise patterns in my style of production that pop up in each genre I work in.

Some key features of my production tend to include swung jazz influenced rhythms and mellow extended chords laid over a bed of foley and ambient sound effects. There are, of course, many exceptions to these rules, however I have found myself attached to these qualities in music and can never go too long without them.

Listed are some of my favourite artists who I believe have played a role in shaping my sound:

King Krule      

Flying Lotus 

Thundercat 

Cocteau Twins 

Tame Impala 

Sampha 

 

My current skill set

Over the past 8 years of producing music and working in the music industry, I believe I have developed some useful skills and knowledge that have the potential to benefit me in the future. These include understanding how to communicate with artists and compromising on creative control, the dangers and unethical treatment present throughout the industry and how to navigate it and protect yourself as well as the more specialised skills of actual music production and engineering experience. 

What I hope to develop this year

While I still have much to learn when it comes to the technicalities of music production and engineering and look forward to developing my skills and knowledge over the next few years, what I hope to get most out of this UAL course is a more general sense of being helped to harness the creativity I have and being encouraged to apply it in more meaningful ways. I have always enjoyed music first and foremost for the process of creating it as a reflection of my mood or life experiences, and so applying myself to a project to the point of it’s completion has always been a struggle for me as the longer I work on something the less it reflects the point I’m at in life in the present moment. My hope is that through the tutors on this course as well as the routine of scheduled work, I will be motivated to apply myself in a way that I usually am not to create something that I can feel wholly summarises the capabilities of what I can do when I really try.

While I would love to develop my skills in recording and collaboration this year and intently plan to do so, this is my main goal for this course.