I just finished music on the 10th track of Imprint, and I don’t plan on writing any more new material for this project. This latest song — untitled, of course — seems to fit in near the end of the track listing just fine. Any other additions may throw the sequencing off.
I originally planned to write a dub-influenced track, a la “Slave Song” by Sade or “Intensity (You Are)” by ACO. I was even thinking about lifting the drum beat from “Secret Oktober” by Duran Duran. But it was an incongruous fit, and I couldn’t pluck out any sort of hook from that rhythm.
After I finished work on the title track itself, the mood of the album shifted, and a dub track would have stuck out.
So I had to write something from scratch.
I came up with this one chord progression, but it sounded a bit too inspirational. I think it was influenced by Sasagawa Miwa. I decided not to pursue it.
Then a few days ago, I took an inventory of everything — finished and unfinished songs. That meant scouring the entire contents of my old demo tape, in addition to browsing through this entry. I ran across a reference to an old sketch I made:
Untitled (“elevator”) I don’t know what this chord progression stands for, but I’m guess “elevator” refers to “elevator music”. Still evaluating the potential.
I vaguely remembered that chord progression and decided to unearth it. The sketch was dated January 1998 — seven years ago! — and it was eight bars. It fit well with the general tone of Imprint but was markedly different. So I expanded on it, gave it some typical chords and an atypical bass line, and by the end of the night, I had the skeleton of a song.
At first, I thought it would just be piano and voice, but in between the instrumental interlude (“Undone”) and “Love and Pride”, that barebones arrangement broke the momentum. It took a bit of trial and error to find a drum beat to go with it, but I decided to do something weird — I lifted the pattern from “Love and Pride” verbatim.
I’m thinking of making to the two tracks bleed into each other so that the final chord of the new song kicks off the start of “Love and Pride”. I don’t know if it’ll happen, but reusing that drum pattern worked out for the song.
So yes, after a month and a half of work, I’ve finished (what I consider) a full album of material. I’m already thinking ahead to the other songs on my old demo and how they may fit with other projects.
(The next Eponymous 4 “release” is going to be much more dissonant. It will probably be another five-track EP.)
I was about to take a stab at writing the lyrics tonight — I wrote four in the last week — but I shouldn’t be greedy.
I’m just glad to have reached as far as I have.
Just in case you missed the previous links to this new song I’m talking about, let me be more explicit: “Untitled (ACO 5)”
I’m sure I’ll be adding more instruments to this song later, but right now, I’ve got a good foundation. It’s probably the most optimistic song in the entire work.