AND DNA

Aubrey, this is song is soo impressive. It’s so patient. I can’t really imagine having the focus to make something like this, lol, and the payoff is soo worth it. It’s a fever dream.

agree with so many points in these comments. so exhausting to figure out palandromic melodies, but i love how you used the prompt to inspire these lyrics, and the shapes they produced.

+1 for the vocal processing interacting with your natural vibrato – “fast” at :51 is beautiful. I’m a sucker for well executed pitched-down vocals, and you nailed it at 3:15. would love to hear how adding even more reverb to the vocals could elevate them and make them even spacey-er!

I love the vocal processing! The way your natural vibrato interacts with the tremolo effect (I think?) is really satisfying. I also really like the long pause at the middle. Never thought of a silence marking the midpoint of the palindrome!

I am deeply impressed with your patience, especially with these fragmentary lyrics—they mean so much more with the repetition and space. Glad this isn’t a short piece. Agreed with others that your voice is a great anchor here, and it really does allow for all the weirdness swirling around it. Regarding your question about logic—reading about automating effects could be fun and very related to this particular recording. I find Logic’s automation drawing tool pretty intuitive, and taking control of when and how all of your effects come to the forefront or recede to the background would be a great sculpting tool for a piece like this—would allow the effects to not always be tied to the dynamics of the performance. And it would be relatively feasible in this case, since the effects are only on two instruments. Anyways—that’s just a thought! I’m learning about all this stuff, too. Great work. Would love to visit your home planet some time.

So far, i’d say you have the most cohesive 1-2 punch of songs in ncbc. Both are so… spacious and airy, unsettling but pretty. I could definitely see you playing this song on stage at a weird bar in the background in a scene in a David Lynch movie. Also the long lyric list somehow really adds to the experience. Especially when you scroll quickly and the alignment of the words moves around in waves – it’s a great palindrome structure.

For me, I’ve always noticed music falling into 2 categories:
1. person with instruments playing and singing in real life in a room somewhere and being a tangible real human (example: the rolling stones, pearl jam, pinegrove, louis armstrong, NWA, the grateful dead)
2. a different plane, maybe created by aliens or gnomes or time-travelers. Not necessarily just “trippy and weird” but not quite of this earth – sort of inside-the-radiator-in-Erasorhead or the jazz at the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks. Not sure why i keep getting Lynchy here. Vibes and atmosphere and characters and story and sounds.
(it’s kind of the Beatles to the Rolling Stones; Nirvana to Pearl Jam; Radiohead to Pinegrove [not 1:1 comparison, I know]; Kamasi Washington to Louis Armstrong; Kendrick Lamar to NWA; Pink Floyd to the Dead)

I seem to gravitate toward type “2”, but there are *lots* of exceptions. I think the two songs you shared so far are firmly in that “2” category for me and i dig them. Even though you *are* a person with an instrument in a room singing about stuff, you’ve created a vibe: it’s an escape and an experience. thank you for reading my dissertation.

Wow, this is special. I agree with Zack – really nice voice, and it takes confidence to put this kind of processing on beautiful singing, and I think the beauty still comes through, with the added bitterness of the chorus(?) effect. Do you listen to Arca? If not, this song made me think of some of her work. In particular, I find the song “Coraje” to be devastating.

Re: logic, might I suggest Plato.

Seriously I can’t help with that it’s been years BUT I should have me ole Logic up and running by next submissions so I can probably be more useful then.

Anyway we don’t know each other too well but this hit me pretty hard personally, particularly the length and repetitiveness of the lyric sheet and the weirdness.

It wouldn’t be sustainable if you didn’t have a nice voice, (really great vibrato m’dude!!). I think that’s what lets you get away with how unsettling the chorus effect is – I’d feel queazy without. I think that’s (one of) the things that makes the Mars Volta unlistenable, Cedric just doesn’t have a soothing voice. But I’m still a big Omar Rodriguez fan so the guitar in this felt pretty at home for me.

An ad for this journey would be something like: Spirit Plays Extra-Dimensional Lute At Bottom of Ocean – The Result Will Blow Your Mind

I would recommend this to someone who hasn’t yet been on this journey.