Retrospective [ Time Traveller Archive - January 2022 ]

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Retrospective is the newest song I worked on starting New Years Eve Eve (December 30, 2021). Recently after moving to a new home I’ve not had much flexibility to create as much as I did in 2020 and it gave a new signal to fine tune my workflow for music. Recently, August (Yourself In Peace) and I had a conversation on how to go about releasing our individual music this year and we liked the idea of working on a single each month then wrapping it all up into an album when there is enough tracks to do so. The Time Traveller Archive will be the home to my personal singles with individual cover art and descriptions.

Activation (how the sounds came together) :

After a long isolated 2020-2021 I grew an interest in listening to 1970’s - 1990’s Japanese City Pop. Everyday at work I would add a new song to a City Pop playlist and really listen to the music (the structures and emotions of the songs inspired me to explore sounds and chords I’ve yet to play around with). I would come home, learn the songs and play along with it - learning keys, chords, rhythms and scales. Eventually It got to a point where I made a beat I made for my friend Miguel (M Boogs) - The song we made together is called ‘Remember This’ (He originally intended to rap over ‘07 Remembrance’ but at the time I felt it was right to start fresh with something new). Shortly after that song, I went on to put together ‘PLASTK_LVV’ and reach out to my friend Mayumi (Loser Records / Osaka Japan) to build an EP for Mid 2020. Fast forward to today Retrospective is an extension of that same inspiration:

Lab Notes :

played around with 88bpm and revisited early 2000’s drum swing (my favorite rhythm : Eye from Madvillain).
Sample was pitched, chopped and warped on Ableton first. This way I got more sustain on certain note hits. Sample was played in Minor Scale.
The main piano chord progression : I use Addictive Keys VST Grand Piano with a lower velocity control for a more calming intro. I then took the midi notes I recorded and found another VST that had a pad sound that fit the overall song’s sound (took some time to fine tune the EQ on it)
First week of the song demo was a 16bar loop, no basslines or keys/synth layered. very basic song arrangement.
Performance wise - I got the Roland SP404 Mk2 which now has 16 play pads. I’m not too confident with playing live high hats with kick and drum so I decided to have the high-hat stem play as the metronome. Samples were chopped exactly where kicks would hit so that it makes the performance easier for me to play.