Things That Have Never Been - StaticNomad

Yeah, guess it is a bit of a soundtrack piece, with the sparseness in the first minute or so and the choice voices (which is a synth) and shimmering pads and stuff. The banjo is kind of the guide navigating us through that section.

The main section definitely has some bounce and I worked really hard to layer those drums (multiple kits) and keep them interesting and powerful all the time.

There's country trainbeat, reggae, funk, hard rock and more in those drum styles.

The other track is much more rocking and psychedelic but kicks off with some bouncy reggae. If you want to hear it, here it is:

Things That Should Always Be

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/152434

Thanks for checking this one out.

Thanks for checking back in and commenting again.

I think the featured tracks section should partly be about people doing updates and commenters giving their views again on any improvements. Sometimes the changes might be no good.

I like commenting on people's updates and have done it with your stuff.

Definitely a good idea to split the 18 min track in two. Unsurprisingly, I've added about 1 min to one, 2 mins to the other after the split.

I'm fairly happy with this though there are some problems with some of the guitar sounds but that's just how I recorded them and don't think I can make them much better.

"Still can see the first image this shared some time ago."

Yeah, I think it's quite an evocative piece and paints quite a chilled, far out picture in the first minute. But I have to get grooving so I do. I think there is also some of this in the intro:

"Hovering outside the body through thought"

Cool. Don't forget to warm yourself up again after the unreal chilling.

But it's not all chilling in this one. Some good funky rocking too, especially with the overdriven guitars on 5:34.

Hi. I guess you missed this track first time round, when it was 18 mins long. Now it's half the length and better all round.

Second half you have heard and liked and is called Things That Should Always Be, the one with the 2 min reggae intro.

The title sounds a bit sad but it's actually a shortened version of a great concept captured in the phrase 'things that have never happened happen all the time'.

Maybe I should just call the track that but I felt it was a little too long.

I hope you noticed the female vocal (it's a synth) has some fun pitch bend on it.

No, bass part really is bass guitar! Hard to tell in my songs (as I have about 5 different methods for making bass) but it doesn't matter for listeners, only for musicians/producers.

Slides probably have a stereo widening effect on them but it's all my own chopped up playing.

Initial drums not one of my favourites (gets much better later on) but I agree that it's quite sparse and not overdone. Have to give the banjo and bass some space!

Yes, banjo sound really creates the mood here but I also think it's very melodic and emotive. Banjo only has short sustain but I play it with delay so like to let the notes ring out.

I'm mostly a groove instrument player so I just do simple stuff around the beat and then let notes ring out while I think up what to do next. Combine legato and staccato and you have groove and good variety - that's how I see things.

Bass at 1:50 goes into the main bass loop and where it starts to become a grooving song. Still just one bass guitar!

Middle section is what I see as the main, insistent, repeated riff, which starts on 4:40 though I spend a couple of minutes building up to that.

I love the guitars there (just chopped up playing, never played that riff as you hear it).

"there is no special "theme" catching the listener's hear"

I disagree and hear it as a riff I can sing (even though I can't sing).

5:34 I love it when it goes heavy and I then add some different chopped up guitar notes for variety.

Then, 5:58 we drop down into some killer new riffs (with little bits of high guitar squeal).

Towards the end, we move into some jazz to take the song down (6:58) with violin and female vocal doing long notes.

Then return to start, with some parts identical to intro. Nice banjo conclusion. Then big, ambient fadeout, with the dulcimer having the final say with one last, low note.

I did not know the phrase 'fil rouge' but looked it up and now understand it. You could also maybe say 'motif'.

"It's almost 10 minutes but they flow in a very natural way."

Good as I make it in a very unnatural way! So much editing to do but I love doing and if I didn't do it, there wouldn't be as much creativity in my work. Editing is my special compositional technique. I do more cutting up and sampling (of myself) than any hip hop producer.

Thanks for your thoughts. More music coming soon.

Sure, send your coordinates and I'll send my space courier by on the way back to me.

I always offer that service to people who check out my tracks and then get so high and far out (literally) that they need returning to Mother Earth. I feel almost entirely responsible for sending them out there so feel I have a duty of care.

No, certainly no band, live or otherwise, here. Just one guy jamming away and editing those jams down and making multiple tracks on the same project timeline from all the playing and edits and additional synths and drum programming and stuff.

It was an 18.5 min track but I felt it was too long, especially as there are killer riffs that it took 15 mins to get to. I've been trying to do shorter tracks so now this one is 9:40 and the other 11:52 so neat little pop singles after that edit. Guaranteed hit singles and international magazine cover status when they're released.

What a surprise that after the edit I added more to each half. I can spin endless stuff out of some riffs and sections if I revisit after a while away, which is partly why I make such long tracks. Ideas that are months and years apart.

Here's the second half, with its new bouncy reggae 2 min intro.

Enjoy and thanks for checking it and this track out

Things That Should Always Be

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/152434

Thanks. Instruments having a life of their own and progressing smoothly is what I aim for. But it takes a lot of work as I don't really plan these things out. It's really a lot of editing of different jamming.

It's mostly long because I keep doing more jamming and recording more material that I feel is good enough to be included. One good part often inspires lots of other new ones on different instruments.

Working this way is awkward and confusing but it also produces loads of strange combinations of notes and sounds that I probably couldn't achieve any other way. And I certainly didn't imagine them, work out how to do them and then make them happen. Lots of happy accidents though no one who's listening knows for certain where they are.

This way of working means that I'm kind of free to record in a very relaxed way, not worrying about getting everything perfect and always doing some improvisational stuff I hadn't planned.

You don't have to wait to hear the full length version, as it can be heard here:

https://soundcloud.com/endlessrotary/things-that-have-never-been

I've been making small improvements to this for the past few days (haven't uploaded it yet) but it's OK now to check out the full thing. Especially as the second half has some of the best and most rocking guitar.

Thanks for your words. Not everyone's into lengthy stuff but I know there are some out there...

Word up, Monsieur Kurl. I just tried looking Amethyst To Turquoise up but mostly found jewellery links. Then I found a Facebook page of some ambient artist with that name so that's go to be it!

Yeah, I guess maybe you're trying to say this sounds a bit like a live band who are playing in front of some ambient bed or vibe. I think I know what you mean. Ozric Tentacles (best space rock band ever) are wonderful at that. Used to have two synth players, one pretty much permanently on atmospheres that the band would play the actual constructed song over (other synth player was guitarist who would come off guitar to do awesome synth solos).

There's not actually much ambient bed stuff here (mostly shimmering stuff in first 2 mins) as guitar, banjo, drums and bass guitar do most of the work.

But, delay helps take the place of ambient pads, which I don't use as much as you might think or expect (I love em but they can take up too much space). Quite often it's just heavily delayed guitar parts. And I do control the feedback on the delay, a bit like in dub.

Yes, around 5:35 is maybe my favourite bit. Bit like simple verse-chorus-verse grunge there (eg Nirvana's Lithium) where you just take the same riff, step on your distortion pedal and the drummer moves to his crash cymbals or open hihat. I like the new guitar parts that it goes into on 6:00 after the drums come back down from those cymbals.

I've got a slightly better version of this which I'm yet to upload. All the same, check the full Soundcloud version as a lot of my favourite stuff happens after about 11 mins.

Thanks again for your thoughts and observations.

Well thanks for checking it out. I got the banjo a couple of years ago and have recorded a lot with it since then and it features prominently in quite a few tracks I've uploaded to the site.

They include: An Early Morning Appointment With God, Right Place Wrong Century and Into The Out There.

Yes, I'm not sure I've heard a single track on this site containing banjo. I also don't understand why it's not used more in electronic music (ie outside country and bluegrass and related genres) as it can be very cool. Mine's 6 string so just another guitar to me.

I do a lot of jamming on various grooves and wandering off but staying grounded to a sound, a key, that sort of thing. This track has quite a consistency to the different sections - I have others which change a lot more.

I fully appreciate that a lot of people can't cope with stuff that's over 8 minutes - and certainly not an 18 min track like this.

I am trying hard to do shorter stuff, with some success, but some things just all fit together so well that it feels wrong to cut them down. I guess I make music for a very niche and probably dwindling audience - people who want to put on a whole album and sit back and chill to it rather than just sample a quick little song.

Doesn't matter so much if tracks are over 10 minutes if you're listening for, say, an hour.

Thanks for your honest thoughts.

Sorry for my late reply. I struggle to see the link between this track and For Your Pleasure, which I didn't much like (especially Ferry's vocals), though I did listen to the whole thing trying to spot the link. Must be the odd delayed keyboard part that comes in after a couple of minutes.

Yes, I do like the drums in this track. It's my usual multiple acoustic kit affair but I think they sound similar or are well matched so sort of sound like one big kit. Gives the track a real consistency that is maintained throughout the 18 mins though you'll hear the occasional cowbell in the second half.

Yes, 4:15 I find fun and also kind of fluffy and happy. Does all sound a bit like a live band. Shame I don't have one! 6:00 guitars have some good little squeals and 16th note rapid end of bar fills that I like to do (I can generally only play that fast, and in time, in short bursts).

Thought you'd like the dulcimer, banjo and Eastern stuff in this eg from around 6:50 on. That same bass guitar thundering away providing a good anchor. I use it a hell of a lot in this track but hope it doesn't get too boring. I find these end, darker sections very musical, even though I don't really know what I'm doing in terms of changing key. I just know the mode I've made up and hit those new, correct notes and then branch out a bit.

Since uploading this I've improved it a bit in various ways. I strongly considered splitting it in two but don't think that will now happen (would have called the other half Things That Always Were).

This track will be on my nearly finished album called For The Long-Form Lovers. 4 tracks - around 65 mins running time!

Look out for it in all good record stores soon (not really).

Thanks again for checking out my self indulgent noodlings.

Wow - someone's checked out the full version! I certainly can't say I was thinking of your scene between two people in conversation when making this. But no problem if that's what you get from it - read into it what you like. Better that it inspires something rather than nothing.

The earlier observation of "drunk on a tropical island" makes more sense to me.

I have made some adjustments to this since uploading, though nothing too major. But they're improvements, all the same.

Yes, Circular Motion is one of my greatest tracks ever, quite possibly the greatest. I made it about 12 years ago when I was a lot worse than I am now at mixing and arranging and stuff. It all came out pretty damn easily and was truly inspired as I started composing it after returning from staying round the flat of the flute player from one of my favourite bands of all time - Ozric Tentacles (space rock legends).

Thanks for your continued interest and encouragement. I liked your latest upload (Thoughts Of You Instrumental Alt Version) as you will see from the comments I left on it.

Yes. Lots going on but about the same amount of changes and progressions usual for me as . But there are fewer instruments and sounds than unusual.

Maybe a bit like a jam band. But I hope it's a bit tighter than your average jam band.

If you think you might have the stamina for the full length version, check it out here:

https://soundcloud.com/endlessrotary/things-that-have-never-been

Second half has some more rocking stuff that might appeal to you.

Yeah - it is a bit heavenly. I go there from time to time and these were the kind of sounds I heard so I sampled them with a small dictaphone and incorporated them into this track.

Don't know if copyright laws apply to material from up above. But if I've sinned, may God strike me down and take back his samples...

Lots of love and joy in this - I agree.

Thanks. I have a lot of it and I don't just mean in this mega lengthy track. I've uploaded loads of far out epics in the past few months.

Thanks for the interest.