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 Back To Ampersand Index PAGE 7 - Sinking of the Zenobia (Track 1) - This is one of the first records I've ever made that features music inspired by non-musical concepts. One of my old hobbies used to be scuba diving (I just haven't had the time/motivation to go in the last few years). While looking at various scuba diving guides on the internet, I ran across a picture that really woke me up.  It's a picture of a cargo ferry called The Zenobia that sank in Larnaca Bay, Cyprus on June 7th, 1980. A computer controlled ballast system malfunctioned and all crew were able to safely get off of it days before it actually sank. I've always been incredibly intrigued by sunken shipwrecks, but they also sort of scare me. I think the important thing about inspiration is that it simply induces the creation of something, regardless of the nature of the inspiring element. The acoustic guitar piece that I wrote starts in the key of D minor and transitions so that it ends in B major. This transition creates a problem when trying to repeat the harmonic form of the song. I began to imagine this unidirectional transitional element of the form as a parallel to the act of the ship passing through any one of three different states: sitting on the surface, sinking, and landing on the bottom. I realized that playing the piece backwards worked just as well as forwards, so the first third of the piece consists of the form being played forwards, the second third connects seamlessly as a backwards version, and then the original form is played as the final third. With the logistics of this three point division in place, I then spent time fashioning each section within its own individual world. Section 1 (On the surface): The top side boat seemed very lackluster in a way that the sunken boat was not. After seeing pictures of the same boat on the surface and at the bottom, I wanted this part to feel emotionally shallow in a certain way. I suppose a very old sounding recording was my first idea of how to accomplish this. The Vako Orchestron organ begins the piece along with a 1930s sounding acoustic guitar. The Chamberlin Tenor Sax and Moog Etherwave Theremin then enter. I had actually written a really beautiful sax part, similar to the current one, but in the rush of inspiration and excitement of how good it was sounding, I didn't save it right away and it was lost to a power outage a few minutes after writing it. Bringing the project back up, I realized very quickly that I wouldn't ever be able to duplicate what I originally made, and so I learned to live with a replacement. This entire section is run through the iZotope Vinyl plugin, which is actually a freeware program that simulates various independent qualities and elements of all things vinyl and the machines associated with them. One of those things I chose to implement was the simulation of a warped record, having the pitch of the entire recording going up and down, which helped to mask the pitch problems introduced by the organ. Section 2 (Sinking): This section originally began with only the acoustic guitar performance being played backwards. Other elements were then added over it. First, I wrote a choir part that introduced some voice leading and melodic elements that were fashioned to be played in this direction of the form. This also involved creating a new reference point for where each chord stopped and started. You can hear the isolated choir part here: zenobia_choir1.mp3 The first thing I decided to add was a very abstract guitar solo. At the time, I was using a Roland GR-20 guitar synth a lot, so I decided to create a new unique sound that fit the track. I ran a normal distorted guitar sound along with the synth triggering a 90s sounding electric piano into a Boss DD6 digital delay pedal which was set to record very small increments (about 600 milliseconds) of the sound it was being fed, and then digitally reversing them and playing them back. The reverse delay effect allows a musician to play something in real time while delivering a performance which sounds entirely backwards (since the 600 ms increments create a jagged seam, usually indistinguishable from the sound of the attack of a reversed note). King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew utilizes this technique very efficiently in concert. Since the original sound I used was both guitar and electric piano, different parts of these reversed segments reveal different sonic qualities of the two (out of order from their natural envelopes). The main one is the inclusion of many high frequencies (from the electric piano) that are normally unavailable for use in electric guitar solos. You can hear this electric piano/electric guitar hybrid sound isolated here: zenobia_reversedroland1.mp3 I wanted to compliment this jagged sound with something much more flowing, so I recorded a second guitar solo that consisted of two simultaneous takes of eBowed guitar. You can hear that isolated sound here: zenobia_ebows1.mp3 The nPulse drum machine makes its first appearance here, creating the outline of a tempo against something that was recorded entirely rubato and without a metronome. There are many swooshy sounds in the background. Most of them are sped up and layered version of the ending bossa drums from Soul Partition, while there is also a quiet appearance of a reversed version of the sheet metal percussion toy performances that were used to build the track "30 dBs Below Zero" on the Wertico album, "StereoNucleosis." Section 3 (On the bottom): This is the original arrangement I wrote on acoustic guitar. For the background, I reversed the choir part that I wrote for section 2, ran the acoustic guitar through a Line 6 DL4 simulating an Echoplex (editing out all of the ramping so that only small clips remain), put a bubbly sounding flanger on the delay track of the acoustic guitar, and created a percussion loop from slowed down recordings of that VCR I tore open. The Epilogue: at 3:29, the strings and woodwinds from the end of Crayfish come in, going through that same iZotope Vinyl warped record pitch bending effect. At 3:37, I left in this interesting anomaly that happens where the Line 6 DL4 creates a Morse Code sounding pattern when the settings are put a certain way. I tried to include as many of those things on the record as possible, moments where gear or effects took on a life of their own and started giving performances. Then at 3:48, the bass ostinato from Draining enters. Just for fun, here is a November 12, 2004 version of the song. It still has the fake keyboard theremin stand-in and is missing a lot of parts. The forward (third section) version of the acoustic guitar part was muted for some reason when I saved it this day: zenobia_archive1.mp3  Picture taken from this page. Back To Index |