Citron
(2005)
Track listing:
01 Drumstart
02 Senegal
03 Spring
04 Exp
05 Lighthouse
06 Christine
07 Camel
08 Daffodil
09 Flipfish
10 Diveride
(2005)
Track listing:
01 Drumstart
02 Senegal
03 Spring
04 Exp
05 Lighthouse
06 Christine
07 Camel
08 Daffodil
09 Flipfish
10 Diveride
Some notes about the recording:
'Citron' was the first official recording of Ichigatsu, and
another recording that spanned a great
deal of time. I approached the songwriting in a
different way than I had with 'Hypnosis' in that I'd
wanted to create far more melodies than I had
previously. Melody - passages and themes that
wanted to be heard as separate songs - and not a
continuous one-flavoured dish. I began with
a host of utterly different ideas and sources. Oddly
enough, I began recording acoustic guitar
as the basis of the first track 'Senegal'. I am not a
guitar player, although I've always had
guitarists around me in my life. But the spiny, deep
and twangy sounds of the guitar were really
needed for my ideas. Beats had taken my
imagination, and so I began banging out beats again
- only this time, they were far more specific, far more
fractured, and in that sense, far more
Eastern. All the time I was recording and mixing, the
senses that kept running through my brain
were lemon - yellow - sun - tangy and sour-sweet -
sharp. Soon the tracks were infused with
piercing bird calls, bellowing whale songs, spanking
rain on puddles. It became increasingly
organic, and the flutes, beats and guitar were
sharper, more direct.
In my effort to create 'louder' pieces of music, I found
myself turning to samples of recordings to
create the kind of sharp edits and disjunction between
soft and biting. I'd rummaged through
some old tracks lying around that had bits I wanted to
achieve this certain 'twang-sharp' quality
that would offset the deeper undercurrent of the
organic sounds. Soon, this flavour began to
emerge.
What surprised me the most in the making of 'Citron'
was how utterly different each of the songs
had become as I continued to record. It was as if I
wanted to create completely polarised rooms
(rooms being the best word I can use to describe what
I make.) Each room was a different
shade of yellow, a different continent, a different
sense. Melodies created out of reconstructed
voice (such as in the track 'Christine') were
punctuated with pounding drums both loud and
soothing. 'Diveride', the most rock-formatted piece
I've ever recorded, was a swirling mixture of
two main features - a standard drum-kit beat paired
with a Northern Indian beat, kicking into this
strange 'ride' of voice and mouth-harp. In the end, it
felt like a drive along a wide open stretch
of land. I had a lot of trouble knowing how and when
to end that track - I had wanted the drums
to fade out over an entire minute, never really losing
the journey along the way.
'Citron also saw the re-emergence of human beat box,
and soon I was pumping beats into the
mic with my own grumbling, hissing insistence. The
voice beats were a huge step in creating the
sound I wanted literally singing the beats and
pounding them out with my mouth and lips and
breath. This brought 'Citron' to it's place - all the
thoughts of yellow, lemons and the tang on the
tongue met with the track 'Exp' - named from the .wav
file that was it's basis (shorthand for
'explosion'.) It contains a reversed sample of Missy
Elliot, altered enough that I do not feel I've
done her any injustice. I had also dug samples from
odd places - Polish composers of the 19th
century, California surf music from the early '90's,
pieces from Senegalese cadence-drumming,
and some lush vocal snippets from 50's songstresses.
The samples were important, but felt
more and more like spices that helped create a taste.
The backbone was still in my head, slowly
working itself out in moods, drums and flutes.
'Citron' did not undergo the intense editing process
that 'Hypnosis' had: The songs fell into
place one at a time, and soon I found them all
together, almost taunting each other because of
how unlike each other they were. But this was what I'd
wanted - something unsettled. Episodic,
melodic, and acidic with the juice of lemons.
'Citron' was the first official recording of Ichigatsu, and
another recording that spanned a great
deal of time. I approached the songwriting in a
different way than I had with 'Hypnosis' in that I'd
wanted to create far more melodies than I had
previously. Melody - passages and themes that
wanted to be heard as separate songs - and not a
continuous one-flavoured dish. I began with
a host of utterly different ideas and sources. Oddly
enough, I began recording acoustic guitar
as the basis of the first track 'Senegal'. I am not a
guitar player, although I've always had
guitarists around me in my life. But the spiny, deep
and twangy sounds of the guitar were really
needed for my ideas. Beats had taken my
imagination, and so I began banging out beats again
- only this time, they were far more specific, far more
fractured, and in that sense, far more
Eastern. All the time I was recording and mixing, the
senses that kept running through my brain
were lemon - yellow - sun - tangy and sour-sweet -
sharp. Soon the tracks were infused with
piercing bird calls, bellowing whale songs, spanking
rain on puddles. It became increasingly
organic, and the flutes, beats and guitar were
sharper, more direct.
In my effort to create 'louder' pieces of music, I found
myself turning to samples of recordings to
create the kind of sharp edits and disjunction between
soft and biting. I'd rummaged through
some old tracks lying around that had bits I wanted to
achieve this certain 'twang-sharp' quality
that would offset the deeper undercurrent of the
organic sounds. Soon, this flavour began to
emerge.
What surprised me the most in the making of 'Citron'
was how utterly different each of the songs
had become as I continued to record. It was as if I
wanted to create completely polarised rooms
(rooms being the best word I can use to describe what
I make.) Each room was a different
shade of yellow, a different continent, a different
sense. Melodies created out of reconstructed
voice (such as in the track 'Christine') were
punctuated with pounding drums both loud and
soothing. 'Diveride', the most rock-formatted piece
I've ever recorded, was a swirling mixture of
two main features - a standard drum-kit beat paired
with a Northern Indian beat, kicking into this
strange 'ride' of voice and mouth-harp. In the end, it
felt like a drive along a wide open stretch
of land. I had a lot of trouble knowing how and when
to end that track - I had wanted the drums
to fade out over an entire minute, never really losing
the journey along the way.
'Citron also saw the re-emergence of human beat box,
and soon I was pumping beats into the
mic with my own grumbling, hissing insistence. The
voice beats were a huge step in creating the
sound I wanted literally singing the beats and
pounding them out with my mouth and lips and
breath. This brought 'Citron' to it's place - all the
thoughts of yellow, lemons and the tang on the
tongue met with the track 'Exp' - named from the .wav
file that was it's basis (shorthand for
'explosion'.) It contains a reversed sample of Missy
Elliot, altered enough that I do not feel I've
done her any injustice. I had also dug samples from
odd places - Polish composers of the 19th
century, California surf music from the early '90's,
pieces from Senegalese cadence-drumming,
and some lush vocal snippets from 50's songstresses.
The samples were important, but felt
more and more like spices that helped create a taste.
The backbone was still in my head, slowly
working itself out in moods, drums and flutes.
'Citron' did not undergo the intense editing process
that 'Hypnosis' had: The songs fell into
place one at a time, and soon I found them all
together, almost taunting each other because of
how unlike each other they were. But this was what I'd
wanted - something unsettled. Episodic,
melodic, and acidic with the juice of lemons.
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