Thirty Incoming - Música

Frogtoon Música - Información de la canción: Thirty Incoming

The-Books - The Way Out

From Zammuto's Wordpress "This Track Contains What I Have Come To Believe Is The ‘best Answering Machine Tape Of All Time”. I Remember The First Time I Heard The Tape Pretty Clearly. We Were In The Van A Gray 15 Passenger Dodge We Called Arthur On Tour In 2006 Somewhere In The Midwest. My Wife And I Were Previewing Some Of The Tapes That We Had Found During The Past Week When We First Played “30 Incoming”. By The End Of The Tape We Were In Tears. Every Voice On The Tape So Direct So Sincere Sometimes Somber Sometimes Hilarious… I Mean Who Talks Like That? And Yet There It Was Totally Real And We Owned The Only Copy In Existence. A Bit Of Back-Story… It Was And Still Is Common Practice For Us Mostly Paul To Enter A Thrift Store And Immediately Head Towards The Answering Machine Section. On The 2006 Tour It Was Mostly Matthew Michel’s Job. He Was Our Tour Assistant/merch Guy/storyteller On That Tour. You Might Remember Him As Part Of The “smoke Ring” Encore Where He Would With Extreme Poetic License Recap Highlights From The Tour While I Blew Giant Smoke Rings Out Of An Altered Phonograph Horn That Paul Found. Anyhow Answering Machines Have Gone Completely Digital Since The Late Nineties But The Original Answering Machines Were All Analog Using Standard Audio Tapes Or Mini-Cassettes. We Would Go Through All Of The Analog Answering Machines And Pull Out The Tapes. If They Wouldn’t Let Us Buy Just The Tape We Would Buy The Whole Machine Take Out The Tape And Give The Empty Machine To The Next Thrift Shop. Since 2006 These Machines Have Gone Completely Out Of Circulation So It Seems The Window For Collecting These Tapes Is Over. Luckily We Got About 200 Of Them. For The Most Part The Weird Beeps And Clicks Are The Best Thing About These Tapes And Paul Saves Them In A Folder Called “beeps And Clicks” Which Is Very Useful But Every Once And A While There Are Messages On There That Are Worth Saving. In The Case Of “30 Incoming” Everything About It Is Worth Saving. Of Course We Have No Idea Who These People Are Or How They Are Related Your Guess Is As Good As Ours. But In A Sense It Doesn’t Matter Since What They Say Is So Universally Human. When I First Heard The Tape I Remember Thinking That The “morning After” Message Was Just About The Warmest And Most Sincere Thing I’ve Ever Heard. I Have Since Been Shocked To Learn That Many People Find It To Be Creepy And Uncomfortable To Listen To. There Certainly Is A “staring Into The Sun” Quality About This Sample. It Is So Direct So Concentrated It’s Almost Too Much. I Suppose That’s Why People Don’t Usually Leave Messages Like This. Like The “Motherless Bastard” Sample In “Thought For Food” It Works Well Musically As An Introduction Since It Super-Charges Anything That Comes After It. The Subtext That It Creates Is So Rich A Tacit Story Is Woven Into The Music From The Beginning. The Sound-Scape Of The Answering Machine Has A Highly Nostalgic Quality That Also Lends Itself Well Music… The Crackle And Noise And Complete Lack Of Low End Represent A Voice That Has Traveled A Long Distance To Get Here And Has Gotten Beat Up Along The Way. It’s Hard To Believe That The Medium Of The Interpersonal Voice Messages Has Only Been Around For A Few Decades. It Reminds Me Of The Writings Of Marshall Mcluhan Who Is The Writer Who Coined The Phrase “the Medium Is The Message”. He Argues That Media Are A Direct Extension Of Our Beings And That The Widespread Adoption Of A New Medium Is An Irreversible And Unpredictable Step In Human Evolution. He Is Worth His Own Blog Entry But For This Track I Am Struck By The Power Of The Medium Of “voice Mail” To Capture Such Real And Concentrated Emotional Moments And Store Them Indefinitely. I Can Subconsciously Trace The Musical Imagery Of This Track To Something That My Father Told Me When I Was In School Studying The Visual Arts. I Think At The Time He Was Coming To Terms With The Fact That I Was Irreversibly Moving Away From Chemistry Towards Art. He Handled It Gracefully I Only Remember Him Openly Worrying About The Financial Repercussions Of My Decision A Few Times. I Think He Sensed My Enthusiasm For Art Which Would Spill Out Of Me In Almost Every Conversation And At The Time I Was Recovering From A Bout With Hodgkin’s Disease So I Kind Of Had A Free Pass To Do Whatever I Wanted… One Of The Upsides Of Having Cancer. Before I Tell You What He Said I Should Say A Few Things About My Dad. He Thinks…a Lot. Sometimes To The Exclusion Of His Immediate Surroundings. Apparently It’s A Trait That He Has Passed On To Me And One That My Wife Bitterly Complains About As I’m Sure My Mother Complained To My Father. Sometimes It’s Hard To Have A Conversation With Such A Person Or To Even Know Where They Are In Any Given Moment. For What It’s Worth I Am Sorry. My Dad Has Spent Most Of His Working Life Doing Mathematical Analysis Of Corporate Data Thus He Thinks A Lot About Power Dynamics And Organizational Hierarchies But More Broadly Speaking He Thinks About The Position Of The Individual With Respect To The Organization And The Battle Lines That Are Drawn Between The Needs Of The Individual Vs. The Needs Of The Corporation And How This Results In Myriad Layers Of Unjustness. Anyway He Extended His Thinking To Art When He Saw I Was Interested In It And He Came Up With This Image The Artist Is Like A Person Who Sits Up On The Rocks Next To The Ocean And Watches The Waves Crash Into The Shore While Everyone Else Is Down In The Water Getting Pounded By The Surf. As Ocean Metaphors Go It’s A Pretty Good One. I Think He Meant That Most Of Life Takes Place At That Interface Between “water” And “land” And The Survivors Learn How To Roll With It And Turn It Into A Dance. But There Is Always A Feeling Of Unpredictability And Lack Of Control When The Rogue Wave Hits. The Artist Is On Another Plane So To Speak Where There Is A Distance From The Struggle Of ‘others’. The Artist’s Perspective Allows For Some Pretty Spectacular Generalizations To Be Made About The Human Condition The Danger Being That The Detachment Over Time Might Lead To A Lack Of Empathy Or A Feeling Of Superiority In Which Case The Art Can Only Be Enjoyed By Other Artists Who Are Similarly Detached. As Always I’m Interested In Maintaining Both Perspectives Simultaneously. To Be In It And Above It At The Same Time. To Be Able To Feel It And Also See It For What It Is Outside Of It’s Immediate Context. The Music Of This Track Is An Attempt To Find This Balance So That The Interconnected Lines Can Be Followed Individually Or As A Whole And In A Different Way Each Listen. After The “morning After” Message The Dial-Tone Washes Into A Rhythmic Pulse That Is Swept Into A Series Of Waves Of Different Textures Which Building In Intensity Over Time. The Electronic Filter Is One I’ve Used Before It’s A Volume Envelope That Can Add A Sine Type Volume Curve Over Any Sound. It’s Good For Rhythmasizing Held Open Notes And Became A Unifying Device For The Music. The Song Builds Through Layers Of Cello Voice Spoken Fragments From The Answering Machine Tape Electric Guitar Bass And Drums Until About 3/4 Through When After A Short Vocal Lull A Plateau Is Reached Through To The End. It’s Very Much A “Godspeed You! Black Emperor” Approach. The Drums Are Very Meaty Which Is A Bit Of A Change For Us. I Recorded The Drums In London On Nigel’s Drum Kit Using His “perfectly” Tuned Floor Tom Which Drew Recorded With A Single Overhead Condenser Mic. I Used Sticks Brushes And Felted Mallets To Get A Range Of Different Tones Out Of The Tom. While Mixing The Percussion Parts Later I Focused On Finding A Compelling Relationship Between 2 Over 3 And 3 Over 4 Patterns That Could Freely Interchange To Bring Out Different Aspects Of The Melodic Parts Below Particularly The Bass Part Which I Recorded At Home A Couple Months Later. Most Of The Cello Was Recorded In London As Well On Paul’s Instruments Along With The Electric Guitar Which I Recorded On Nigel’s Old Strat Through A Tremolo Amp. The First Thing That Drew Had Us Do When We Arrived At “The Hospital” Was To Record A Drone. He Kept Microphones Running As We Ran Around The Studio Playing All Of The E’s That We Could Find Laying Around On The Pianos Guitars And Other Indescribable Stuff In Nigel’s Studio. Drew Then Took This Recording And Layered It Upon Itself In Different Ways To Create A Nice Dense Resonant Drone That Could Be Tuned To Any Note We Needed. We Then Recorded The Drone Onto Reel-To-Reel Tape And Drew Did A Session Where He Sped Up And Slowed Down The Tape In Real Time To Get Some Amazing Analog Effects. You Can Hear This Drone Used In Various Ways All Over This Track And On “all You Need Is A Wall” . It’s A Classic Technique Used For Building Texture In Modern Rock Productions Such As Nigel’s Production Of Radiohead And Beck. It Lends A Roiling Active Atmosphere That Goes Straight To The Subconscious You’ll Likely Miss It If Your Not Listening For It. Also Listen Carefully To The Polyrhythm In The Bass Line During The “plateau” Section I’m Pretty Proud Of It. It’s The First Time I’ve Ever Heard A Twelve A Nine And An Eight Beat Loop Used Within A Single Musical Phrase. One Would Think That Such A Rhythm Would Sound Confusing But Somehow The Openness Of The 3 Over 4 Drum Pattern Allows For A Lot Of Time Bending Within A Phrase It Comes Off Sounding Pretty Natural. The Vocal And Cello Choruses Were The Last Thing Recorded For The Track Which I Finished Composing On My 35th Birthday At Home In The Studio. It Was Quite A Memorable Day Since It’s Always Cathartic To Finish A Track. This Track Was Particularly Cathartic To Finish Given It’s “thirties” Oriented Content."