In April I was asked to make music for my friend’s fashion project for her degree project. This was my first introduction to producing music for a brief outside of my assignments, so it felt a lot more difficult for me to settle with ideas, as they were for someone else. The concept behind the show was based around post-apocalyptic utilitarian fashion. Regarding the brief, I wasn’t given many definite rules to follow and unfortunately the video for the runway wouldn’t be completed until after the tracks were finished. This meant I had no visual reference for any of the tracks.
Some of the key notes from the brief were to include broken drum beats, sirens, glitching effects an overall to create a constant ambience for the models to walk to. Here are the final pieces I ended up deciding to use:
For this track I focused on the synth bass as a leading point of the track. To create this sound I used a Korg Monologue synth as it has an amazing sequencer which allows me to hold notes while modulating the sound with the inbuilt EQ and filter modules. The accompanying ambience and sounds were made using a virtual copy of a Buchla Music Easel and a virtual CMI from Arturia Analogue Lab 4.
I decided to use my physical equipment for this track, such as a Korg Volca Beats drum machine, my bass, Korg Monologue and also my guitar for use of the Ebow. This was the first track I began to develop for this project so I hadn’t quite figured out what sound I was looking to achieve. In order to stray away from simplicity and repeating previous methods, most of the recordings only required one take. I’m still surprised at the outcome as it sounds and feels very DIY but accomplishes the broken and glitchy prompts I was asked for when planning. The resulting effects on the drums were achieved using the built in delay function on the Volca and the occasional live triggering of the kit.