a crooked mantra for lockdown isolation

Back in 2016 I conceived, composed and recorded a Lo-Fi Symphony in one day to mourn the loss of the room I had at BLANK Studios, Portslade-by-Sea. Working on location with just my voice, a bag full of low-fidelity sound capturing devices, a battered cassette 4-track and the ambience of the space, I created a multilayered choral soundpiece. The recording has been lurking on the fringes of the internet since I snuck it out, but in this strange headf**k of a time we are living through, maybe its time has finally come: repurposed as a crooked mantra for lockdown isolation.

The song was recently released as the closing track on volume 5 of the monumental Isolation & Rejection series.

You can buy my track individually for £1 or more, or the whole album for £5 or more, through the Front & Follow bandcamp page > with all proceeds going to The Brick, Wigan > (£2,700 raised so far!)
hint: if you leave your purchase until Friday 4 December Bandcamp will waive their revenue share meaning even more money goes to charity.

One reviewer at furtherdot.com > felt the need to eulogise thus:
“The album concludes with the folksy acapella ‘Lo-Fi Symphony For Portslade-by-Sea’ by Dominic Bradnum, a mournful, yet optimistic piece of vocal sentimentality that sounds like a fishermen’s chorus singing Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy The Silence’. It’s this savagely beautiful piece that I’ll be listening to for comfort as I once more mourn the loss of one of my favourite labels.”

I’m pretty happy with that bit of hyperbole, but you can hear it for yourself below and read all about its conception here >>>

Lo-Fi Symphony for BLANK Studio 5

DATE:  Friday 23 September 2016
LOCATION: Studio 5, BLANK Studios & Gallery, 108 North St, Portslade-by-Sea, BN41 1DG

MISSION STATEMENT
To create a sound piece, within 1 day, in response and homage to the environs of BLANK Studio 5. All sounds to be conjured via a limited array of low-fidelity sound-producing and recording equipment, plus any found sounds and field recordings captured on location, on the day.

EQUIPMENT (all vintage and/or 2nd-hand unless otherwise stated)
Recording: Fostex X-26 4-track cassette recorder (channel 1 input not working); selection of 3 microphones of various vintages; Behringer 4-channel mixer; circa 1960s Park amplifier (low wattage); Headphones; Zoom H1 Handy Recorder (my one concession to modern technology)
Instruments/Sound-producers: Human voice; Human body; Yamaha SU-10 sampler; metronome; Early Learning Centre plastic drum (purchased previously for £1.99 at local charity shop).

ARTIST’S NOTE
In the process of winding down my practice in BLANK studio 5, and packing up my works and materials, I have found the grain of a song idea returning to mind again and again – A Nietzschean slogan that appears on one of my current works in progress: “Everything you need is right here”. Over time it became almost a mantra, a nagging earworm, sound-tracking the hours spent clearing out my paraphernalia. Now and again harmonic counter melodies would suggest themselves, hinting at a choral composition of some kind. And so I vowed to return to the vacant space to compose and record a farewell sound-piece – a Lo-Fi Symphony in 1 day.

ACCOUNT
I arrive, from Worthing, by bike and set-up my arsenal of lo-fidelity audio equipment. First task is to wipe a cassette on high-speed record.

11:15 – I have had my suspicions about the metronome I have brought with me – it seems to be a bit lazy on every 2nd click. But I need a click-track to help me keep time, so I cheat and hook up my phone to the internet. A little trial and error and I settle on 69bpm.

I record a base vocal take – the repeated phrase “Everything you need is right here” holding a close microphone (AKG) with an auxiliary directed mic’ (SM-58) at approximately 1.5 metres distance. Vocal 2 adds a basic harmony repeating the same phrase, mixed down with Vocal 1, with some high and low EQ tweaked.

Following Vocal 3, I realise everything, bar the click track, has been recorded too quietly. If I try and increase the volume, it merely amplifies the hiss – there is “lo-fi” and there is “unlistenable”, so I cut my losses and start from scratch with the click track.

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14.30 – Much better! A cleaner, louder Vocal 1 and 2 are re-recorded (same mic’s and positions) and mixed down to 1 channel. Vocal 3 is added and we’ve clawed back some time. On this 2nd attempt I make the decision to set a structure for the composition: 10 repeats of the full phrase (10 being a multiple of 5. As in studio 5).

Each of the following Vocal takes requires careful consideration to slot in with the existing ones and to add a new colour or tone to the whole. And as each part is added it must be mixed down to the 1 spare channel I have at my disposal. So with every new addition, an individual part is lost (and another bridge is burned). It is a tricky, but liberating route to feel your way through.

Occasionally, one of my additions doesn’t quite mesh with the others – it is discarded and I try something else. Slowly, with each new part and mix, the piece builds to a rather comforting sounding multi-vocal composition. (I have notes for 6 vocal takes, but there may be 1 or 2 more).

I try adding an over-driven a capella bass part – abandoned in favour of a falsetto counter harmony. I then have an idea to introduce a crashing bass-drum sound during the final 2 phrase repeats. First I try various implements (heavy pliers, bits of wood, a fist, a microphone) out on the toy drum I have hanging around from my previous Lo-Fi Symphony – too feeble! Instead I mic’ up the floor and thud my knee twice on the floorboards in sync with my trusty click-track. This is sampled and hooked up to the 1960s Park amplifier. Once recorded, it doesn’t quite have the desired effect, so I mix it across with some extreme (for this 4-track) EQ. Still no good, and it’s getting late.

I draw a line, and listen back to adjust the levels of the amassed vocal jigsaw I have gradually constructed throughout the afternoon: Vocal 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 on one channel, with added Vocal 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 adding extra presence on the 2nd channel.

19.30 – I record a master mix direct to my Zoom H1 recorder; then a second ‘ambient’ version by routing the 4-track to the Park amp, with the Zoom H1 approximately 2.5 metres distance from the sound source. Then I hastily pack away my gear and load up my bike for a hairy ride along the dark coastal cycle way back home to Worthing.

Notes from the recording process:

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Post-production: the final Dry mix + Ambient mix were transferred to Logic audio software; the two mixes were then combined and volume levels tweaked for an overall “wet + dry mix”.

Sylvania Electric

 

These songs are the results of a four day recording residency I undertook from 18th to 21st August 2013 (with a few hours remedial work over the following weeks), under the banner of “Lo-Fi Symphonies”.

I finally found the time and courage to re-visit the recordings at the end of March this year. I’ll be honest it was really an excuse to try out an idea I’d had for a homemade space echo spring reverb. Each of the songs was kept in the state I had left them almost 3 years ago, and i mixed and mastered 2 signals from the 8-track: 1 outputted directly to Logic, and the 2nd routed to Logic via my homemade space echo.

I’ve released the four songs under the guise of Sylvania Electric (seeing them as a progression of a long-dormant pre-Miss Pain pseudonym Sylvania). I hope you like them.

 

 

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APPENDIX (Lo-Fi Symphonies Residency 1)
Rather than wracking my memory over a few overdubs and recording decisions I made 3 years ago, I’m just going to present the notes as a form of appendix – a long overdue full stop to this project.

REMEDIAL NOTES (Summarising work undertaken following the initial recording timescale)

REMEDIAL NOTES (Praying For Time)

MIXING & MASTERING NOTES

Lo-Fi Symphony for Portslade-by-Sea

DATE: Monday 22 February 2016
LOCATION: BLANK Studios & Gallery, 108 North St, Portslade-by-Sea, BN41 1DG

MISSION STATEMENT
To create a sound piece, within 1 day, in response to the environs and surrounds of BLANK Studios & Gallery. In contrast to previous Lo-Fi Symphony exercises, there will be no preconceived ideas (sounds, melodies, etc) at the commencement of composition. The day will begin with a blank tape, a blank page and a blank mind. All sounds will be conjured from a limited array of low-fidelity sound-producing and recording equipment, plus found sounds and field recordings captured on location, on the day.

EQUIPMENT (all vintage and/or 2nd-hand unless otherwise stated)
Recording: Fostex X-26 4-track cassette recorder (channel 1 input not working); selection of 4 microphones of various vintages; Mighty Boom Ball mini-speaker (not used); Behringer 4-channel mixer; circa 1960s Park amplifier (low wattage); Headphones; Zoom H1 Handy Recorder (my one concession to modern technology)
Instruments/Sound-producers: Yamaha SU-10 sampler; Boss Dr Rhythm DR-110 drum machine (unused); metronome; Korg Gt-3 chromatic tuner (unused); Early Learning Centre plastic drum (purchased for £1.99 at local charity shop); wooden Teddy-bear marching band jigsaw puzzle with electronic noise chips (purchased for £1.99 at local charity shop)

ACCOUNT
I step off the train at Portslade station into a frigid sheet of grey drizzle. I head off down the high street, trawling the handful of charity shops en route seeking second-hand goods that produce some kind, any kind, of noise… Bingo! A plastic toy drum and the world’s most annoying jigsaw puzzle – it has electronic chips under each of the 6 pieces, emitting an approximation of the sound of a teddy-bear marching band. I am henceforth accompanied by a tourettes-style clatter of tinny noises with each and every step I take towards my destination.

I arrive at BLANK Studios at 11.06am, dump my equipment in the vaulted gallery space and set out with my handheld recorder to capture found sounds

Field Recordings
1. Raindrops in drainpipe (BLANK kitchen)
2. Ambient sounds – road traffic (BLANK hallway)
3. Ambient sounds – hum (BLANK gallery)
4. Ambient sounds – lorry reversing alarm (aggregate works)
5. Ambient sounds – lorry passing (aggregate works)
6. Ambient sounds – machinery (aggregate works)
7. Dripping drainpipe (aggregate works)

At 12.00 I set up and document the equipment I have at my disposal: a motley array of outdated sound-capturing gear. Key items will be a Yamaha sampler; a Fostex cassette 4-track (channel 1 – out of order); a selection of microphones; a budget Behringer mixer; and a circa 1960s Park amplifier of very low wattage).

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I dive straight in with the intention of creating a bubbling rhythm track from a snippet of the ‘raindrops in drainpipe (kitchen)’ field recording. I am still wrestling with the sample of raindrops at 1pm.

I abort a metronomic drum machine overdub just as it builds up and resonates around the gallery. Instead I turn to the plastic toy drum, picked up for £1.99 earlier this morning. It has elastic straps on the sides which twang when you pluck them, and a flimsy ‘skin’ that feels like any child worth their mettle would very quickly beat a hole in it. I place a mic under a wooden plinth, sit the drum on top and proceed with a stop/start rhythm, trying to match the burbling rain-drop backing. In the end I sample each of the 3 sounds – a twang, a tap on the drum-skin, and a bang on the plinth. These, recorded via the Park amplifier with 2 ambient mics (see diagram, page 1 of notes), will drive this lo-fi soundscape and give it some backbone.

— I must have stopped for lunch about here —

The ambient road traffic recording, captured in the hallway, is sampled and edited down to form a repeated swelling motif throughout the duration of the piece.

— at this point family responsibility intervenes, I must catch a train to collect my daughter from nursery. But everything is left set up for my return after dinner —

Disappointed with my progress so far, I sit at the train station mulling over the sparse arrangement that I have created. An off-beat clap suggests itself, and I furtively dictate a note-to-self in the shelter.

20.20: I arrive back at the gallery.

First, I stalk the gallery space clapping my hands looking for a sweet spot where the room’s natural reverb makes a single clap ring out like gunshot. This is duly captured via microphone and sampler.

Let’s see what the Teddy-Bear marching band can bring to the symphony… Lifting each jigsaw piece lets off a clattering, electronic din. And the winner is: the “triangle” player – a tinny, ting-a-ling metallic trill, sampled and ready to trigger.

The off-beat metallic trill and clap are duly added to the mix in 1 take. Running out of time, all parts will be done in 1 take from here-on

I find a 2 metre length of cardboard tubing in the building. This is mic’ed up at one end, with an additional ambient mic close by (see diagram page 2 of notes). A quick run through, then I hit record and begin humming a low, cello-like bowing sound, in tandem with, and contrast to, the ebbing road-traffic sample.

Mixdown: Toy drum sample with Teddy-bear triangle + clap
Mixdown: Raindrops + road traffic with Cardboard tube vocal

I listen back to the now fleshed out arrangement, and as I listen a haunting, whistled melody suggests itself. I listen through again, whistling the tune as I set up microphones and work out where to position myself. I need to nail this in 1 take if I am to get a final mix in the can before the last train.

I stand atop a bench, a microphone held at arms length + another atop a plinth to capture the room-sound and I whistle an eerie, Morricone-esque top-line through dry lips.

The time is 22.30. Time to mixdown to master tape: a dry mix straight from the Fostex outputs + a 2nd mix run via the Park amplifier with my trusty Zoom handy recorder and tripod perched atop a plinth to capture the sound as it fills the room.

I pack up all my equipment, lock it in my studio space and exit the building at 23.16 to catch the 23.26 train home.

Notes recorded throughout the day:

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Post-production: the final Dry mix + Ambient mix were transferred to Logic audio software; the two mixes were then combined and volume levels tweaked for an overall “wet + dry mix”.