chocolatequest

[chocolatequest]

Catch up

Just wrote ‘Next Boy’. Feels great to sing.

Also since I last posted I wrote ‘My Old Girl’, ‘Get Down thing’ improvised on tape, ‘Imaginary Girl’ and various dabbles into old things. 

Also made my first beat-beat in a longggg time for Sidney. He liked it but seems to be ghosting me now. Not sure what happened. But I’ve reused the drums from that beat for ‘Next Boy’, so I guess it all worked out. 

I think when anyone ghosts you, it can hurt, but it’s their thing. It’s something suited to the text-world. Neither of you are really giving or receiving a meaningful part of yourselves, so it doesn’t feel dramatic to just drop out of the whole thing. And the message they mean to send is ‘I don’t wanna be a part of your world’. If this is true, why would you want them to be a part of it? 

Note: write something over Rollerblade Club 

[chocolatequest]

Notes for: 4 Billion Girls

Have the voice n guitar super upfront, recorded around 3am with window open. Let it blossom in the chorus with synth strings ala You and I (soaring birds crying). Also try no-attack guitar for the effect. 

[chocolatequest]

Some new releases

I like this specifically for the one moment in the video where they move n’sync during the bridge. Like a big houseboat crashing in the waves. Beautiful moment. And the outro ‘come on over, I’ll adore you’. 

This video is fucking A. 

I love this chorus. I love the contrast between the two voices and parts. She sounds like some sort of baby elf, he sounds like he works in IT. 

This is a great example of one thing I’m afraid of. The verse is one of those verse’s that is just there to take you to the chorus. I love a song like Be My Baby, where the verse and chorus share this golden ratio. They make each other way better. 

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After about 10 dear minutes...

This past week I’ve felt a relieving sense of doubt. A chance to step away from myself. I’m not sure what I realised, but it’s something. 

I started recording makeshift drum kit, using a snare and my foot tapping the floor very close to mic. Sounds surprisingly great. Great move. I’ve been a slave to the drums I’ve been sampling, now I can do anything. Tempo fluctuation is such a beautiful thing. Definitely feels missing today.

Started a song ‘The Mystery Girls’. 

Back in the game.

[chocolatequest]

Nice

I love the pop-philosophy of this song. How’d we get here? NO ONE KNOWS... So sweet and simple. You take a deep, long and winding journey through the big philosophical landscape, and always end up back here. Did I meet you in another life? When you step back from all the scheming and semantic noodling,  all thats really left to say is “what a world”. It’s a beautiful placeholder for every experience of every living person. I feel like it would be an appropriate thing to say at any given moment. “They just bombed that country...what a world”

“This tea tastes amazing...what a world”

‘These are real things’ pointing to an expanding ball of consciousness, a child’s smile and a tree. This song is like an 11 year old convincing their dad to start living again. 

[chocolatequest]

Strange day

Returned to Curious George. Two things really bugging me,

1. The big hole in the song. The missing verse which explains the whole thing.

2. The groove. Shakers and hi hats aren’t blending with everything else enough. I want this to feel like a rainstorm of bliss, but some plastic bags keep blowing in my face.

Got my guitar back. I need 10 years of string deadening in 1 minute. Still some annoying fret buzz on lower strings, gotta sort this. 

Discovered Grace Valentine. 

This one has stopped me in my tracks a bit. If you look at it from the surface you could easily dismiss it as a bedroom pop thing. But it manages to transcend that bedroom pop world so beautifully. It’s not caught up in this ironic ‘I suck but I’m cool’ aesthetic. It’s happy to be here. The police siren is such a great touch. 

It’s got me thinking a lot about my own stuff. I guess cause this is the kinda vibe I’d aim for when I was younger. Much more romantic and ambiguous. My voice fits well into that world. Why have I ended up here? Did I forget something? It’s like seeing an old photo of yourself and thinking ‘wow, I was much cooler then’. 

I think whenever you make something you love, there’s inevitably gonna be something else out there that you love just as much, but is stylistically inverted to the stuff you’re making. It’s important not to doubt own thing in light of this seemingly opposite other thing. They’re just different. Imagine if Death Grips and Taylor Swift both really loved each other’s stuff and started to think ‘shit, I’m doing it all wrong’. That thought would paralyse both of them and stop them from doing their thing. Currently has 40 views.

I think all of this proves how arbitrary style and aesthetic can be. There’s something much deeper at play. The reason I dislike something is never gonna be cause it’s reggae or horror, or a plate. You follow what’s real. Whatever’s real to you will breed its own aesthetic. 

[chocolatequest]

Ok

Working on Fucking Cool Girl drums. They need to feel less loopy. Recorded live bodyslaps, maracas, desk, mouth sounds, water bottle, smacking guitar, all with the windows open to try and let some of the world in. The best thing I got was the ambience of kids playing in the background. 

Also discovered something cool: ran the looped drums through my tiny portable boss speaker and recorded it straight into mic. Experimented with distances and proximity effect. If you’re really up close but behind the mic you get this great sound for kicks. Less detail, more tone. It would be cool to do a live pass where the speaker comes closer for select kicks.

You can also use this as a live filter by covering up the speaker or putting your mouth over it. Must try this on guitars. 

Worked on Artsfest Video Section. 

Returned to Same Boy Different Girl. 

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...and another

Still a little bit out of it. Resorted to rearranging my setup, much nicer. 

Started ‘Met Her in the Bathroom’ over one of the potential gloopy Goal! tracks. It’s a vibe but I haven’t really found it yet. I’ll listen back to what I did in a couple weeks.

[chocolatequest]

A super unproductive day...

...but it’s not over yet (I stare into the camera, arpeggiated bass fades in, credits roll, crowd sues me).

Spent 6 hours in a car to collect this alien looking kitten. Beautiful, looks like something out of a Ghibli film, but I feel terrible. Missing sleep is such a mixed bag. 

0 hours of sleep is generally pretty cool. It seems you don’t have the energy to be anxious or self conscious about things, which can be nice. It almost feels like your inability to remain fully conscious brings you closer to your subconscious, but it’s a little murky when you’re there. It’s a very different breed to the subconscious you can access via meditation or psychedelics. There’s something deranged about it, like you maybe shouldn’t be there. 

4 hours of sleep feels like the worst case. You have no foot in either world. Your body is begging you to reclaim what you missed, but often you can’t provide that. Interestingly your optimum amount of sleep -1 hour is in similar category. It’s like you bailed a marathon at Mile 24. 

Oversleeping is a strange one. I’m not sure why this would ever be a thing. Why wouldn’t your body wake up when it needs to? It’s like your body wanted the sleep but couldn’t handle it. My eyesight seems to get significantly worse when I oversleep.

Sleep feels like such a fundamental pillar to enjoying life, but enjoying life feels so necessary in falling asleep. Which comes first? Also, this pain that’s sometimes revealed when you don’t sleep well - would an enlightened monk god have the same thing? I remember Osho saying he spends so much of his time relaxed that he finds it hard to sleep. Not sure if he was complaining. 

Anyway, I got back. Didn’t make anything but found myself looking back and reviewing things. Listened to Speaking Ma Language, Ice Dude, Shitfaced, 4 Billion Girls.

Speaking Ma Language: such a great vibe here, but its TOO sloppy and unfocused. And all over the place. Like someone throwing angel dust all over the room - the gesture is appreciated, but no one can actually use it now. Needs to be rerecorded while still retaining that sliver of magic.

Ice Dude: ehhhh I have no idea about this one. It’s a pretty confused song right now and will only become itself when all the parts are together. Once the first slow section is fully realised, I think the rest will know where to go. 

Shitfaced: pleasantly surprised by this one. Sonically it says a lot, lyrically it’s not quite saying enough. Too on the nose. Note: puns can’t carry the weight of a song. 

4 Billion Girls: kinda like Shitfaced, surprised at how much I got from it as a sonic universe. 4 Billion Girls motif has legs, but it’s still crawling. I’ve got this other ballad with the similar line though - what to do. Just keep both? Join them together? I see. Take both songs to their natural peak, decide then if either hold up. 

[chocolatequest]

Great line from Jung “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will be directing your life, and you'll call it fate”

Came up with a bit of first-section for New Friend. Brutally sad, maybe in a cartoonish way, but necessary I think. Makes the chorus feel much realer. Also discovered that this chorus shouldn’t repeat, it should be the final destination. Now it’s a question of joining the two into a great-feeling journey.

Uncovered some intriguing old logic files while looking for something completely different. Gloopy jungle drums (not dnb jungle, rain foresty jungle) with a great selection of rains and rain sticks. Flappy guitar pissed on top of it, but maybe a world there to be explored. Definitely not the HRG sound I’m going for, but might be the right jumping off point for ‘Goal!’*

*’Goal!’ is a thing where all I’ve got is this album cover. Such a great image, but none of the music I make really matches it. Occasionally I try and imagine what this album would sound like, but it’s so far from the stuff I’m doing. Maybe I should look for the artist it would suit.

Also uncovered the instrumental for Council Tax Wonderland/Bulgarian Girl. This one is a slut begging for a new song to be written over it. The Council Tax lyric was beautiful, but it’s not a song. 

[chocolatequest]

Here I am

Thought it might be cool to do a diary of sorts. Something to document the recording process and silly things. I’ll try and include anything future Idi might wanna know about this time.

Started writing a little ditty ‘I Gotta New Friend’. Not sure who I’m referring to. One day we’ll meet.

Also did some work on The Girl in My Eyes. It’s really at the point where I’m the parent and all I have to do is not fuck up the child. To do this of course, the parent must look within and heal itself.