#musicmaking

Wasn't intending on not posting a single update on how things are going for over half a year, but that is just how the turn tables I suppose. A little bit of laziness and procrastination, a little bit of art block, stressing myself to near breaking point on multiple occasions, both in music making and overall life stuff. Summertime this year was pretty damn rough, the lowest my mental health had been for a while, and the next couple of months were just trying to bounce back from that. During that time at least I've been able to have a healthier relationship with music. Both in how I feel about my own work, but also in how I enjoy music by others. I've been able to get back into the swing of things. Now it's just procrastination. Let's start with some of the tracks for Northern Minnesota, Part II.

The most recent song I've been working on is with the working title "Fargo Breakdown." About five minutes long, the general gist for this song is to be a slow build with more guitars and drums added onto itself with every repeat. A really big shoegaze-y, post-rock, wall of sound style crescendo that just abruptly ends and sharply transitions into the next song. Current plans is to have this be the first song on the album, with "Pretty Pink Eyes," what I used to affectionately call "The Long Song" going right after it. Can't call it that anymore because now we got at least two songs that are over ten minutes long.

As I've grown more comfortable working on Ableton, and understanding how to more properly produce on it, I've grown accustomed to a more wall of sound approach for this album. It fits perfectly with the genres of music I am making here. Working on this song, as well as The First Snowfall (more about that track and Pretty Pink Eyes later), has actually been helping me determine the kind of style and tone I want, something I'm more comfortable settling on than I was with what I had for Pretty Pink Eyes and The First Snowfall a year ago. One thing I've realized while working on this album is genuinely how well Post-Rock goes with the concept of suffering with OCD, escapism, gender dysphoria, stuff along those lines. And I'm really excited about the idea of mixing my style in more with that genre. Post-Rock has always been such a massive inspiration for me, so I hope I can do it justice with my own little spin on it.

"Muni" is one I can't exactly remember if I did ever post about it here on Tumblr. I did scroll through my entire blog and checked my tags just to make sure, but I didn't see anything. Started working on this track earlier in the year, I believe after my Vancouver trip. About seven minutes long, this is definitely more of a two-parter of a song, in vain to Pretty Pink Eyes and The First Snowfall being multiple parts in a track. Starts off as a slow somber piece with a ton of reverb and cymbals crashing, and the second half being another breakdown. Plans is to have this track on the latter half on the album, almost right before the final couple of tracks. Honestly not much more to say about this, it's just a damn solid track that really came out of nowhere. I think a good thing about Northern Minnesota, Part II is that it's more focused on longer songs than amount of tracks. Focusing on a couple of songs at a time instead of a bunch of one to two minute long tracks really lets me work on the smaller details of these songs to sound exactly how I want them too. I'd also have to assume it's easier for some listeners to listen to a ten track long album than a twenty-five track long album, even if they are about the same length. I just think it's cool I can actually make longer songs.

"Actually Leaving" Is the only song that has been released in full, albeit as an old demo version on EFMC Vol. 2. It also has been shown in full on my Tumblr page as well, over a year ago. Track used to only be two guitar tracks and a drum track, but I decided for the breakdown bit at the end to double the tracks just to get that wall of sound I desire. Still planning to have this be the last song of the album, since it's such a great end piece. Especially now, since Fargo Breakdown and Actually Leaving both have the same vibe, and I like the idea of all the tracks being similar enough to each other to really feel like a concept album. These tracks have different chord progressions and arrangements, different pacings, but very similar ideas for the base. My main concern with Northern Minnesota, Part II is just making sure nothing is filler, and nothing sounds too samey, while also sounding like it all belongs on the same album. All the main songs I've been working on as of late, the ones that have and will be shown here, are very much based on some sort of build up and breakdown, crescendo type of song. Personally though, I think each breakdown I've done in these songs are different from one another. Each showcase a different style of crescendo. At the end of the day, its okay for some of these songs to sound similar to each other because this is a concept album in heart. And it's especially okay since I'm planning on these songs to be related to each other's concepts. Lyrics, arrangements, even song titles. I want to go crazy with the song titles especially, because I'm a fan of complexity in titles. There is gonna be a lot of part II's in parenthesis and reprisals in brackets, vice versa. Just makes me stupid giddy over the idea of it.

The First Snowfall is one of my absolute favorites on this album. The arpeggio melody in the beginning, the first breakdown with the noisy leads similar to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the jam session in the middle, and the wall of sound, noise, and reverb at the end as it just gets faster and faster in each second. This song was an absolute blast to make, as well as incredibly difficult and painful. Specifically at the end with the increasing tempo. Playing that on guitar and drums and trying my damn best to keep up was really hard, but I think the sloppiness at the end works really well in its favor. Planning this to be the second to last track of the album, right before Actually Leaving. About ten minutes long. I'm a little concerned that going from the wall of sound to another breakdown might screw up the pacing a little bit, but the times I have listened to the transition, It works pretty well. If I do need to put a trick in between, I'm sure I can figure something out, but we'll see later on when I got more songs to work on.

I remember talking about "Pretty Pink Eyes" on my Tumblr literally a year ago, at the time I'm writing this. That image of Ableton didn't have this many tracks, that's for certain. For the past year I've been struggling with how this song sounded in comparison to everything else. That struggle only got worse as time went on, when I started songs like The First Snowfall, Muni, and especially Fargo Breakdown. This was the first song I started working on alongside Actually Leaving, back in late June of 2022. That was during the time I was still learning how to use Ableton, and how to use it exclusively, no Audacity. Because of that, it just sounded completely different no matter what I tried, and my confidence in music making severely plummeted. There came a point where this song no longer sounded like a song to me, and it sounded worse each time I tried.

At the end of last month I finally realized what my big problem was. It was how I was trying to fix it. Working on old varnish doesn't make things better. They don't mix well. I was working on set ups for tracks that I did a year ago, give or take. It didn't matter if I added another guitar track, or if I changed the distortion or the amount of reverb, or even if I included audio recordings of the song through my speakers into the mix, it wasn't gonna sound like how I wanted it to. I had to start from scratch. I kinda knew this for a while, but I was so afraid to do so due to how hard of a task I thought that would be, and I was afraid I wasn't gonna get exactly what I wanted. There were parts I thought that fit the album well already, and there was the thought it'd be pointless to just restart in that department. But again, there came a point where I just said screw it, and just do it. Wouldn't hurt to try. So I created a copy of the project, got rid of all the audio effects, and reset all the volumes and channels, and started from scratch. And holy hell, the entire song sounds so much better, and more accurate to what I wanted for the album. The amount of relief I felt after finishing the base of the mixing in just a week was literally indescribable, and it felt really good to have been able to do it without that much hassle. Three part song, with three breakdown parts. About eleven minutes long. It's finally the wall of sound I've always wanted it to be. And that makes me incredibly happy. Plans for it to go right after Fargo Breakdown. Whenever this album release, remind me to never work on the same song for over a year and a half ever again. That shit was fucking brutal.