More recording tonight — specifically, guitar for “Entropy”, which has somehow morphed from sounding like Bloc Party’s “Compliments” to something more akin to a cross between Talking Heads and Daft Punk.
We could only come up with a rhythm guitar part — a high, staccato, repetitive thing that sounds like half the disco punk out there — but then, at home afterwards, I found some noodling Thom had done that — when looped and run through distortion — turned into a cool verse lead guitar. So we’ll re-record that bit, along with a bit for the chorus that’s in the same vein, and I think we’ll be done with the guitar for that song. At some point, I’m gonna throw an ARP 2600 line into it at the sixteen-bar break, because I think it’s cooler to have an arpeggiated synth line (maybe run through a wah and chopped around) than a guitar solo.
Thom’s playing most of the guitar on this one — we’re just recording it at his apartment, amped and miked. Apparently it doesn’t bother his neighbors.
Side note: one of the fun things about getting together to play is pulling tracks out of the iPod and going “Like, hear how that guitar line goes? All angular? Like that.” Tonight we listened to Bloc Party’s “Banquet” and Talking Heads’ “Houses In Motion” — if you know those songs you might be able to imagine what “Entropy” is starting to sound like. But not really. Heh.
Best moment: in the car on the way to his apartment, Thom and I were talking about recognizing sources of samples. He put on an extremely obscure album of African chant…and I was totally delighted to recognize the background of Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like A Hole”, and to realize that what I always though was some sort of percussive synth was actually some African dude going “Huh! Huh! Hah!”.
Where were you when the world was made? I was still drunk from the night before I heard the sound of the Big Bang And I staggered to the door I saw the whole of Creation I saw the master plan We made kings of monkeys When we put the thumbs on their hands
(Edit: Hell, I made this sample for Thom, so I’ll throw it up here: MP3 snippet of “Entropy”, unfinished.