'Finite II' - Individual Song Breakdowns ____________________________________________________________ "Inceptallus" (108 BPM) As mentioned in the 'About the EP' section, 'Finite II' opens with the melody that closes "Whitman's Challenge". Once this idea crept into my mind, it was all the inspiration I needed for a follow-up. It should also be noted that I inquired Sophia as to anything I could've done differently for the string arrangements before composing. She said that I should explore the upper register of the instrument more, and I bore this comment in mind throughout. The riff at 1:04 is something I wrote for Sky Eats Airplane years ago. There's a nod to "Cascade" at 1:26. Getcha Egyptian on at 2:07, hehe. There's a quote (via the strings) from "Good Night, Future Boy!" at 2:18 with some higher harmonies on the tail end. Then at 2:39, it's the same riff as the B section but phrased in regular 16ths rather than 16th triplets. The outro sees the crazy C section riff straighten out at 3:19; resolution, finally! Afterwards, the chord on the synth (3:27, 3:32, etc.) elongates every repetition. The title is an inside joke between Greg Greenberg and myself. ____________________________________________________________ "Calamitous Confluence" (92 BPM) This one starts with a polyrhythmic interdependent drum pattern I wrote many years ago, although with notes omitted; the full pattern is realized at 0:19. There's a jarring "Project 15" reprise at 0:45, alluding to the title. The synth here fades from a square patch to sawtooth, pretty cool. Skipping ahead, there's a quote at 1:50 from "How to Breathe Rarefied Air" on the viola, then it solos in conjunction with the violin. ____________________________________________________________ "You Handsome Evil, You" (161 BPM) 'Calamitous' ends at 2:57 with a 16th-note septuplet fill-in that's also from "Project 15", so what I did was multiply 7x16 then divide by 4 and it gave me 161 (BPM). Thus, this starts with a drum fill phrased in 16ths in 7-16 but it's essentially the same fill-in (exact pace and orchestration) as just before. I played them side by side just for that reason. Skipping ahead, 0:20 has a "Vice" aroma, but without quoting any of it (which is basically what I did with "Whaddya Want from Me?" on 'Projects II'); this whole part is phrased in dotted 8th septuplets. At 0:45 - 0:53 the drums retain the dotted 8th septuplet phrasing, but the pedal hat is pedaling regular half notes throughout—which the violin accompanies—while the bass plays regular dotted half notes. The A section riff rolls back afterward, first in 7 as it was, then with a quarter note shaved off. Then, at 1:12 we have our first instance of a chord progression that is later explored in the EP (along with a reprise of the 8th triplet violin lick from the bridge of 'Calamitous'). I love the bass stabs in 7-16 atop this, complemented by the floor tom. Afterward, just like in "Vice", the dotted septuplet riff is reprised, but backwards (plus it's phrased in regular 8ths). I love the brief little build-ups of reverb on the strings. This segues nicely into a little chord progression for a bass solo, followed by a viola solo; this is one of my favorite sections on the EP. The violin chords at 2:55 are from the polyrhythmic section at 0:45. Then, it's the A section riff, again in 7 then with another quarter shaved off. The ending breakdown is classic Orbin, heavy but tongue-in-cheek as always (check out the 'whistle blow' at 3:47 and 4:02, lulz). The title is merely a funny take on the phrase 'you handsome devil, you' and nothing more. ____________________________________________________________ "Morose Park" (175 BPM) The intro and A sections of this riff are based off of an old Zack Ordway demo, much like how "Whitman's Challenge" also was. I love how the violin solo in the first A section turned out. The riff that follows at 1:19 is from where the title comes. I developed a system of taking words and codifying them into rhythms years ago, and "Morose Park" was on a little text document of potential song titles. The riff cycles through twice then on the third rep there's a metric modulation via the crash. Following this is an "Extirpate" quote, then at 2:20 is the A section again with the synth lead from "Cascade" superimposed on top—sounds so rad! The second half is all new lead material. Then it's the 'Morose Park' riff again with a violin melody on top—two times, once regularly then once with another metric modulation, this time with the snare in tow with the crash. A jarring transition takes us back to the intro with a saccharine little violin melody on top. The ending slows down and drops melodically into the snare/floor/kick unison at 3:46, which will signify the beginning of "Triple Decker" (much like the transition from "Safari" into "Vice"). ____________________________________________________________ "Triple Decker" (139 BPM, 208.5 BPM at 3:29, reverting back to 139 BPM at 3:33) This tune was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to compose something fooling around with the 12-tone system and came up with the violin melody. After adjusting the phrasing it just happened to come out in 7, so one night I filmed myself playing a bunch of improv with my ride on my right side at the above tempo. I edited it, cobbled it together, and applied it underneath the violin. Then I wrote bass and synth arrangements and a B section, arranging the whole thing like 12-tone/B section/12-tone/B section/12-tone (like a triple decker sandwich, thus the title haha). Because it's largely (about 90%) improv, it changes every time in the 12-tone section but I set up 'nodes' in the bass and synth so that even though they are retrofitted to the improv drums after-the-fact, they're still recognizable melodies and such. To me, at least. The chord that dips down at the end of every 12-tone section is the one from the beginning of "Extirpate". The B sections contain a really cool progression; the first one has an accented double bass pattern in 3-16 and there's a quote from "Grimoire" on the violin at 2:16. Side note regarding the tempo change: This was a total accident. In the heat of tracking (punching in), I came in on my click in the wrong spot and ended up inadvertently lengthening the head of the second B section. I could've edited it so that the pattern resolved in the 'correct' spot, but dug how it came out! ____________________________________________________________ "My Today is Your Tomorrow" (111 BPM) I surprised myself with how long this piece turned out. I wanted maximum dynamic contrast to the end of "Triple Decker," so this starts with brushes on the drums and a straight up DI/clean bass tone. I also requested that Patrick determine some sort of interesting effect on the entire mix to sound like an old vinyl record. I love what he chose. At 1:07 we see the progression from 'Handsome Evil' that I mentioned (although this time in 7 with different note phrasing). This part along with the section at 1:37 - 1:53 are all based on drum grooves I wrote many years prior. The latter has a violin melody that turned out so killer, it's one of my favorite little melodies I've ever written. There are quick bits of metric modulation built into it in different parts of the bar. At 1:53, the melody that floated on top of the brief part in 'Handsome Evil'—and also in the bridge of 'Calamitous'—begins to fade in on a second violin. However, it's in 8 so it falls differently per bar. 2:27 sees a new section being set up, and after one repeat there are two violins panned hard left/right mingling in interesting ways. After another repeat, a quote from the synth lead towards the end of "Buttery Follicles" appears throughout the section, pausing on every fifth bar (the whole section is 4 bars of 15-16 then a bar of 5-8). At 3:14 the riff from "Inceptallus" makes another appearance with some drum soloing on top, then it all dips down melodically and the drums smooth out a little. I did some cool shit with the tremolo bar effect there to make the synth sound ridiculous, hehe. At 4:14, another new section appears built around a crazy, frantic double bass drum pattern in 17-16. The chord progression stems from the "Extirpate" viola quote on top (although it reaches new heights, melodically, very briefly). Following this is at 4:51 is another one of my favorite parts on the whole EP. The "Extirpate" quote continues—now phrased in quintuplets—with the drums in tow, atop a different chord progression, with a little unison fill-in on the tail end. This repeats then violin chords fade in, trading off per channel, then four partials simultaneously. The whole thing builds into an intense froth and abruptly ends (the synth fade thing at 5:27/28 is a very brief nod to "Inceptallus") then the A section brings it back down at 5:29; the snares are switched off here to keep things quieter. I tried to really take the violin solo here out to lunch and make it super wacky. Skipping ahead, there's a brief 3 against 4 polyrhythm at 6:16 to cap off the excitement before the outro. From here it's basically a reprise, with a couple minor twists and turns. Starting at 7:06, the groove that starts "How to Breathe Rarefied Air" kicks in, but since it's 'backwards-metric-modulated' into its actual phrasing and not its purported phrasing, it places it in 8-4 and I had to conform everything else to this—worked out nicely, though! The melody on the second violin, however, didn't need to be conformed since it's in 8. Anyway, the violins fade out, then the synth and bass in tandem. As the synth and bass fade out, the spot mics on the drums reduce via volume automation while the room mics crank up. This is where it gets interesting. This was totally unpremeditated, but as I was composing this I realized that the tempo of the song (111 BPM) is basically the same as 'How to Breathe' in the context of triplets vs. 16ths metric-modulated to sound like triplets. Thus, the concept here is that you could listen to 'Finite', then at the end of "Whitman's Challenge" start 'Finite II'. The end of this song is the beginning of 'How to Breathe', and you'd pick it back up with that song to complete the listening experience; an EP within an EP, making an LP, hehe. Note: there IS a slight fractional difference in the tempi but it's subtle, and the fact that I utterly stumbled into this idea/concept made it worthwhile to me to explore it—had to have been some deep subconscious ruminating going on there! This title is another allusion to my oftentimes odd and erratic sleep patterns. ____________________________________________________________ Sound Design Information As mentioned in the 'About the EP' section, I did all of the sound design (and the cover art) for this in one session over a period of about twelve hours. I purposefully flirted with mild sleep deprivation to see if any strange(r?) ideas came my way. The instrumentation concept behind the 'Finite' series—limiting myself to only drums/percussion, strings, bass, and synth—was applied to the sound design portion. I purchased an extremely cheap 'pocket synth', violin, and some thick gauge bass strings. These tools—along with the imposed limitation—actually ended up deeply inspiring me, prompting some unique and absurd ideas. I went into this with only one concrete idea: the ends of the bass strings hitting the violin in "Inceptallus". It all snowballed from there! All of these ideas range from zero in-the-box processing to heavy processing. As usual, I filmed almost everything, so you can see exactly what it is you're hearing in the drum tracking videos. However, I'll still inventory them here, with further details: "Inceptallus" · 1:51 - bass strings hitting violin (Lo-Fi, PanMan) · 2:40 - pocket synth noodling (EchoBoy Jr. 'Hall-elujah') "Calamitous Confluence" · 0:00 - violin bow playing mic (Devil-Loc 'EvilFullOn') · 0:06 - playing bass guitar fretboard like a hand drum (Crystallizer 'Crystal Builder', FilterFreak 'Cousin IT Dance', Crystallizer 'It's Major!') · 0:19 - molesting violin with curled up bass string (Crystallizer 'Oct Crystal Shards') · 2:38 - hitting violin body with drumstick (Little Primaltap 'Ducko', Crystallizer 'Deep&Wide') "You Handsome Evil, You" · 3:24 - pocket synth noodling (dry) · 3:39 - striking violin body against bass guitar (Little Alterboy) "Morose Park" · 1:19, 2:42 - 'thumbing' open strings on violin (it drops in tuning halfway through totally on time and by accident) (Devil-Loc 'EvilFullOn') · 1:49 - over-tuning violin, then quickly letting it detune (Crystallizer 'Hendrillizer') · 3:48 - molesting violin with fingers (dry) "Triple Decker" · 0:00 - breaking violin string via over-tuning (dry) · 0:01 - rubbing bass strings together (dry) · 0:34 - dropping bass strings on floor (PhaseMistress 'AlienBugTalk', Decapitator) · 4:48 - pocket synth noodling (dry, although I think Patrick manipulated it in some way) "My Today Is Your Tomorrow" · 5:28 - molesting bass guitar with drumstick (dry) · 5:42 - molesting violin yet again with curled up bass string (Little Plate 'Deep Cavern')

Back to 'Finite II' Overview