Song #1: Closed Circuit

I’ve been going back and forth about what should be the first song to post. I have a couple of new songs that I have just finished. I have one that is almost done. Although that made sense, I decided to go with a song I recorded about 6 months ago. Why?

Download Closed Circuit

Closed Circuit captures pretty clearly where I am with writing songs right now. My “way of doing things” can be heard pretty clearly in this song. It’s also one of the first songs of recent times where I can honestly say I can’t think of any influences.

So, “my way of doing things”?

I will expand on these themes with other songs but here is a brief explaination.

Tunings: I generally write songs in alternate tunings. Not sure why. Part inspiration for my favorites artists like pavement, american music club and others. Partly boredom with standard tuning. This song was the first song written using FACFAE.

Exploration: With wacko tunings, comes the idea of songwriting as exploration. I basically made up the tuning as I was writing the song. eventually settling on a odd open F-ish tuning. One thing that i like about alternate tunings is that you rely more on your ear than your head. You listen and mess around till you come up with something interesting. There are some chords that I still don’t really know what they are. I don’t really care either. This song has a single note drone through almost the entire song.

Atmosphere: The song consists of three sections. Each section begins as basically a single guitar part, and as it progresses, crescendoed into a multi layered mess with multiple parts intertwining.

Lyrical content: I hate writing lyrics and honestly don’t have much to say to anyone about anything. I have relied on books for content lately. This song is based of the first 50 pages of “The Painted Bird” (Its as far as I could get due to the graphic cruelty of most characters). Its a murder ballad really. The novel is about a backwards inbred community and the horrendous things the do. The song is something of a reflection on the dangers of not engaging in those that differ with out. Maybe an issue in today’s culture?

Download Closed Circuit

So have a listen and please let me know what you think.

kebab

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