More on phonographic glue, elements and the whole (part I)

I felt a real craving for beat-making today. After practicing some bluegrass rolls on banjo and fingerpicking on acoustic guitar (because some of the existing/new song ideas will need it), and after playing the latest Westside Gunn (Supreme Clientele, 2018) and Evidence (Weather Or Not, 2018) albums—both receiving best hip-hop albums of the year nods by various rap tastemakers—I guess I felt somewhat (too?) drawn into the experiences of the...

That magical piano layer

The complexity of those studio decisions when committing to a stylistic idea resembles chaos theory: unaccountable layering variables like what Albin Zak describes as ‘resonance’. This (piano overdub just recorded) is another moment of—in his words—a ‘phonographic ephemeron’. I came to this piano layer, the part, the miking decision as a response to the previous layers, decisions, auralities. Why is this worth mentioning? Producers...