Jon Thurlow
In collaboration we agreed to get the idea off the ground by actually NOT collaborating! Instead of ‘jamming’ ideas and sparking off each other which we’d done in the past, Jojo created a melody and wrote lyrics alone and then passed a home recording to me to create music or sounds to accompany it and pass it back.
What stuck me when I received the recording is how much feeling the melody captured by not being sung to a strict tempo. The strength of the emotion meant that decisions about accompaniment became easier: I favoured sounds that support the melody over instrumentation and without a formal tempo I could move away from thinking ‘song’.
The drone sound is a pre-set from a 90’s Casio keyboard and the zings are created using an old xylophone.
The piece was recorded on a zoom field recorder - singing and drone in a rehearsal space through a vocal PA. and xylophone in the front room - and mixed at home using Audacity. Jojo suggested adding birdsong (a free online download)-I thought this added texture . During mixing we had to boost the drone volume with some audacity gizmos because the recording volume was too quiet and xylophone sounds was loosely included in the spirit of ‘anti-tempo’ rather than trying to achieve perfection with endless ‘do it agains’ to get the timing ‘right’.
A less formal approach proved to be more efficient than I’d expected and the collaboration moved swiftly from exchanges of ideas to recording and to mixing. We had to overcome doubts about whether the process was too DIY but by not formalising the creative idea we captured the essence of it.
Jojo Taylor
Jon and I have worked together before. In the past we have spontaneously and simultaneously worked on a new idea, and then gone off alone to work on it some more before regrouping. Jon on guitar and me on vocals. This time Jon suggested that I work alone initially-think of an emotion and write words and possibly a melody if it comes and then pass to him to add an instrument. I found I was writing an automatic list of words and sentences until I came up with a melody as well. Then I could feel with compassion what I was recollecting and add more to form the lament. I chose the emotion of loss. It came easily and the more it came the less I could stop it. Ideas come at random times-I was up awake at 4 am running into the front room as I had woken up with 2 lines for the lament in my head-and wanted to quickly write them down…‘Alive and housed inside skin-like a bird that cannot sing’. I also had words that I had previously thought of that were waiting for a project and they fitted with this
‘You’re dying heart broke mine’ and ‘Death mountain’. I find it fascinating how work comes together…would this piece have ever been written in this way or at all if Sabrina had not asked us if we wanted to contribute to her project and Jon and I had not worked together previously.
I was interested to see how this new approach would work. Once Jon heard my vocals and melody we thought it sounded good with no tempo structure, instead it was a meandering tune. Then we changed our minds and we tried it to a metronome beat and found a BPM we were happy with, Jon tried out a guitar accompaniment but because of the random ebb and flow of the piece it became difficult to pin a decisive rhythm to it, without loosing something of the feeling. We decided not to set the metronome as it made the Lament too rigid, the loss was in control of all tempo and like grief it flows at its own beat. So Jon went for a drone sound on keyboard and a lighter xylophone. I think it made it really difficult not having a metronome to keep a pace but it really did sound too uniformed with a beat imposed on it. Now it has no formal time constraints and the musicality in Jons sounds keep with the natural ebb and flow of the piece.
During the editing process, the more I thought about it the more I wanted it in part, to seem like it was being sung outdoors in nature.-so I added birdsong from Freesound. (I asked Jon first, because I had got carried away the day before trying to change sounds in the mix and Jon wasn’t impressed!-Argument averted-phew).
I found I wanted to experiment with ideas whilst editing but I had to be mindful it was a collaboration and ultimately we needed to agree on how the piece was going to evolve, so even if a thought came and I tried it out-he may not like it and we needed to discuss it-eg the levels or adding birdsong. A small thing like where to place the briiiiing on the xylophone could take a lot of time discussing- especially when Jon is saying it’s not in time and I am thinking hang on we aren’t using time in the traditional sense-so in time with what?
It was a lot of fun, there were some small frustrations on both sides due to being tired, working intermittently on it around everything else, and not having much spare time at the same time to work on it. And for me I would like to do a better recording of it so the quality is much improved but we used what we had rather than not do it, but I do find lack of technology holds the sound quality back.
Lyrics:
Death Mountain
And when I see you breathing in
I know yore not giving in
Alive and housed inside skin
Like a bird who cannot sing
Your dying heart broke mine
So I will float for a little time
But Death mountain
Is not for the living
Death mountain
Is not forgiving
Heavy, rapid, slow
Deep, quiet and shallow
Just keep breathing in
So I know you’re not giving in
Keep breathing
Stay in the land of the living
And I will float,
I will float I will float
And I will float,
I will float I will float