Oh my, my mythical gate keeper...

You have reviewed another of my nice tracks bro. It was no longer a featured one so you may even have tracked it down all by yourself.

Not too much funkiness here (a shame for a funk soul brother such as yourself) though 4:31 double time shuffle is kinda funky.

"stretched sounding underlayment"

That sounds like stretched underwear (eg a wedgie) but I think the "underlayerment" here is the long, legato synth bass notes. There's also an 800% timestretched female vocal starting 0:50 that I love.

"Guttural bass at 1:38 is cello"

No, something I like to call "bass g". I couldn't get that low and with that tone with cello. I like that bass playing. Nice high note fills 2:20 and 2:30. No cello in this track. There was some but I removed it and used it to start a new, Eastern dance track.

"picked from your many layers, surely"

Yes, lazy fucker that I am, I only vaguely know what I'll play when I record so I get down loads of stuff and then spend ages editing it, doing some very creative things and making it sound like I was actually clever enough and fluent enough a player to come up with it all in one go.

3:52 is a nice load of Eastern guitar playing. Very spooky and moving.

"a lot of that, thanks to you"

I've got to encourage you to try new stuff. Some you won't even try, some you might, possibly resulting in some new coolness.

"6:17- You stretchy bastard, you"

No timestetching there, but that is a dark, dark section. I think it's a flattened fifth riff (the devil's music).

"6:55- A drop-out that I am envious of"

Yes - nice drop. I keep the same sort of drum groove but switch from a heavy kit to a lighter one and let the delay of the string part ring out, which really eases the transition down. The waveform shows that I'm dropping the energy there, kind of floating down into something else after a dark, relatively heavy section. Then beauty follows.

7:34 is another good drop.

"My stuff lacks a lot of air compared to yours"

I recommend wearing a pair of Nike Air Jordans when mixing.

"all while the city around me is exploding"

Damn, I thought you'd moved to a proper war zone. That or the Missouri-Iowa Meth Wars have finally kicked off. Methheads do know how to blow stuff up, even if it is mostly themselves.

All is mostly well, thanks.

Nomad, scrambling to reach higher ground

Hi.

Yes, I know what you mean about getting some more badass guitar in here and I can hear it myself. I'm sure there are some fine guitarists who would have loved tearing shit up over this sort of groove and vibe.

However, I've got loads of other tracks with big, distorted riffage and soloing in them so I decided that I wanted this to be pretty damn laidback, thought with some added weirdness and unusual vibe from the Eastern playing.

I hope the lack of "giant, fuzz drenched, speaker blowing guitar riffage" here hasn't spoiled the track for you. Just think of it as a deep chiller that isn't ever going to get heavy.

If you'd like to hear just some of my more badass, ballsy guitar playing, try these:

Chasm

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/172322

The Bigger The Fatter The Better

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/155188

Valvedriven

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/163181

Thanks again.

I had not thought about it being sexy before. Maybe it's quite a sensual, warm and inviting mood.

Chillout sex - no hard grinding.

Hi.

"Very soulful sound"

Yes - I try to make deep music that might move people emotionally and perhaps even physically. I don't make pop music though perhaps I could if I had to. But would I want to?

"vocal glitches in it really gives it great atmosphere."

That's just cut-up vocal loops with lots of delay. They really add to the atmosphere and kind of merge with the pad sound (which merges with the synth bass).

0:50 is my favourite vocal. That's an 800% timestretched one from another track of mine. In that track it was heard at the original tempo. It sounds better here.

"guitar coming in at 1:50 give it even more flavour."

Yes - I cannot resist playing lots of blues guitar over this type of laidback shuffle groove. It's really easy and you can do heavy or gentle playing. Or fast. Anything, really.

"Was interesting for the whole track even if it took almost 9 minutes"

That's my aim. It's unacceptable to me if any of my sections are boring so I have to keep doing all sort of things, big and small, to maintain listener interest and justify the length. I assure you I could have made this a lot longer and a couple of people have said they wouldn't have minded if I had.

Thanks.

Hello Mr Tweed.

"first 1:40 or so is really influenced strongly by that darker pad sound I think"

Yes and no. The darker sound is the synth bass. There is a pad there (right from after the drum fill intro) but it's quite a light sound.

"guitar at 1:50 moves it into a bit brighter place"

I agree - a more beautiful place before it gets darker as the guitar goes Eastern (around 3:53). Arabic, maybe.

"you have played the spaces (rather than just the notes)"

Yes - I could play blues guitar all day over this sort of groove but I was trying to come up with something distinctive and different that wasn't exactly soloing, more something between hitting different arpeggiated chords and other fills and stuff. Better guitarists than me would no doubt come up with something better but, after lots of editing of the guitar parts, I'm fairly happy with what I've got.

"4:31...now we`re cooking the kind of blues I dig"

Yes - that's fun, bright, stomping stuff. But I played none of the guitar there over that groove. It's leftover playing from before, over the laidback shuffle groove. It just sounds quite different because of the change in drum groove. The bassline is pretty much the same so it just goes to show what a massive difference a (double time) drum groove can make.

I could have gone mad with that stomping blues section, adding loads of slide playing and funky, pumping bass guitar parts. Yet I resisted.

"the outro section kind of floats you to the end"

Yes, gently floating stuff and a chord change from the bass on 6:55. Out of the previous darkness and into the triumphant light. Uplifting guitar follows the filtered strings.

Oh sure - it could be way, way longer as I'd planned to bring the stomping blues section back and add all the slide playing and stuff. Maybe sometimes I should ignore my aim of making tracks under 10 mins and just go over if it feels right.

Thanks again.

Greetings, Mr Sman.

I think you last favourite of mine was one called Great Leap Backwards though I've removed that from the site so you won't be able to go back and compare it with this one.

Yes, a nice, warm slightly wobbly bass that I like so much I've used in at least 20 tracks, though they're mostly quite different tracks.

No, this doesn't make me think of bikers at all. A bit spooky, I guess, but I find it more beautiful than being "full of dread". I guess that's the Eastern stuff creating that vibe for you.

Yes, I agonised over whether to make it go on for a couple of minutes more and I still could, fairly easily. But I am continually trying not to go over 10 mins unless I really, really have to.

"This aint blues."

If you remove the bluesy guitar, I agree. I wouldn't know what to call it then, apart from atmospheric groove chillout, I guess. But as there's quite a lot of that guitar playing, blues is the closest rough genre I can think (as a single genre label).

Thanks again for the feedback.

OOohh...Metabolic is basking in The Nomad's cosmic bluesy chillage.

Despite being lost for words, I salute his pure magnificence.

Thanks for the thanks.

Yo.

I also like the atmosphere here. Kind of minimal and the warm sub bass and drums provide a vibe I can easily chill to.

"haha 8 minutes long static i think you failed at that"

No, not really. You may not be aware that I regularly used to make tracks 10-17 mins long. I've had a lot of success in the last 2 years in doing things such as splitting really long ones in two and also trying to make sure I don't go over 10 mins.

A couple of months ago, I even posted three tracks in one month that were all under 4 mins!

Here's the only one of those three that's still online:

Midnight Sun

http://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/175138

See Silverman's comment as he wants this to be even longer, which I could easily make happen though I'm not sure if I should. Yes, this is long but the key question (always) is whether it's too long.

Great to hear you enjoyed it and, yes, I am proud of it though I still feel something is missing. Perhaps it's because I have other riffs I could still add to it (eg funky basslines for the uptempo blues section) and I wonder how they would sound but I'm not sure if I should even try recording them as that would probably take this up to more like 11 mins.

Thanks again.

Predator is a classic film ("If it bleeds, we can kill it").

This would be a pretty weird soundtrack for it but, sure, I'd like to hear/see it. I think it might be way too chilled for the Predator vibe, which is far more nervy and tense.

If the film's owners ever decide to release a new version and ask me if they can use this track on the soundtrack, I will let them.

Yes - I made it for exactly that purpose.

I quite often go looking for aliens in swamps, using special alien-detecting equipment.

This makes a great soundtrack and I think it's actually attracted them as I've caught quite a few since I've been playing it around the swamps in my area.

Hi.

Great to hear you liked this big chiller.

I spent ages constantly tweaking the level of the drums. They don't change a great deal (which gives it a consistent vibe) but there are all sorts of variations in volume and stuff. Hence the very dynamic waveform (no tube of toothpaste for me).

It is a patient and relaxed pace and I love this type of shuffle blues groove. I could play guitar (or other instruments) over it all day. But it always seems to cry out for guitar so I added a fair bit here, with some Eastern melodies for additional flavour. I enjoyed doing the soloing and there's quite a lot of it for me as I'm not that much of a lead guitarist.

Thanks again.