Look to the immediate right, in the streaming player there is a tune called "Mesmerize" from the "a fine line between..." CD. Click on the title, and then hit the triangle (the play button)...
I had this Mike Oldfield'y piano thing in 7/8 that repeated - Mike's Tubular Bells was a compound meter with alternating bars in 7/8 and 6/8 that really was hypnotic but unsettling. This was based around that type of motif but I kept it simpler throughout the writing of this song and relied explicitly on building layers and mood. This was a part of the set of music written for the original CD (but as mentioned most of the material was thrown away as being inferior) back in the spring of 2007. I had been jamming with Paul, Mark Tomko, Sean Gephardt and John Hernandez on some of the material (notably "First Piece of the Puzzle" and "Voices in my Head") but this one was totally done up in my office and as mentioned over the space of four nights I'd been inspired to just go with it.
The opening section was the 7/8 electric piano motif with a LOT of keyboard pad and bell layering to make it just huge and spacey. Key modulation was the order of the day for me as I went through several modulations to build tension and anticipation getting to the "drop" - Paul had informed me of this electronic dance music prop that would have the tune just going along, hitting a peak, and then an abrupt drop to one or two single instruments which would continue the beat and motif, but the focus and dynamic shift would (in addition to whatever light show accompanied the music) would just get the crowd superenergized when the full mix returned and ended the song. I've always liked dynamic shifts - and for this song even though it wasn't quite as extreme as a dance tune, I incorporated it leading into an atmospheric bed for a bass solo. 12 string guitar strums with stereo delay just builds the psychedelic feel of the tune beautifully. At this time I only had the instrumental tracks in mind - the voice samples would come much later...
So, the drop gets into the bass solo, which leads into a big drum/bass thing a la Pink Floyd - thinking a much slower groovier "Echoes" or "Shine on part ##" with screaming organ, string pad, and a EBowed guitar / monosynth lead line with tons of delay/reverb that dominates. The original programmed drums were very simple with a kick drum pattern that matched the bass line for the most part - but Nick D'Virgilio (from Spock's Beard who was the drummer on this song) completely picked this up and almost played lead drums with the groove and variations he put in! I wanted to have songs (and still want to in fact) which were progressive and technically complex but also heavy groovy and sexy at the same time. Definitely the effect of having Nick's drums pushing this hard accomplished at least for this part of the tune.
I dont remember how many bars the groove thing goes on for - 32, 40... but it's a good while. When we finally hit the end, the 7/8 part returns as an acoustic piano, the GR-33 monosynth and EBowed guitar are sustaining with the monosynth portamentoing up and down and then fade out to leave the acoustic piano in a long 24 bar crossfade to a Hammond B3 playing the same 7/8 pattern. Then another abrupt dynamic shift...
Guitar, bass and drums playing triplet lines in a huge bit - the big transition, leading to the crashing chords and drums fills that end/drops after 24 bars - this is where the first of the sampled voices appeared and became a part of the song with the phone recording doing time sync (I cant remember the name of the service, but it's a national thing used to synchronize clocks). "At the tone, the time will be..." and when the tone is supposed to come - the band kicks back in with a slow groove and Nick's again brilliant improvisational playing/fills carrying the action. I inserted a "guide lead guitar" track that was a placeholder, but it was ok enough to use until I got motivated to work on something better or get my real target to play - one Alan Morse of Spock's Beard (and bandmate of NDV). When I wrote Alan in 2009 he responded very positively - but his schedule was such that he didn't get his tracks to me until very late in our production schedule, after we had essentially mastered the CD and were shipping... so my guitar solo remained, but I am going back and will get the Alan Morse solo into the piece for the remaster...
Here's some confessional time now - in 2008 I was probably 1/2 way done writing and recording the newer CD which became "a fine line between..." - 5 of the songs were complete with Nick's drums, "Mesmerize" being one of them. I tried to do an EP release to gather financing to allow contracting Nick or others (as it turns out, Andy Edwards) to record the remaining material. The EP marketing was a dismal failure, and Shawn Gordon of Prog Rock Records totally ripped me a new one with a rotten review of the stuff. I was very disappointed - the primary comment was that much of the songs I had sent were not progressive, and "Mesmerize" was interesting but too long and boring in the end... Given the feedback, and being both hurt by it and also very motivated to improve what I could - I started getting very obsessive about all the material. We were in what ended up for us being a rental house (it's complicated...) and as we got into fall 2008 and competing individual goals at home - I spent an ever increasing time in my studio just bashing out material and throwing it away/archiving if it didn't fit the character of the album as it was starting to flesh out. Meeting with Paul and Mark, I set an aggressive schedule to finish the CD off entirely - February 2009 for recording, with 2 months for mixing/mastering with a ship date of May 2009.
Job shifts, various uncertainties, and more - they all cropped up in the material in some atmospheric form or another. Nothing about the storyline that held the songs together was real - it's a complete fiction, but even this song turned into another dark number especially as we got into mixing and I was determined to raise the bar and make the song compelling in some fashion.
Thus comes the Professor Stephen Hawking lecture - this was very effective in filling the drop in, with the spoken word filling in space between solo bass phrases. I didnt take any particular line out of context, but pulled out individual lines and inserted as motivational phrases. Together they dont fill out a lecture but piece together questions of existence - which is what I wanted for the CD.
The last thing I added, which is a bit self indulgent but not so much that I am embarassed by it - I inserted a whispered mantra (which I spoke phonetically in some Indian dialect) in three vocal tracks not synchronized with each other and heavily effected/panned across the stereo spectrum. It's low enough that it sounds like mumbling and with the cross-pans sounds like Tibetan murmuring. With the electric Rhodes, the Pink Floyd like rhythm section, my pseudo-David Gilmour lead lines... it's all pretty cool. This goes to a fade out ending with Prof. Hawking repeating the phrase that stuck with me the most : "transform our view of the universe and of life itself, whatever that might be..."
At this point, as with a lot of the material and doing critiques of the mixes etc... I think some of the beauty of it is lost in the mix. I'm also planning on doing real production work on Nick's drums - Nick had forwarded stereo mixes of his kit with how he felt it would sound best - and me realizing at the time that I wouldn't be able to replicate that quality, I just flew them in and did some limiting on them for the final mix. I want to go back now and get more presence from the kick drum and toms - I think with what I have now, and better ears, I'll get a better overall product in the end.
