The Unethical Brothers

This project has a fictional reflective text that will run concurrently along the right of this page. It's called 17 days.

 I wanted to name the group formed of myself and two of my brothers, Lewis and Oscar Spearm, The Unethical Brothers. It is somewhat a joke title for this project in that it was stressed to me that this project was problematic for involving my family and that they couldn't possibly be renumerated for their work. I found this to be less ethical than my intial proposal and stifling of meaningful and interesting work.

I should stress that we each have equal ownership of the tracks we made and produced. This was my intention from before we began. We have agreed this.

A holistic point about the project

-I didn't use to be very interested in Family. I saw no beauty or choice in it. Family is strong that the same relationships carried through into the workflow. This is hard to avoid because it's so engrained. Yes it teached us about collaboration. And my projects are very relational in that I have known most of the people involved for a long time. 

Some coincidences - Lewis sat by houseplants, Oscar getting us to do these improv moments, Me twiddling Lewis' pedals, no stress about having no plan probably contributed to better work

Then each song blow by blow

What did we learn?

At airport

Only have a:

Cassette dictaphone

Zoom recorder

Laptop

Some wires

Garageband

Qlab

Am assembling ideas and songs that we could start working on

We have no big plan and very little time when we’ll actually be together

Normally this would fill me with dread and put me off the project

I’m not dominating the space

Oscar and Lewis added to the google doc of their influences successfully

Day 1

I made a spreadsheet

Very fast work

Lewis chipped in a lot with structural ideas that are all recorded on phone

At one stage I was twiddling the knobs of effects board whilst he was playing

I was dictating chords to him, like a composer

Splicing of to yourself with a good and a shit version is our idea

Three part structures in songs to show three people?

I shared project with Lewis a little

We discussed merits of collaboration

Day 2

I rapidly put things together as demos so that oscar can extrapolate beats to make

I used qlab, garageband, and AI emastering

Lewis’ idea I am a bit stuck with because it’s his vision, I offered my ideas as in the first demo

I will give Oscar very clear structures because I think that that is how he works, fast

So chilled out, yet I think the output would be similar/worse if I were stressing

Day 3

Meet oscar

Oscar has the tracks and will add, he listened and said that the ai one is more or less done

He can do a drop in go baby

I named the project SPEAR on his harddrive

I want to do 33% split

He said that he knew labels that would like it

Oscar will come later and bring his computer thing, drum sequencer - he didn’t

He wants to use some stems in his other work outside of this

He said 130 will need some mad kicks, he tried some stuff which we hope to hear on Friday

Day 4

Working together even though we are apart

I need to make a plan for tomorrow - think rerecord some of 130, bass line for to yourself?, 

We said Oscar could use the stems he wanted

Day 5

I recorded the whole conversation

I recorded some stems for to yourself and for 130

rec 14 about 29 mins, Osc talks about mixing the bass

1 bhour 19 we do goof improv

After lunch we really worked hard at 130 and pulled it into shape, it was constant collab

I’ll need to listent to the recording

Lewis told Oscar to rap. We put oscar’s rap on it

We improvised a lot on one of oscar’s tracks 

We built a studio together in the studio, on a table

Lewis said oscar did classic mistake of making his drums too loud because he did them when he sent us the demo that evening

We even all played his drum pad/sequencer mashine

Maybe it was always going to be made this way because of who we are, rather than a transformation and change of approach from within me

We need more sharing, and less arrogance, your way is not better, we must work together and unite.

Can i tell where I was thinking artistically/creatively/in flow vs technically/how to implement imagination in reality/structurally when I listen/watch documentation?

So is the Prince project a sort of technical narrative to this or a creative hypothesis or something? A way to spend my creative energy when I was holding off using it for this project?

Presently, we have no deadline and Oscar is in charge of 130. I am in charge of the rest and am a bit worried because of Covid.  (mid march 2020)

-       I’ve just come back from London and working with my brothers on some music for an EP

-       I wanted it to be collaborative

-       By that I mean that I wanted to share a space together where each was able to feel part of something shared, contributed, feel good together, make something good together, feel closer in a new way over a shared passion because we all make music

-       I was unattached to an outcome whilst being confident that we would make something; this is a common thread to all my projects here

-       This is something I had been discussing with Lewis for nearly three years

-       Oscar said that he would prefer if he is given a clearer premise to operate in (the creative acreage) whilst Lewis is a musician and so can take ideas and material on musical walks as well as contributing his own ideas, which he did.

-       I decided to bring songs that I had already made in line with bringing prepared material and this means that in a way everything was already decided by me

-       In another way I had really only decided on chords and melody and a very vague sonic palette for each song, I planned to leave the drums and aspects of the arrangement open to the other two to decide and actually make (nearly all the used sounds are from guitar, Oscar’s gear, our voices) , and the door was open for them to contribute their own tracks.

-       Lewis contributed 130, a track, it’s in ¾ and he’d never been able to get it to work with other groups

-       In tandem to this I was making a cover of a Prince song, tell this story

-       The idea to collaborate was even my idea, so it seems that someone always has to light the match

-       Lewis and Oscar are not strangers to collaboration and for Lewis, it is also a compositional method, or was with his band I’m sure

-       I made bullet point notes to summarise what happened each day, this has become my logging system and allows me to get down what happened, and I also record almost all our convos on my phone

-       A big problem with this project was that I wasn’t allowed to pay my brothers for this work because we are related

-       Working with them was very easy and a pleasure to be able to share something with them

-       We are making an EP

 - mention my attempt at breaking genres, Georgina Born's questions about opening up and embracing the social and political

third person

Josh/Alfred Fredericks/pseudonym

Prince

Get the post in mid 2019

Rush to that shop in Toyen to get the write thing to play it

Most exciting thing ever

Has to be good

Sci-fi/horror - plants growing out of head - is it ideas? Or do the ideas become the real life? Do his dreams become more and more powerful?

Different demos and stages and layers

Holidays, books, art that he sees

Ideas from my other book?

Or do it in diary format?

Detailing voicing and technical things is nice and interesting

Make poetic parallels and metaphor

MUCH MORE DIALOGUE

Tap into common fear - time loop, deadline

Builds in tension or horror throughout?

Make stakes obvious, work and stress and then life?

First person present or third person past or unreliable narrator

Can I do a twist?

Needs basic character wants and problems - basic ambitions, and how he introduces himself (I could go into business for myself, and when people asked me, “What do you do?” I’d say, I’m an entrepreneur in that haughty way entrepreneurs had. Maybe Susan and I would become friends. Maybe she’d invite me to a book club. I’d sit by a fire and nibble on Brie and say, I’m a small business owner, an entrepreneur, if you will.)

Do something new - TICK

 does it lose fidelity? I'll record them all onto tape and back I think

Loop - cleaner knocking on door, ferry horn (can get into recordings), phone messages from Jeremy, 

What did he bring into room? 

Sushi, coffee, bag, saxphone

He wants this job with Prince desperately, at all costs?

Fear of leaving the room, fear of the deadline, fear of failing

He chose to go to his studio rather than... niece birthday who becomes unborn as time goes backwards

Ferry horn needs to seep in more and more, final demo is just the ferry horn sliding up from low, with voice now lower and tired.

Kafkan, but is it about work, or repetition or what

 Get in the room

setup what he has with him

setup things that singnify time passing

wants/ambitions/stakes

using audio interludes and how do they function dramatically?

(means one step closer and two steps back from finishing)(one demo can have 12 iterations all stacked on top of each other)

bizarre dialogue (that will get weirder) with spouse

everything must be in the logic

17 Days

A given of collaboration is that it happens at the same time. Or rather a simple fact of using "the acreage" is one of shared temporal plane. A space is attached to time. Though it seems impossible to prove or disprove, our experience is that we are in time, despite it being impossible to describe a time any other than the present. 

"Time folds over and over and sometimes it folds wrong." - some poor soul

The following is a poetic thought experiment and is interwoven with how I was anticipating working with my brothers. Much in the same way I experienced a creative space and energy haemoregging to John Moran, I found myself eagerly waiting to work with my brothers on some music and had to spend that energy somehow, sometime. 

In 2016, everyone died, including the singer, songwriter, musician, composer Prince. By everyone, I mean a seemingly disproportionate number of celebrities, artists and performers compared to other years. 

Prince was notourisouly evasive and mysterious. 

In mid-2019, Prince sent me a demo for a song called "17 days" for which he'd asked me to conrtibute. It was remarkably well-timed because I was soon to work with my brothers on an EP in a loosley-described pop genre. I was concerned that I wouldn't get it done. And needless to say, Prince is my most famous collaborator to date. I received the demo on cassette reel and struggled to actually hear it for several days.

Of course I was then confused about how I ought to return my own demo to Prince. He had provided an address to return it to. I decided that it would be polite to send what I made in as similar a format to the one Prince had sent as possible. 

When I eventually listened to the track, I had to play it again and again. I was hooked on the opening piano vamp, it had such a groove and the left-hand had enormous power. 

Prince had kindly indicated in the demo where the drums should start, there basic pattern, and a synth or horn section line by simply singing these in. I find this practice to be obselete now; instead people prefer to hear a demo as real to the final version as possible. 

There are some repetitions of the vamp that are superfluous. This is due to Prince and his engineer finding the correct levels. This also suggests that Prince only spent one take on this demo before shipping it to me and it would be safe to assume that he improvised most of song.

He outlined the key elements of what the song is: the vocal line, the lyrics, the chord sequence, and lastly some details of arrangement and orchestration. 

My task was to produce this track. If he liked what I had done then we would work further on a final track. This would mean rerecording everything, ideally at his studio. I was excited to put it lightly. I 

It had been an audition of sorts as I supposed he had sent tracks to several other budding producers. It turned out he would record this song with his band "The Revolution" for the 1984 album "Purple Rain"!

I got to work. I went to the staff room and got a coffee, joking with someone ont the way about working on a number one song on a number one album. I was reminded of the scene in the ffilm ET where the pot plant comes back to life.

(stick in a plant metaphor or something growing somewhere)?

 I sat down at the upright piano in my room and began to work out the chords in the song, the bass line, and to sing the melody. It was much too high for my voice but I didn't mind right now. 

I made a recording of myself singing the vocal line whilst playing the piano, a reduced piano part, simply the chords as the bassline was too hard for me to play. I changed the harmony of the chorus a little to make the chords major through altering the bassnotes. I thought Prince might appreciate my adding other options and ideas. 

I remember having a pause and stretching. Then scratching behind my ear at something. It was something like a tiny piece of Broccoli floret, as if it had been left there from lunch. I flicked it away and thought nothing more of it

Satisfied with the work, I went home. I couldn't resist listening to my rendition over and over on my headphones during the journey. I listened to it on the t-bane and on the walk home from the station. It was much too high for my voice; I decided to drop it a minor third. 

Upload it here

That evening I picked at the patch behind my ear again where another thing like a broccoli floret had formed.

The next day I got into my office ready to work. 

I considered the lyrics and if they provide a stimulus for orchestration or treatment of voice. I thought about filling the sound at all frequencies. I thought about the intention, the werktreue, and the spirit of Prince. 

I laid down a version that seemed quite disco and played in a sax part where Prince himself suggested.

As a big band arranger, I was pulled to arrange a horn section soli where Prince sticks in a piano solo. I took the piano solo to mean something instrumental, as if he was drawing a box or outline for me to fill or colour in.

So I began writing the horn section break, which could work in the intro but would probably feature before the last chorus. 

Upload horns soli, quincy jones or herbie hancock

Pull a small piece of membrane from something like an onion from behind other ear

I got attached to vocal effects and transformation. This is something that I enjoyed. I like the androgyny of it, the fine line between interesting transformation and complete chipmunk.

These ideas come from a small insecurity about my own voice in that I am a bit shy of it. It has no training and it was always wrong. I grew up with a stammer and my accent always caught people's attention. 

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How does this all relate to working with brothers? What can be learnt or is this just a piece of art? Does this satisfy the reflective bit? Is it critical? Critical of time aspect of "the acreage"? 

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In 2018 an album was released by his estate after all his material disappeared from Spotify and presumbaly other streaming services. 

It, the album, is called "A Piano and a Microphone". 

==

Straight copy voice and piano

dropped key to eminor

did I do a sax part? yes - need to get these stages

then I did a different version 

added a sliding synth line, multi-part chorus, added cassette closing because it was like he was leaving a message, changed the fourth chorus chord, added bass, beat

will add a horn section part