Usually I use different guitars for the various sounds, but here I used only one guitar, the Phantom [Revelation VTX63] for each guitar part.
The fine sounding single coil pickups in this guitar are by Alan Entwistle; the coffin shape of the guitar by the Design Council. Such a guitar can probe the abyss, as it does here.
The Phantom proves Nietzsche’s dictum: that when one stares too long into the abyss, the abyss stares out of one.
I am the abyss, I am the womb of doom.
. .this is indeed abyssal. .the movement of sounds sucking into a huge void..quite compelling
It is one of my strangest children
madness yet brilliancy . . .
... I've never set too much store by sanity!
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Bold woven textures, smashing emotions, taking one beyond the core
- yes, I have moved from the core, or else am seeking other cores
Folding herds through neon passages...
Yes, the heavy undulating iron hoof midst psychedelia
the contact mic is indespensible ... been looking at how to make an electric guitar respond beyond its pick ups - the Phantom's great for this as [the Revelation model at least] has the Jaguar/Jazzmaster type vibrato. There's lots of string there to play with.
Strangely enough, it got me to thinking about this aspect and its polar opposite, the headless guitar. My Hohner G3T [which I used on a lot of my early tracks] has no spare string at all. the strings end at the nut and are clamped at the bridge end in the Steinberger trem. So here, one concentrates purely on the notes played on the fingerboard. Whereas the Phantom, or the Indie semi-acoustic are all about the resonances found all over the instrument. I won't say one is better than the other - depends on the sounds you want to make ... 'want'?
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that liquid thing in my right ear is great. ditto the left .. everything is panning in some way or other - there are no static sounds [be they ever so slow] - I am pleased that you hear the liquids!
such madness, such detail: When intensity increases and goes beyond boiling point - as here - then it is madness, I agree. Richard Dadd madness. Detail has always been a feature of my drawing, and of my sounds too. I like to zoom in with the magnifying glass and work upon the sub atomic levels, the quantum levels of sound - here I split the atom, not once, but twice
a horn, somewhere in the distance. a shade's ship's horn, a dead factory horn: You describe the results of my experiments on this track with reverb - the blending of wet/dry, and how to use it to create gradations of distance. In the distance we can mistake one shape for another. A coat on the ground can look like a dead body, and vice versa.
so many slow stranglings: strangling and guitaring are very close - they both work upon the neck, like those Kali worshippers in India, the Thugees. I have that thuggish approach. And then, once strangulated sounds are captured, I strangle them further in post production ... slowly, yeah, always slowly
At the end of any good abyss, there is a certain space and light, a most excellent journey. Ah, you've explained my coda outro - I wasn't sure why I left that in there at the end!
Krautrock spiraling into calliope madness, good show!
Strange - I have been listening to my Krautrock sampler this past week! Pleased with the climaxes here - there's a drama there, as well as an unholy row.
Almost an electric piano vibe.: The Phantom has that kind of sound - it has none of the supple twang of a Fender - it has rather brittle, stark, chiming sounds: Well, it is a phantom, after all. We would not expect it to be a soothing beast!
The cymbals are perfect for this, nicely presaging the bass rumble: yes, I was going to add some kit drums, but the cymbals were enough. I tried to get a Jack Bruce like sound on some of the bass, but it ended up as a low end rumble, as you say, which is ok because it means the low end is THERE
Shades of a broken music box: Ah yes! I'm using some saw panning too
wild guitars,man!! I'm freakin out!
Sometimes one must have a fake harp!
: There's lots of stroking the behind the bridge strings on the Phantom, and also the behind the finger enharmonic strings at the other end, miced up. I also used the Rainbow machine on some of the tracks, which gives some cascades somewhere
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Very solid soundstage, it all fits well!
: It began as a 15 minute solo on the Phantom with a fairly clean sound [like that on the outro]. I left the track like that for a while - then I improvised another track on top, again on the Phantom, and thought I would keep doing that, but using different effects and settings on the Phantom. I ended up with an unwieldy load of tracks. So I muted all but two, put on the jazz bass and the cymbals, and then slowly brought the other tracks back, sculpting them at post production.
: Sometimes that's what you gotta do. I'm partial to occasionally muting everything but the previous (in sequence) track while recording, then mixing in post myself!
scary as hell art but your musical abyss here is brilliant. I love the sounds of darkness you've created here
lyrics
I Glimpsed a Snatch of the Abyss.
Delirium clears ...
There is only the cold light of day.
Is poetry possible here?
There is only war ...
Poems scribed with a knife on flesh.
Tattoos of bruise,
Blood, grime, death ... pallor.
Tumescence, de-tumescence.
Furore of rumour, flood,
Conflagration ...
Sound paints the air,
Lingers like perfume.
A phantom shape,
Phantom collage,
Ghostly.
Rabid dogs of midnight, with
yellow fang and purple tongue,
Foaming jaws, stinking coats,
Ears erect, and clawed paws,
I am the testimony to your madness,
And my fear.
Witness to my own
Animal gestation.
[poem by Bill Boethius]
credits
from Dark Engines,
released December 17, 2016
Bill Boethius: Phantom guitar, Jazz bass, Alesis cymbals.
