Crawling and sprawling, creeping and weeping!
: Great description - trying to distil the essence of that kind of expression
sunless doom here! :))
: Tremelo used there, the good old amp standby - if it was good enough for Link Wray!
some stunning bass notes in amongst it all, Bill..sounds like a bowed double bass: I like to take the attack out of the bass - another opposition to guitar which is about attack a lot of the time
Two primary guitars, different voices and timbres...duality: one deep, sonorous, sustained, the other high, pizzicato and staccato - Gibson/Fender dualism at the root of electric guitar culture
so cool how you intermesh these various guitars and that panning just adds so much breadth - panning has much more to do with creating space, more than movement, for me
wow, I do love these textures and quite like how it all gathers and builds from that opening section. - this piece introduces my newly acquired Epiphone Les Paul Studio, in fact I put this down as soon as I got it.
Ideal for a late night trip :-)
A funhouse of the soul, twisting and writhing.
With LP its had not to twist and strangle every note, the sound is so unbelievable. I had to listen to Jeff Beck's Truth after this to revel in LP sounds.
Yea, a good LP is a thing of wonder. All the Sonny Sharrock stuff is LP as well, he played a basic black one into a Marshall at ungodly volume. :)
Yeah, there is something about the LP sound, a kind of cushion there, the sound is kind of regal, enthroned - it stands up starkly, the low end is crazily cello like - it responds so readily ... it is the ultimate solid body. Thankfully it can't do everything. I was thinking of Sharrock too, a perfect sax-ax, a blazing thing - straight in it pushes the amp - preamped it destroys
: Yea, stock it won't. I can get very reasonable single coil or close to P90s on mine but it's got some Craig Anderton-designed wiring with dip switches in the electronics package.
: Yeah, with this one it is a case of put it down and pick thy Phantom, or Strat - PS I just got a 4 pick up Jag-you-like thing from Revelation. Each of the 4 pick ups has its own on off switch and there's also a master varitone switch - this is a tone beast - can't use a pick because I'm using all my right hand digits to switch the switches!
PS this Epiphone LP is the most basic black thing, no purfling or binding, no big inlays, *but* when it comes to all the things that make a LP a LP [and why it can have LP on the headstock] are there - the carved top, through neck, alnico pick ups and all the rest. Plus that little bit of magick - when making this track I kept thinking of Jimmy Page and his LP work on Led Zep II [hence oblique refs in the track title and poem]. Still think that Beck got the best LP tones on Truth though
: Yea, the more complex the switching, the longer the automated curve is. I look at them mostly as gears - don't usually need to stop the car to switch into four wheel drive, but...sometimes...gotta lock the hubcaps and go. Give it a while!
The twinkling and behind the bridge shenanigans make this!
: Yeah I have been working towards that in my last few tracks. Despite what I say about the LP elsewhere, thiis obviously single coil stuff that you couldn't get on an Lp. It's my Indie semi acoustic with P90 type pups put through the Kaoss to cluster up the pickings which are actually not behind the bridge this time as this guitar has a wraparound bridge - it's slide brought right up to the bridge pick up and picking various high pitched microtones there with a contact mic near the nut to pick up any behind the nut activity. In post prod there's added delay and upper EQ added!
: just heard some behind the bridge stuff on the LP elsewhere on this, I hit a partial chord with the bridge pup on then attacked the strings behind the tunomatic with my metal pick - the LP got every shimmer out there
: Yea, the tuneomatic's muting is good but it wasn't designed to stop our sort of abuses or modern pickups!
: And makes sense on the slide, effectively that's what we're doing with behind the bridge shenanigans - putting a slide at the bridge and going to town!
: Yeah, the slide becomes a third bridge - the prepared guitar guys even use this as a term, 'third bridge' . Like what you say about the Tunamatic - of course, in those early days they even had a mute thing on the Jag didn't they? Where were they at? I suppose it is all about that super focused old jazz guitar sound, or super clean surf sounds - and we love that too - but there is nothing so great as a guitar responding on all the different erogenous-sonicus-zones, from head to heel!
: Third bridge in that the normal bridge and the nut are bridges one and two - the slide or whatever you want to use, becomes the third bridge. Fred Frith kind of thing.
: Yea, the mute on the Jaguar/VI was on the bridge and between it and the pickup. I'm not aware of anyone who really used it, it's missing from almost every vintage model that was played versus thrown in a case and ignored for forty years.
Love the fake string section vibe.
: Yeah - for the intro I had an acoustic and semi acoustic variously miced, getting the pizzicato type things with open kind of small orchestra atmosphere. I thought of making a whole piece like this, but then thought no, it needs to build from this. Then on Friday I saw an Epiphone Les Paul Studio in a secondhand shop. I had to have it because it had that sound that a Les Paul has, and no other guitar can get near. So the low register cello sounding line is the LP there - indeed, all the leads and riffs on this are the LP. Where have you been all my life, LP?
: The acoustic guitar is a cheap big bodied Indian made cello guitar - I love it because it has the tailpiece and bridge, arched top - lot's of behind the bridge potential. Also, it's akin to the LP which has a remnant of the arched top in its carved top - both guitars are in the track's cover pic
: A good LP is a good LP, and there isn't a replacement for it. It's a peculiar hammer.
: It is ridiculous to think I hadn't played a LP until Friday! I grew up on a hardtail Strat, and always avoided LPs; like, 'that's not for me', 'that is not my kind'. Ridiculous because the LP is a stroke of genius in electric design. But the proof is in the pudding - strange how I can now really *hear* the LP - of course, I could hear it on your tracks with the Pro LP - amazing power and finesse ... there is a sensation on the bottom strings in the lower registers that doesn't happen anywhere else [maybe on a PRS, I don't know - or care] - it's like you are using a bow .... I suddenly understood Jimmy Page grabbing Joe Walsh's LP ...
s: Yea, a good one will have all sorts of punch and clarity. I don't think I've played one that can't do the bass-heavy treble-muted jazzbox thing though, which was what I used my old LP for back in the day. Was too nice a guitar to keep around when it rarely got played and times were tight. PRS is its own beast, I've not found one I have to love but most seem to be meant to match with amps I'm not using. They're voiced for a type of modern sound that I just don't reach for as a baseline.
: Yeah, that surprised me too - neck pup, treble rolled off - instant Kenny Burrel sound; thought you needed a semi for that, but no, the LP does it
: Les likely wouldn't have put his name on it otherwise! Won't get *every* variant of the old jazzbox, but gets the classic sound down pat.
lyrics
from the Page of the Dark Mage
Swart Suns, Twain ...
Twa beasties for the aeons.
Humankind strives towards one sun,
For one goal he naively drives.
‘The One’ he murmurs piously,
And,
as he grasps it,
fragmenting,
It is no longer one but two.
