[Music] Tapewolf - Evil Songs for Evil People (LP)

[Tapewolf]

If anyone's interested, I have just released my twelfth album of progressive rock, recorded in 2015 - 'Evil Songs for Evil People'
Thanks to Merlin for the cover!



The album itself can be had for free here:
https://www.jamendo.com/album/157284/evil-songs-for-evil-people
http://www.dougtheeagle.com/esfep.htm

There's also a Bandcamp page if you think it's worth paying for:
https://dougtheeagle.bandcamp.com/album/evil-songs-for-evil-people

The studio underwent significant upgrades to add a 2" 24-track machine as the centrepiece.  In addition, the Cheetah MS6 failed and so far has not been able to be resuscitated, the Korg Triton was replaced by a combination of a Hammond SK-1 and Alesis DM10 on drum duty.   In addition, a Waldorf string machine was added to the mix, and as such the sound has changed somewhat..
On the downside, I ran out of leave at work and the mixing ended up somewhat more rushed than was perhaps sensible.  Even so, I hope you like it.

Recorded using the Old Ways at The Lab, Cwmbran 2014-2015
Mixed 21-22 Dec. 2015.  Mastering by Alex Balzama at Swift Solutions, Feb 2016
Greetings go out to Keaton, Ren, Wuff, Chaosmage, Sofox, Merlin and co.
Thanks go out to the Rosegarden team, to all at RMGI, ATR, MRL and co for  keeping the analogue dream alive.   Apologies to Richard Brautigan.
Cover by Merlin Missingham, logo by Luke Turner.  Organ recorded at St. Grod's.  Album recorded on SM911 tape, mixed to ATR Mastering tape.

The PDF booklet can be found here:  http://www.dougtheeagle.com/esfep/evil_songs.pdf

Track Breakdown:

1. Tigers with Beautiful Voices
Originally recorded in late 2014, this was the oldest track of the album, inspired by Richard Brautigan's bizarre yet charming novella, 'In Watermelon Sugar'.  This version was rerecorded on the new 2" machine, with the tape manipulation part the only material directly taken off the earlier 1" recording.  There is also a different recording available that was done for the 4-track challenge.

2. Milkman
When I was about 14 I came up with some lyrics for a sham of a band I used to be part of at school, PYF (Purple Y Fronts).  Hopeless as a musician, I came up with some interesting lyrics.  More recently I either found or remembered the fragmentary lyrics to this song and wondered if it was worth developing into something recordable.
I came up with the parting verse of the chorus and it started to fall together.

The vocals were recorded more-or-less in a single take.  I could probably have done better and I was tempted, but each time I thought to rerecord them I decided I liked the rough-and-ready sound of the old recording.  So that's what I used in the end.

Originally I had hoped to use some very aggressive phasing in the style of the Boomtown Rats'  "Like Clockwork".  Couldn't quite get it to sound the way I wanted so I quietly dropped that idea and mixed it straight.

The ending was done with brutal efficiency by hitting the STOP button on the Otari deck during mixdown.  Most late generation tape decks will mute the audio to prevent this kind of starting and stopping sound from happening, but the Otari has a way to disable it via the DIP switches.  Which means I can do all kinds of nice slowdown/speedup effects.

3. Red Queen Rising

An epic track about the psychopathic Lady Jyraneth from the Project Future universe.  Dangerous, insane and extremely powerful, this song was fun to write and provided for some interesting experimentation with different styles.  The one thing I had a problem with was the lack of a female vocalist.  So as an experiment I laid down the vocals myself, affecting an effeminate style and with the tape machine running about 10% slow.  When the tape was played back at the normal speed, this happened.

There's a lot of this track I like, but one of my favourite parts is the bridge where Lady J talks about the Hanging Gardens, the backing vocals turning an innocuous scene into something horrific.

Quite a lot of tape editing went into this track, at least three separate edits, one of which is deliberately noticeable, where the tympani suddenly cut into the synthesizer solo.  Talking of which, the octave shifting was done on an old Akai tape deck older than me, by switching the speed up and down at appropriate intervals.  Practically all my other decks are microprocessor controlled - the Akai was the only machine crude enough to become unstable when changing pitch, which was the effect I was trying to achieve.

4. Dreamkeepers (are real)

Inspired by the graphical novels by Dave and Liz Lillie, this song was fun to make, and one of the only tracks on the the album that eventually ended up using the Strymon flanger after it was nixed from 'Milkman'.

There have been a number of pieces of music based on Dreamkeepers so I figured it would be fun to throw mine into the ring as well.

I'm particularly pleased with some of the PPG-wave type noises, and the Minimoog sweep at the end, and I think the Pink Floyd-esque shouted section near the end turned out better than I'd expected.

A video showing a work-in-progress mix can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8PPrMG3qA

The comic itself can be found here: http://dreamkeeperscomic.com/

5. Overlord

Of all things, I came up with the chorus to this while showering, and it just wouldn't go away so I gradually crafted it into a complete song.  It was, I think, the first song to be laid down on the 2" machine.
It ended up having a rather odd feel to it, as if it was part of a musical or something.

The idea of adding the pipe organ parts came afterwards, and took a long time to get right.  Originally it was done on the Korg Triton, and sounded kind of naff.  The Hammond SK-1 did a far better job but didn't have the devastating reed bass pedals which I needed to complete the sound.  Finally I utilised a hybrid system, with the SK-1 handling the upper and lower manuals, and the bass pedals generated by a Raspberry Pi mk2 running the Aeolus organ synthesizer.
This same rig was also used on Jake to finish off the album.

6. Jake, God of Lies (and stuff)
The last song to be written for the album.  It had a long and difficult birth, but I think it came out particularly well and is one of my favourites.

The song was started many years ago and rediscovered when I started trawling through old Cakewalk files, which I sometimes do when desperate for ideas.  I liked the song, but couldn't remember what the lyrics were.  Eventually I wrote new lyrics based on Jake, the God of Lies from Merlin Missingham's comics.
Parts of other abandoned projects were also taken and cobbled together into a single, epic piece.

The Hammond/Pi organ system was put to more adventurous use and appears in numerous places throughout the track, and the Waldorf Streichfett string synthesizer was also utilised quite extensively.

The biggest problem with this song was ending it.  Ending after ending was devised and then scrapped.  Finally I came down to two possible ones but I couldn't decide which I preferred, so I used both.
First, the descending chord series which was originally supposed to be faded out, but instead climaxes with the pipe organ.  At one point this culminated in a grand, finishing chord but as mentioned, I decided that what the track really needed was a reprise of the 'chase' motif, so the chord was changed to lead into that.

[VAE]

Oy! Completely didn't notice this happening.
I see I'll have something to download once I come home.

[VAE]

Thought so far - I pretty much love Red Queen Rising.  On first hearing I went on "Where in the pits did you find a vocalist", so I suppose your method worked. It's also hillariously reflected in the lyrics, which is a plus.

[Tapewolf]

Thought so far - I pretty much love Red Queen Rising.  On first hearing I went on "Where in the pits did you find a vocalist", so I suppose your method worked. It's also hillariously reflected in the lyrics, which is a plus.

Thanks, I do think it's one of the high points on the album.  I'm a little put out that there was so much noise in the mix, the price for switching to a system without noise reduction.
I've decided to experiment with gating in front of the mixer to see if I can reduce that in future.

[Foxx Trotter]

*thumbs up*

Yeah, I noticed it's old news, but better late than never. I would send a donation if my bank didn't charge a fee for foreign country transactions. Thanks.

[Tapewolf]

*thumbs up*

Yeah, I noticed it's old news, but better late than never. I would send a donation if my bank didn't charge a fee for foreign country transactions. Thanks.

Thanks!  As it happens, I've just finished mixing the next album.  I still need to get it mastered and figure out a cover for it - I'm aiming for a March release.

[Foxx Trotter]

Cool.