This one has a more relaxed style than my other songs; less dramatic, in a sense. It made me think of how carefree life was as a kid. When was the last time you swung on a rope swing for the pure enjoyment of the moment? What happened to that life? It feels like it was just a dream...

Production Notes:

I like this melodic, lush, warm vibe a lot. Took some cues from one of my favorite bands, Hammock, and found a good balance of those reverb/delay/chorus drenched guitars and other melodic instruments like strings, organs, electric pianos, etc. Tape delay and thick, 14-second reverb is the backbone to this sound. Tried a slightly different approach to building sounds and arranging clips on this one, using Logic instead of Ableton Live. Overall, I'm thinking Logic suits my style better.

Rope Swing

Emerge

Surrender, Catharsis, Recovery

Pretty much ripped some guitar riffs straight out of an Explosions in the Sky song and a Mogwai song, but oh well. My experimentation on the night of July 26th, 2011.

July 26th

The darkest song I've ever written. I wanted to illustrate the atmosphere of an event that threatens life on earth, and resulting moods of loss, regret, and even beauty. The song was also a production challenge for me in trying to form a heavier, darker sound.

Themes: Apocalypse, nuclear war, disaster, atmospheric destruction, self-destruction, death, panic, regret, survival, acceptance.

Sampling at 11:05: "We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another." 
— J. Robert Oppenheimer, Interview about the Trinity explosion, first broadcast as part of the television documentary, "The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965)."

Listen loud. Let it wash over you.

Untitled (Requiem)

Created a cool sort of drone IDM track by slowing down "Untitled (Requiem)" by about 1.3 million percent. I stopped when the total length of the slowed-down track equalled the amount of time I've been alive (24.6 years). I exported small slices of the track at different points in the song to gather variations in tone. Then I arranged them and added effects in Ableton Live.

The sound for this was inspired by the works of Wolfgang Voigt's GAS project, which has a similar tone.

Lose yourself.

The Low Tide

Upbeat, post-rock track, major key. This song started during an experiment in Ableton Live's Operator synth.

The Operator

Ambient, piano... Concept behind this song was to create the feeling of "uplifting ascension" by way of the field recordings. The song starts out with earth-like recordings, and slowly transitions into outer space.

Meandering

An uplifting & anthemic post-rock song. Filtered & non-filtered drums, Rhodes piano, textural synth swells, e-bow guitar, slide guitar... I put some extra focus on the drums in this piece, creating some interesting high-hat patterns and such. The song is pretty upbeat, and sounds a bit like the soundtrack to some kind of inspiring adventure; perhaps the closing song to one of those inspiring films about finding oneself. The name, "Shining Sea" was derived from the main finger-picked guitar riff in the second half of the song. I distinctly remember the riff from my elementary school years for "America, the Beautiful." Being a sucker for nostalic influence, I had to include it.

Shining Sea

Very uplifting, cinematic, & anthemic. This was one of the first instrumental songs I wrote, and I knew I wanted it to be a closing track of sorts from the beginning. It just has "album closer" written all over it. This track, like some of my others, maintains a feeling of ascension and achievement throughout the track.

Farewell

Crimson and Gold

Probably my favorite out of the acoustic songs I've written. Probably because it has a lot of atmosphere and some non-acoustic instruments.

Umbrellas

My first experiment with electronic beats. Some are off-beat, but you gotta start somewhere, right? Kind of a melancholic song. I got to use a friend's bass guitar on this song, which was really nice.

Adam Butler

Popular tracks