Started this first playlist of Interbay tracks to celebrate Spooky Week 2024.  All of the tracks in this playlist are on the "dark side" of the sounds that Interbay generates--it could be dark post-punk, witch house, darkwave, goth rock, dark industrial, dark techno, etc.  

Could be good background music for a Halloween party.  

This playlist will be added to (even if it isn't Spooky Week) whenever tracks on the dark side of Interbay get posted.

The Dark Side of Interbay (we have cookies!)

Darkworld.  The most miserable place on earth.  Every ride is the Haunted Mansion.  And, over the speakers throughout the park is this Interbay track.  It's sorta goth, sorta indie, definitely post-punk...with nods to OMD, Prince and 50's sci-fi...all drenched in reverb, with synthesizers and neuro basses for all.  Why?  Because we like you!  M-O-U-S-E!

"Darkworld" by Interbay *SoundCloud Exclusive*

As you can tell by the tags, I didn't really know the best way to describe this track--though, especially if you're of a certain age, you'll know what this is when you hear it.  

Oooooh, it's sorta spooky!  

(At the same time, there are elements of this track that sound, somehow, like "flying".  Maybe a better song title would have been "Broomstick?"  

If you take the time to explore the tracks posted to this page, you'll find a variety of styles and conceits--a veritable bouillabaisse of various flavors of dance music, mutated pop, indie rock, and darkness (not always all in one song, of course.)  

This particular track features a vocal part buried deep in the mix--your ears will try to search for it...which, I think ratchets up the tension and dread a bit.  

...but, like the ghost in the window of the picture, it's not THAT scary.  

If you're interested in the creative process, this song came together because yesterday, I heard Morrissey's "Everyday is Like Sunday" on Sirius/XM's First Wave.  And from that...came this (which sounds absolutely NOTHING like Moz's song.  I think the only element I can pinpoint is the tom tom build out of the intro, which is shared by both songs.)  

Hope this amuses you.  A follow gets a follow back.  More to come!

"Haunting" by Interbay *SoundCloud Exclusive*

We had a long drive yesterday--from Dickinson ND to Missoula MT.  Part of that time was listening to FirstWave on SiriusXM...and the Slugmonstrocity played "All Night Long" by Peter Murphy.  

I think you can hear the influence of that track on THIS Interbay track.  Obviously, I wasn't trying to recreate a Peter Murphy song...but I took inspiration from it, in tempo, some of the sound design, and the general spooky vibe.  

It all fell together pretty quickly here in the Motel 6 in Missoula--and, though I had another song ready to drop today...I've called an audible, and you're getting "Whispers" instead.  

The track is a vibe more than anything else.  There's no coherent plot, there's precious little song structure, and musically, it is pretty restrained.  

But...this track excels in projecting a mood.  Might be good on a Halloween playlist, just saying.  

I should be home again tomorrow evening and I've got to imagine that things will quickly fall back into place, rather than these strange early morning posts...you'll be able to catch new tracks here around midday from now on.  

"Whispers" by Interbay *SoundCloud Exclusive*

...if an Interbay album is ever made from these SoundCloud Exclusives, it certainly feels that THIS song should follow yesterday's track--without intending to, I made tracks that fit rather well together.  

"Alone in the Dark" (the first of these SoundCloud Exclusives to be given more than one word for its title) carries on the moodiness from "Interlude" and turns it into an epic and dark alternative rock track.  

(A good comparison might be The Cure "A Night Like This" or maybe even Echo & The Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon"--not THAT good, of course, but it is in that style.)  

I've also justified the "Electronic" tag with a lot of underlying synths, processed drums and effects.  (If they had a "Dark Wave" tag for the main genre options, I'd have picked that, I think.)

This one has been sitting in The Vault a little longer than most of these SoundCloud Exclusives (many of which were created the day before they were posted.)  This one, I wanted to hold on to...to wait until the right time to drop it.  

Now seems like the right time--and I have some of you to thank for that!

I was deciding between dropping this today or a more Electronic/Dance/Club banger--and my choice was going to be based on how "Interlude" did yesterday.  

As I said in the description text for "Interlude", when I stray too far from electronic dance music, those tracks get far fewer plays--like in the single digits.   

(Certainly neither "Zagreb" nor "Selfishly deserved their fate...and the earliest posts low play counts are because I hadn't figured out any way to promote my new channel yet.)  

I didn't want to have two straight songs underperform.  So, I made a promise that if "Interlude" did better than I was expecting--even though it is as far as I've ever posted from a club track (so far)--specifically, if it would get 50 plays at the time I'd post today's track...I would pick "Alone in the Dark" as today's post, but if it didn't (and I expected it wouldn't), I had another track lined up and ready to go (which will certainly get posted here, just...later).  

I was delightfully surprised to see 123 yellow ribbons 'round the old oak tree!  (Ancient reference there...it got 123 plays, which is far more than single digits and more than twice as much as the 50 target.)  

So, thank you, random people who listen to my music but never like, repost, share, or follow.  Though all of those things would be quite nice, obviously, I still appreciate those of you who can't be bothered.  

I hope you like my choice today--I think it is a particularly good one.  (Let me know if you agree!)

"Alone in the Dark" *SoundCloud Exclusive*

"You want to take a crack?  I'll give you a smack.
I'm a plus, you're subtract."  

Playing with a few new toys on this latest Interbay track (did you know that a new, never before heard by ANYONE, Interbay track is being posted EVERY DAY here on SoundCloud?  You should follow this page so you don't miss any.  AND you should go back and check out yesterday's posted track, "What A Way To Go"--it is a fun track and it got absolutely slept on!)  

Where was I?  Oh yeah, new toys.  

Plugins, whether effects or instruments, are tools for computer based music producers to be able to get the sounds that are in their head into a a shareable product so that you can also hear those sounds--but, they are also toys to experiment with, to find something unexpected, unplanned, and to go beyond the limits of one person's imagination.  

Two of the new toys (new to me, at least) feature prominently on this track. Zynaptic's Pitchmap Colors is the first one--using this plugin took a bog standard chord of mine and turned it into a whole vibe.  This track wouldn't sound like this without that vibe--and I have just barely scratched the surface with what I might be able to do with that effect plugin.  

The other new toy used for the first time on this track is the Typecast Text To Speech program.  In the past, I've either used royalty-free vocals (that don't always say what I want them to say), or Icarus-endangering sourced snippets (which carries with it some inherent risks...however much fun they are), a narration-specific text to speech program (much love to the Elevens for making many of these SoundCloud Exclusives possible)...but this is the first time that I could craft vocals from my words in a rap flow.  Now, I still have to do a lot of work on it to make it fit--and I'll admit, this is a skill that I intend on improving as I use it more in the future.  

But, for a first try?  I think it gets the job done.  

Of course, your mileage may vary.  

I worked backward from the royalty free sung vocal hook and built a "don't call it a comeback" narrative around it.  Granted, the full vocal and the narrative don't match up exactly--but the Tesla Cybertruck proves that "matching up exactly" may be overrated (or, depending on your keen eye, undervalued.)  

Also, don't read too much into the thumbnail today.  Falling back into line is a hard thing to find a visual representation for...  

There's a lot going on musically in this track (another new toy, Drumtraqs, provides the old school drums you'll hear in parts and there are a couple of new synth sounds making their way into the final mix of an Interbay track as well.)  

There are parts of this track that give me a Talking Heads, Remain In Light-era feel.  Not sure if you'll feel that, but I do.  Similarly, there's a section where I get a "Body Language" by Queen connection.  

Mea Culpa:  there are a couple of rough transitions here that might offer the opportunity for a re-edit/remix someday, but nothing so painfully bad that I couldn't share this original version with you today.  

Let me know if you agree by giving it a listen.  

And, if you like it--like it!  
Do all the things!  
Please!  
Thank you!

"Falling Back in Line" *SoundCloud Exclusive*

Perhaps some of the previous tracks in this themed Spooky Week of Interbay track posts leaned more on the "horror" side of what people find "spooky"--so, I thought we might spice things up with a touch of...  

"SUSPENSE!!!!"

(Apologies if that felt over-dramatic, but I'm posting a track with samples from Vincent Price--such drama would be understated in comparison.)  

This track was original imagined as one of the many Interbay experiments that have been posted (though none recently) on Facebook--where I'd marry up the Interbay tracks I was coming up with (so far, none of them duplicated here on SoundCloud) to some sort of visualizer.  I thought this would make for a particularly interesting video.  

...but, this is a reinterpretation of a theatrical radio broadcast.  There were no viusals from the show to help me craft a video for it--and for that, and a number of reasons, I never got around to posting this track until just now.  (It had, ironically, sat in the Vault for quite some time--as I can produce music for days!)  

I thought, briefly, that this song might never be shared properly.  I did not know this when I first began posting here on SoundCloud, but the first second (or so) would get cut off of every upload--and being a former dj, I liked when tracks started IMMEDIATELY...so, that caused a problem for some of the earliest tracks--until I went back into the project files and added a second of blank space before re-uploading the tracks in a SoundCloud specific corrected way.  

BUT..this track is quite a bit older than any other tracks I've posted on SoundCloud so far--old enough that the production on this track ended on New Year's Eve of 2023/2024.  I had no idea I'd be switching from Facebook to SoundCloud--nor did I know I'd soon be upgrading Phantom Laboratories West.  And, in the move from the previous PLW to the one I'm using now, parts of the file for this track went missing--so, I couldn't just reopen the project and add a second to the start of it.  

Luckily, I found a workaround...as it is a perfect track to share during Spooky Week.  

The song itself--it is a dark house track with suckbacks, reverses, sound effects and a cinematic approach to breakdowns.  I wouldn't blame you if you felt that I messed with the auto pan a bit too much--but it was on purpose, to leave the listener feeling a bit unsettled...as I thought that would be thematically appropriate.  

I almost considered using the music parts of this project, ditching the radio play samples (which were much of what had gone missing) and re-using it for a new (probably spooky as well) track...but I'm glad you get to hear "Suspense" the way I hoped you would.  

(You'll also see that this is the "darkness re-edit"--there was an original mix of this track that lasted over 11 minutes long...and it didn't work as well as this one, I think does.  But, of course, your mileage may vary...  Still, I don't see that 11 minute+ version seeing the light of day any time soon...so...you're welcome?)  

Play! Like! Repost! Share! Comment! Follow!  
thank you!

"Suspense (darkness re-edit)" *SoundCloud Exclusive*

Post-punk, dance, indie, electronic, and mutant pop in various styles (seriously!)--new tracks being posted daily (every day for over a year, so far!)

Interbay is the new project of Peter Greyy (previously of Cremation Dance and DangerScience), based out of Seattle and Phantom Laboratories West.