This song was created in GarageBand using its free library of sounds. The texture of the original song is extremely rich with its many sonic elements coming together to create a truly moving piece of music.

'Annie and Owen' is one of my absolute favorites from the OST of this sweet and obscure mini-series on Netflix called 'Maniac' directed by Cary Fukunaga (of True Detective) starring Emma Stone, Jonah Hill, Justin Theroux, Sonoya Mizuno, and Sally Field. It's a story set in a retro-futuristic world where time and technological advancements are not quite relative. As you progress through the series, the line between fantasy and reality keeps getting thinner, giving you a 'Nolan-esque' vibe to the premise, which has a sweet story at its core – one that I could to relate at multiple levels. (You may actually shed a tear or two for the AI too!)

Maniac inspired me to take up music after a long, crazy year. I'm not professionally trained, but recreating elements of a song's composition using software stimulates me creatively and here's something I spent the last three days doing as a fan tribute to Dan Romer's musical genius and I absolutely loved every minute spent doing it as I learned tons about composition in general. I'd like to give a shout out to the reddit user r/Bleupetrole for transcribing it first on the piano. (Do check out their channel DailyPiano on YT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM2aZ-a2i3o) 

Thanks for listening, and hope you like it!

(DM me if you would like to have the MIDI file.)

Annie and Owen | GarageBand Cover

Here is brother and I covering Radiohead's masterpiece from 'In Rainbows'. It's our own interpretation and is not intended to sound like the original record.  

This song is unusual in its form that it has arpeggios in its first 5 measures with three guitars building up to the crescendo before the drop. The band meant for the arpeggios to represent the ocean, a metaphor for the subconscious. 

Here's a bit of a backstory: Ed went for a dip in the Caribbean and saw a lot of fish(es) and came back to tell his bandmates everything about it so they decided to write a song to represent his adventures.

It starts with a fairly simple "one two three four" with the drum stickies and but a simple guitar riff with an underlying bass line. The second guitar overdubs the first during the first measure, with a third joining the two soon after a few measures, which sets us deep at the "bottom of the sea" with the weird fish(es), which is kind of beautiful if you think about it. The swirling arpeggios represent the sound of the ocean and also serve to give us an orchestra without any actual orchestral instruments in the song.

The drop after the crescendo represents the silence one experiences underwater; although, a darker interpretation of this motif alludes to nearly drowning ("I follow to the edge of the earth, and fall off"). But no, the song is not a total killjoy; the narrator does re-awaken at the bottom of the ocean and makes a mad rush for the surface of the ocean, a feeling the third act perfectly captures this with its alarming wwweeeweees, distortion, and an uplifting, urgent bassline. 

The narrator finally respawns and recounts their tale about the weird fishes they saw at the bottom of the ocean. 

(jk the song is actually about faulty love, hitting rock bottom, breaking the cycle, hope, and moving on, he he.)

Priya Phadtare

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