Gyre

Influences

As One, “Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue”

(Possibly) The Orb, “Perpetual Dawn” (in how the second snare goes)

BT in general (for how he innovates in thinking about music)

Story

This was the first song I made for the album.  It’s built around 3 samples from Lyre, the production team whose tutorials (and Skype consultation) catalyzed me thinking I could make music again.  They’re the first things in the song.  But the snare that uses EQ/panning to establish north/south/east/west in the mix becomes where four other parts separate and land on, becoming a gyre (rhymes with Lyre – see what I did there?) that I spin at different speeds and in different directions around the center synth. (Nobody has ever noticed this without me pointing it out to them, which makes me a bit sad while also teaching me about how people consume music. I thought it was the obvious cool thing about the song! But while nobody noticed, a lot of people liked the song anyway – it’s my most played on Spotify from this album.)

So it’s an exercise in taking a generally 2-D format and making it 3-D.  And it might as well sound horror-filmy.  Credit to Vincent Villuis on the mastering for giving this a foreboding bottom end.

Some press about it

“Gyre once again[] harks back to that 90s flow, perhaps leaning on previous work by Orbital as pulsing beats set against sporadic piano tracks build against more of a dark and menacing energy.” – Jamie Parmenter, Vinyl Chapters

Next song: You Only Want Rain Because You’re On Fire