Influences
China, the Beautiful, “Idyll Sky”
Mocean Worker, “Intothinair”
Ravesignal, “Horsepower”
Ozric Tentacles, “Tight Spin”
Burial? Let’s say Burial’s involved somewhere
Story
After roughly 15 minutes away from 4/4 and with strange chord sequences, I wanted something direct, with a snare from the start and only one root note, since the rest of the album is so not like that.
What emerged was a pseudo-autobiography of the restless mosaic due to the punning song name (“on the tiles” is a British phrase meaning “to have a night out”).
There’s a loose three-act story here, and novelist Rebecca Christiansen synchronized a short story to the song for in the linked video. Basically, the restless mosaic breaks free of its surroundings for the first time. (It’s made of the first three drum parts, all of which are hits of or on ceramic.) It finds a building emanating some interesting sounds and goes in.
The music gets louder and more involved, and the mosaic has a great time. But in taking the lead on the dancefloor, the mosaic overexerts itself, overheats (represented by the dropping-ceramic hi-hat becoming more frequent and microtonal, then reversing every other hit like it’s the protagonist in the “Take on Me” video), and shatters on the floor. As the party fades, you hear the mosaic’s remains swept up with the rest of the party.
Musically, this owes several debts. First is to Evgenii, the keyboardist of I Am Waiting for You Last Summer, who gave me some initial advice on ways to develop the primitive demo. (I crowdfunded their first music video at a level where I got a production consultation with him.)
Second is to Nyles Lannon, a longtime respected indie guitarist I discovered researching the history of MusicMatch Jukebox free compilations. He was tickled I remembered his early works from those compilations, and he gave me everything he had from back then. One of those tracks – “Idyll Sky” by his project China, the Beautiful – started with some reverberated percussion but switched percussion tones midway through and added a dry acoustic guitar. It sounded, whether intended or not, like the whole song moved indoors. And the idea of a song changing its geography midway held a deep storytelling appeal to me that found its match with this mosaic.
Third is to the Ozric Tentacles’ track “Tight Spin” for showing me a surprising three-act song. My organ solo takes chromatic inspiration from that song’s acoustic guitar solo.
Maybe because this one was developed late in the making of the album, I often underrate this song. But it’s gotten some positive reactions. Madame Maledicta, an internet DJ and friend of mine, played this on one of her witch house shows, and her boyfriend (who hears all the stuff she’s playing) perked up at this one. I take that as a high compliment.
(Random production fact about this one: the strings in the middle are from Spitfire Audio – some of the realest strings on the market – smothered in effects to make them sound like synthesized strings. I had way too much fun doing that.)
Some press about it
“Tiles on the Tiles is probably the most dance-laden track that you could imagine playing at a club at 1 am. It has a great flow, impressive build up and big energy to really bring it all home.” – Jamie Parmenter, Vinyl Chapters
“Another movie score waiting to happen.” – Now Hear This
Last song on the album: The Rock Face of Sholauren
restlessmosaic.com 