OOC: By the way, if there's any problems with the fact I'm starting a thread for each EP, please say :P EDIT: I also forgot to add the "what Jason says" titles... d'oh! Never mind. I'm on my iPod now, no changing it now.
STAR CROSSED LOVERS EP
Or some shit like that.
Star Crossed Lovers1. Milk and Vinegar (4:02) [FEATURING AMELIA FLORENTINE]
2. Ignites into Butterflies [FEATURING AND WRITTEN BY ERIC QUILLINGTON] (5:38)
3. "Haunted" [FEATURING BRITTANY KNOX] (6:23)
4. The Kisses Scar Me (2:19)
1. Milk and Vinegar (3:45) (Trip-Hop/ Glitch) [FEATURING AMELIA FLORENTINE]Slow, murky industrial noises build up steadily in the background, amongst spacey synth noises. This goes on for about a minute, with breathy female vocalisations in the background, as well as a foreboding sense of danger. Slight guitar chords can be faintly made out in the background, although are not noticeable enough to count this as a rock song. As the tension builds, random glitchy noises and jumps in the song appear to put the listener off guard as well as some quite sadistic laughter in the background. After this one minute, some slow, funky jungle music rhythm comes into play, with a deliberately tinny production to contrast it with the crisp clean sound of the rest of the song. Along with those drums, comes a tiny bit more guitar, including synthesizers, playing a dark and, to be frank, quite haunting melody. Amelia’s heavily and deliberately robotised voice then comes into play, making it sound both dystopian and futuristic, as if you have just been transported to a robot world. You get me? Never mind. She proceeds to sing her first part of the song in many different melodies and polyrhythms which contrast with the neat, precise musicianship in the background. Another layer of noise is building up in the background, a massive wall of sound .Towards the end of Amelia’s first part, this wall of sound explodes into a split second of white noise, before returning to Jason singing with the same melodies and rhythms as Amelia, except the music is now played by a music box, glitched electronics and a violin. As well as this, Jason is keeping his natural, smooth, low voice. Then some more of Amelia’s synths come in towards the end of this part, and it turns back to her singing and the electronic atmosphere from before. This is only for the “who are we now?” part, with Jason vocalising beneath it. Towards the end of the song Jason starts to quietly sing in a very high pitched voice, making it hard to tell from the vocalisations of Amelia. More and more walls of sound build up until about 10 seconds of white noise leads it into the next song.
AMELIA FLORENTINE:
I know that I have made a few new friends...
But it’s still too hard to see you again.
And whilst I’ve been here, I’ve come to a natural end...
It’s hard to be back here in cages again.
Who are we now?
Where are we now?
JASON SMITH:
You were...
Vicious, but hate me.
I can take it.
You were...
A goddess.
And now we’re here back in cocoons again...
There will be no peace for you, dear friend...
AMELIA FLORENTINE:
Who are we now?
Where are we now?
Who are we now?
Who...
JASON SMITH:
It’s all going away now.
All going away.
It’s going, going gone.Milk and Vinegar? Milk and Vinegar, okay... a very, very unusual song, yet I believe it to be one of the most unique throughout my entire catalogue, and that’s saying A LOT. It is the first electronic song I’ve ever written, if you can call it electronic. I made the music quite a while ago actually, as an experiment, but I never thought it’d see the light of day. I had a couple of electronic things, and I basically just added loads and loads of noise and sound and atmospherics to it to make it sound like this. I think that it is obvious to anyone who knows me what the lyrics are about... I don’t really wanna go on about it, it’s hard for me to talk about it. Amelia was absolutely brilliant... I mean, I knew her as Maddies cousin, who kept singing her praises, and then she joined Infinite and I checked her out. It was at that point, I knew I had to have her on one of my EPs. I thought Milk and Vinegar would be the perfect song for her to exercise both her vocal and synthesizer ability.
The white noise from the preceding song is still carrying on, and does so for about 10 more seconds. It then begins to fade out slightly into fast paced electronic beats, with storm and wind noises quietly in the background, as well as creepy children’s choir vocalisations. Some light electronic guitar plucking and trance/ techno synths make their way loudly into the mix, whilst you can faintly here what sounds like Jason making a speech in the background. After about 20 more seconds of this, it explodes into a faced paced techno rhythm with a complicated, yet catchy melody that has an almost sardonic sense of happiness to it, much like the title of the song itself. A little break in the melody allows for Eric to sing in his falsetto over the top of a fast electronic beat and still slight sprinklings of synth. Towards the latter end of the mix, you can faintly hear Jason repeating the words of Eric in canon. You can also hear slight industrial twinges lying about. Eric sings through the first verse, giving more of a sense of danger than a sense of depression, as with the last track. After the verse, it then breaks down into trance music, with choirs and symphonic instruments building up in the background, making it sound like an epic part in an action film. This carries on with many different sound effects, vocalisations, samples and obscure instruments weaving in and out of the mix, as the main elements become louder and louder, alongside a massive segment of white noise, which then explodes the whole song in much a similar manner to how it did last. After this white noise, it leaves a repetitive and simple, yet almost epic melody being played on the guitar. Eric then sings in a slightly lower, tantalisingly manic voice for the entirety of this verse, before slower electronic beats start to pulsate heavily in the background. This carries on and builds tension up, until it explodes back into a Pendulum-like fast electronic drum and bass song. This carries the rest of the 1 minute of the song. A majority of the atmospheric ambience has gone by this point and it is just epic drum and bass, with some symphonic elements still retained. It ends with an extended synth note.
ERIC QUILLINGTON:
I thought I saw an angel, but it was only my vanity
I thought I heard a whisper, but it was only my sanity
Leave me with my sins, and leave me with my desires
Because I now realize that I’ll never satisfy the inner fires
If only I could sing, and reap the harvest it would bring
I thought I saw my savior, but it was only another day
I thought I saw eternity, but now I’m old and grey
And when the endless sighs succumb to endless lies
We’ll break down into insects, we’ll ignite into butterflies
If only I could sing, and reap the harvest it would bring.This is probably one of the songs where I stray furthest from anything else I’ve ever done. I’ve made a few drum and bass songs before, but... this is the first one that I’ve felt confident enough to release, mostly because Eric fucking kills on the vocals. This is another track where I’ve had the music lying about for ages... I had to piece it together and add some bits to the mix, but the blueprints were already there. As I said though, this was completely out of my comfort zone. I took a risk and, hopefully, it paid off. As it says, I didn’t actually write the lyrics, but Eric told me what they meant... he was basically a bit disillusioned with the whole Big Brother thing and how, whilst I was knobbing, like, 3 women at a time, he felt a little bitter about everything. I presume that it’s a dark song then. However, I actually came up with the title before hand... it’s a weird way to do things, I know, but I just had this sort of image in my head of something just bursting into masses of butterflies... then again, I was on hallucinogens at the time.
The remnants of the last track fade their way out into a lush, atmospheric soundscape, complete with ambient noises and female vocalisations from Brittany, as well as sparse, extremely airy guitar notes. This carries on for a while until you can start to hear the beginnings of an electronic beat, quite slow and dark, but fast enough to be considered electronica. Eventually all the lush sound effects just cut out completely and without warning, leaving only a beat. Once these beat is aggressively implanted into the head of the listeners, a weird, loud, creepy synthesizer plays a melody which sounds completely alien. Brittany does spacey vocalisations over this point as well, whilst she speaks spoken word on a second layer beneath it. More weird synthesizers viciously plough their way in, alongside more and more vocal layers, and more immense production effects which keep adding to the pile of beautiful noise. This carries on for about a minute, getting the listeners used to the type of song this is. After this, it all cuts out for a second, leaving Brittany to sing the first line of the “meshed in art” part in a reasonably low voice over silence, before everything crashes back into loud trance for the remainder of the verse. Brittany also has yet another vocal layer down further in the mix, of which she continues her Floyd-esque vocalisations. Once it comes to the end of this part, all of the synthesizers cut out, leaving behind a drum beat absolutely drenched in echo and reverb, making it sound literally as if it is from another planet. Brittany proceeds to carry on with the next verse as if it was spoken word, with her vocalisations now sounding more pained and robotic, until they end up completely distorted and unrecognisable. Layer upon layer of electronic soundscaping and atmospherics are introduced to build up the tension of the song. It all builds up perfectly, with a singular cymbal crash ending this segment. A few seconds of quiet atmosphere and eerie silence lead into what sound like low pitched cries of pain from some sort of creature. We are then introduced to Jason again, who speaks the first two parts of his segment in a robotic, Kid A-like voice. There are also glitch elements in here, raising the creepiness even more. For the last two parts of the song, it is still on top of silence, but Jason sings in a high pitched, fairly subtle voice, with only a tiny bit of synth to assist him. It all ends with the tense atmospherics continuing into the next track.
BRITTANY KNOX:
Never forgiven.
Never forgiving.
Ever a slave to the grave in which we all belong...
Ever a sinner, chained to the fence.
These walls.
Meshed in art.
But without heart?
Will we ever know?
Our songs...
With heart, without art,
We could never know.
We must never show,
Our wrongs.
Never forgiven.
Never forgiving.
We could never forget...
Ever a slave to the grave in which we all belong...
Ever a sinner, chained to the fence.
These walls.
JASON SMITH:
(Through this splendour...
I see a stifling vulnerability...
Fame... fortune... ego... arrogance,
Enraptured in delusions in which we all belong!
Encased in plates of purest gold.)
Success lasts for seconds... the future’s forsaken,
Dreams made of glass melt only to vacant...
Eyes out of focus try to see what you told us...
But the world’s on my shoulders.
Success lasts for seconds... the future’s forsaken,
Dreams made of glass melt only to vacant...
Eyes out of focus try to see what you told us...
But the world’s on my shoulders.Don’t get me wrong, I think that this song is amongst the most subtly beautiful I’ve ever done, but I designed it so that it would give you nightmares. It’s creepy as hell and completely different from, not just what I’ve done, but what I think is acceptable in the mainstream. I REALLY tried to push the boundaries on this one. It was a difficult track to make, since it is so unbelievably dense and layered. Plus, some of the sound effects I had to add scared me a little bit. I think that people will really like it though. They’ll be surprised, don’t get me wrong, but they should definitely enjoy it. It’s an exhausting listening experience. I wrote this song out of dissatisfaction with the music scene... certain artists, for example... let’s call her Kissy Mim, just seemed to be coming out of nowhere. They had no real passion... no real enthusiasm... no real talent to be honest. Art and popularity was sorta becoming a blur for me. Anyway, Brittany is utterly phenomenal on this. I don’t even know what I can say about her being on this, you need to listen for yourself. It’s brilliant.
As suggested by the previous track, the atmospherics continue for a while, amongst other sounds such as the oceans crashing and seagulls, as well as the faint sound of people in conversation. You can hear slight intentional glitches in the samples, as well as a slight undertone of electronics. There is now another layer to the background conversation, which is exactly the same, except in a lower pitch, making it feel quite demonic and, not scary, but as with the rest of the EP, very creepy. Out of nowhere, a beautiful and simple melody can be heard on the guitar. It is the same melody from the end of Spit of a Sparrow, except simplified, slowed down and on the acoustic instead of electric. With all the other elements, this sort of gives a good sense of closure to the EP, whilst still making you anticipate the next part. Some arpeggios can be faintly heard on the harp as well as violin strains in the background amongst the wall of ambient soundscape. At about the 1:50 mark, it goes into an accapella part similar to Spit of a Sparrow again. However, there are no lyrics to this time, just vocalisations similar to a lot of the rest of the album. It then cuts out into nothing, ending the EP.
[INSTRUMENTAL]This was basically meant as the beginning of a new chapter in the series and, in a way, in my music. This song has more relevance than people might think. Gone is the old, cock happy, lovable, naive Jason. In comes a new, older, mature and, hopefully wiser Jason. So far, that hasn’t gone too well, but ya know. Maybe it will. It reprises Spit of a Sparrow... that song is what I consider to be the centre point of the entire series and this song almost confirms it. Musically, this is pretty cool too. It’s short, but sweet I believe they say. It has some lovely guitar parts... the most guitar out of any of the tracks on this EP, probably. Some of the ambient parts are similar to what you may find on Still Waters. It’s good closure, methinks.
Edited by user 08 October 2011 08:01:59(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified
