Ether DiverMar 23, 2023

We're coming to the end of my #PsychedelicGhostStories #ProductionDiary but first we have to get through the most important track of all: "The Madman Drowns In the Same Waters In Which the Mystic Swims with Joyful Ease."

It's the centerpiece and climax of the whole album, and while I didn't perfectly execute it, I think it's the closest representation I've got yet to what I am ultimately trying to achieve musically speaking.

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https://etherdiver.bandcamp.com/track/the-madman-drowns-in-the-same-waters-in-which-the-mystic-swims-with-joyful-ease

The Madman Drowns In the Same Waters In Which the Mystic Swims with Joyful Ease, by Ether Diver

from the album Psychedelic Ghost Stories

Ether Diver
Show threadEther DiverMar 23, 2023

The title is a twist on a Joseph Campbell quote (if you google my title, you'll find the OG quote). It's long been a favorite of mine as a longtime enthusiast of deliberately triggered mystical experiences. When I fed it to the #AIOracle, it spit out this magnificent bastard, and it felt predestined that this was going to Be An Important One for the album.

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Show threadEther DiverMar 23, 2023

Uhhh, that even looks a bit like me LOL

Of course, knowing this was probably the key track of the album meant that there was a lot of pressure to get it right. As a result, this was one of the last tracks I started on. By the time I actually started it, I had a pretty good idea where to start, and a bunch of stuff in mind I wanted to include. How it was all going to work together, I had no idea.

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Show threadEther DiverMar 23, 2023

When I *did* start, I started with the same thing the track currently sounds with: fake "water" sounds. Noise through filters, mostly, especially #QPAS. I wanted to give the impression of a seaside without actually using recordings of such (although later, in the #ProductionPhase, I did add some cassette recordings of surf, mixed low). The idea was to make it close...but not quite right. Off. Weird. Unsettling, even.

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Show threadEther Diver

I came up with lots of little bits for this one, then stitched them all together. I actually constructed it as three separate sequences in the #MPC, working on them almost like separate compositions, then eventually putting them all together. It was a little weird working that way at first, but it definitely helped me conceptualize and execute the flow of the song.

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Mar 23, 2023 at 5:44amWeb
Show threadEther DiverMar 23, 2023

Musically, the melody and the bass came first -- melody from the #opsix and the bass from the #Hydrasynth. The crazy synth pad/vocalesque thing that dominates the back half of the song is also Hydra. #MiniBrute2s provides some analog plucks throughout. Lots and lots of #Foley in this one, most of it stuff I created myself, including a rainstorm I recorded by sticking my #Zoom recorder in the window well.

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Show threadEther DiverMar 23, 2023

The final key element I haven't mentioned is a #Morphagene based #ModularPatch that I used to create a performance of an old #FieldRecording I made of some kids on a tire swing. It blended in amazingly well with the wild vocal pad-meets-didgeridoo sounds that most of the track hinges on.

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Show threadEther DiverMar 23, 2023

Oh, should mention the water theme came into play during sequencing too, when I realized it made perfect sense for the river to flow into the seas (the previous track is "Dream Vessels on the River of Time" and this one starts with seaside sounds, of course). That made me happy.

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Show threadEther DiverMar 23, 2023

There's quite a bit layered in here and I would have loved to keep going, but deadlines! I could have spent a year carefully layering things into this LOL. It was pretty fun to work on. I like the groove that runs through it, I like how wild it gets while that groove still insistently winds its way thru the insanity. I do wish I could have developed it just a *bit* more, but hey, art isn't finished, it's abandoned, yadda yadda.

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Show threadEther DiverMar 23, 2023

I've mentioned from time to time that various tracks are my attempt to do something in the style of some genre or artist, and this is my #TheOrb track. I was fan since 92 or so, and I loved their weird, longform excursions into psychedelic dub and spacey downtempo. I think I got as close as I care to get, meaning it's still my track but it does nod toward the Orb in a way that is recognizable to me... and maybe to you? LMK!

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Show threadEther DiverMar 23, 2023

And I think that's about it for this one... Guess I'll append another post if I think of anything else. As always, happy to answer questions about this or any other track any time I can.

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