Alaska
Notes on "Alaska"
Songwritten and sung by Allen Anderson (SoundCloud)
Produced, arranged, mixed and mastered by The FURICO Music Team
Guitar: Allen Anderson
Extended Play on SoundCloud:
(Each version is available at the nearly bottom of this page.)
Notation Video on YouTube:
Allen Anderson's Original:
Track Data
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 4 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 4 Professional
Number of tracks: 104(1978-2020),101(2020),87(2020 Version),
72+2（Trans Aleutian Dub）
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Mai-Tai, Mojito (All built-in sound sources of Studio One), TAL-NOIZEMAKER
Composition and Recording period: May 4 2020 - June 29 2020
[The Genesis Of This Collaboration]
(TI writes:)
To begin with, this co-production came about because I was a heavy listener to Allen Anderson's music. We like a lot of different genres of music, and as a listener, we listen to a lot of types of music that we wouldn't be able to create on our own. Anyway, he's a great singer. I loved his singing voice.
And perhaps it was my frequent listening to his music that caught his attention, or maybe he asked me to join him for a "What They offered to create a new song, and we accepted.
As for the songs, since we have completely different songwriting styles, rather than collaborating on a new song, we found that a remake is going to work better. And we agreed on a mutual understanding that the song is fittingly titled "Alaska," one of his most popular songs recorded in 1978.
The procedure was that he gave us the original score, we created the basic track, and then he sang and performed, and again adjusted the arrangements and mixes accordingly.
(TM writes:)
Allen’s original track impressed me with Allen’s rich vocal and its theme of his so pure love to the homeland, which makes me feel Alaska’s peaceful grandeur of the nature as well as the benevolence and serenity of the people and culture (all of which are my imagination). Should the ban on travelling be removed (at present being affected by COVID-19), I really like to visit there someday, especially by air taxi onto Anchorage’s seaplane airport.
[Arrangement]
(TI writes:)
If it had been a reissue of the original, we wouldn't have had to create it.
Rather, we wanted to make it feel far removed from the original, so we created this song as it seemed to be a long way from Alaska, both musically and in terms of distance. We took a motif of Reggae as a form of popular music.
For the basic track, I slowed down the tempo of the original song to give it a grandiose image. I added a string ensemble that has a less harmonic feel to it.
The intro and the middle part are mainly reworked by TM in a different way from the original, and I reworked on the harmony and harmonies of the chord instruments and the original song without destroying it.
The basic premise was that his songs were the star of the show, so the arrangements, including the choice of tones, were made to "make most of his singing and playing".
This time, we had the score and the structure of the song is pops, so creating a basic backing track wasn't that difficult.
And when I played this arrangement for him, he was surprised, but found it interesting and accepted it.
(TM writes:)
What we call “Chilly Reggae”, whatever you may name it, is a composite of reggae, electronic music and FMT’s features. What did Alaska remind me of reggae? Probably because it’s an end of the continent.
On arrangement, my intention was to emphasise the vocals. As Allen starts singing at beat 3 in the first bar of the verse, I wanted to minimise the other tones, which led to the "2 beats on, 2 beats off" pattern.
(Intro)
(Verse)
As shown in the notation, we made the sound "fragmented" so to speak. I often do so like in Would-Have-Beens and Cyber-Excavating The Ruins, which must reflect Scritti Politti's influence on me. But a reggae beat and fragmentation sounds a little bit too well like them, so I differentiated it by using mostly monophonies and dyads.
The intermediate was replaced 100% from the original version, where we put something a little minimal but with full of chord changes. It starts with a pattern of something like GM7, E sus4 add9, G, C# sus4 (or C# dim), all of which are treated as slash chords such as GM7 on E, E sus4 add9, G on A, C# sus4 on A.
Within this intermediate the last 12 bars pizzicato is what I added later as a sentimental and emotional phrase. People are often aware of their love to the homelands when they are gone away, which comes with sentiment. That should be even more so especially if you are forced to keep away like now.
Furthermore, the rhythm is made half time in the intermediate; this idea came from the original version. The whole sound is very different and the groove completely differs, but I hoped to make the original superb idea remain here, aiming at consistency.
Also, the replaced intermediate in the original track is exploited in another way. A part of it moved to the introduction, which was also altered from the original version. As the whole key is the D major and the original version begins with D, I tried to start this version with another note, A, so that the verse vocal can be further highlighted. This introduction was the former guitar solo section.
[Mix]
(TI writes:)
The most difficult part was mixing it with his live music.
We've worked with vocalists and instrumentalists a few times before, but it was about just part of the vocals and guitars, and it was the first time I had ever created a chorus this thick. Also, the artists I've collaborated with before basically work in a DAW and have had no trouble synchronizing.
In contrast, this time, he matched the tempo, but because he sang without using a synchronized signal. The tempo and phrasing was not consistent and I had a hard time matching it.
Ten vocal tracks were used, each with a slightly different tempo and recording conditions tracks to sound coherent.
In contrast, a live performance has a wide acoustic range and a shaky performance.
For example, even if the volume of the vocals is adjusted to the same level, it will not sound consistent due to differences in pitch and pronunciation of the lyrics.
In that case, I'll break it down note by note, lifting the small parts and holding back the big parts, and making sure adjusted it so that we can hear it. However, if you control it too much electronically, the quality of his singing and playing will be lost.
Therefore, we have to be very conscious of the effects, equalizer, and Compressor usage. I think I've learned a lot. This time using Melodyne, which came with Studio One, I did control the singing and performance.
Since there is basically no live music in ours, we can use MIDI to control all the pitches and rhythms I didn't think I'd ever use Melodyne. I had no idea that it was such a useful and easy-to-use tool.
Originally I wanted a clear mix, but it didn't match the sound quality of the vocals, so I decided to use the distortion elements.
I also brought the vocals to the fore and mixed them as big as possible. This is completely personal preference.
We're basically creating instrumental music, but I like music that has a strong vocal sound. In some cases, recent pop music tends to treat vocals as just a part of the mix. Rather, I made those play the vital role as much as I could.
I just want to enjoy the wonder of his singing voice. Truly wonderful.
[For Each Version]
One that reflects his musical tastes and desires to the best of his ability, and one that reflects our tastes, and Since it's Reggae, we wanted an instrumental or dub version.
Several versions were created.
1978-2020
He asked me to include the original 1978 sound at his request, an impressive phrase, voice and so on are sampled and included.
2020
This is the version I made only for this new recording.
2020 (Version)
This is the version without the vocals, which is called "Version" in Reggae or karaoke in Japan.
Trans Aleutian Dub
This is TI's favorite. This Dub mix is inspired by the haze of the North Pacific Ocean, the Aleutian Islands connecting Alaska and Japan . This is a long mix of the sounds used in this version. Reggae has an image of an ocean and an island, but
It's the same ocean, the same island, but with the goofiness of the North Pacific Ocean, which is far from the image of Reggae. However, while the concept is goofy, I'm serious about the mix.
The dub mix was done in Studio One in Jamaica, twirling weed and intuition all at once. I have the impression that it's like mixing it up. But I can't do that very well.
I don't do weed either. The only thing they have in common is the name "Studio One". (My Studio One is digital.)
I have a clear idea of what I want it to sound like, I choose the tracks I want to use, and then I use the effects and I will need to control the equalizer.
For delays and other time-controlled effects, I needed to look at the score and the notes to see if I can control the tempo and frequency calculations, spatial effects such as Pan, equalizers and compressors, etc. For bandwidth-controlling effects I needed to look at the analyzer to make sure that each sound did not have any strange interference. I needed to make a basic mix, mix it down to 2-Mix, and then process it properly.
The basic mix was then created, mixed down to 2 mixes, and then I cut and pasted the master file and tweaked the composition. In other words, I was reminded of the greatness of our amazing predecessors in Jamaica and Britain. Maybe I spent the most time mixing each version of Alaska out of all.
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