La face cachée du rêve (Titalee + FMT + The Windscale Blues Experiment)
Notes on "La face cachée du rêve (Titalee + FMT + The Windscale Blues Experiment)"
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6 Professional
Number of tracks: 100
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One, Maitai (All built-in sound sources of Studio One) , vocals by Emma Jack , percussion by Marie La Berlue, and tenor sax by The Windscale Blues Experiment
Composition and recording period: Mar 1 2023 - May 22 2023
Composed by Emma Jack/Titalee
Lyrics by Marie La Berlue/Titalee
Vocals by Emma Jack/Titalee
Musical instruments (excluding tenor sax) by Emma Jack & Marie La Berlue/Titalee
Tenor sax by The Windscale Blues Experiment
Totally arranged & mixed by FMT
Music as a reproductive art / a single work of art that continues to be updated at different times, places and by different people
(TI writes:)
With the availability of recording and the ability to reproduce recordings, music has taken on the aspect of reproduction as an art form.
The music reaches individual listeners and is listened to in the space and environment where they exist, and the music is overwritten with the memories and emotions of each individual, transcending place and time, reproduced and re-produced in a variety of forms.
Past and present, reality and fiction, parallel experiences in different places intermingle and dissipate.
Composition/Collage
(TI continues:)
This song is inspired by Titalee's 'La face cachée du rêve', and the composition of the song itself is almost identical to the original version of the same song, although there is a sax solo part by The Windscale Blues Experiment (WBE) after the break.
However, apart from the original version, there are four other songs that I am aware of (some of them may be unconsciously underlying), and they continue simultaneously.
In other words, it's like playing five songs from the turntable at the same time, collage other sounds on top of them from time to time and mix them together.
So, depending on the listener and the point of listening, the impression and genre of the songs seem to differ.
However, the basic melody and harmony are the original Titalee, and the beat is the rhythm & bass and sequence created by TM, and everything progresses on them.
Blurring of boundaries
(TI continues:)
I was influenced by this flow of 'different songs running simultaneously', such as in the work of P.K. Dick (e.g. The Man in the High Castle), where stories between characters that are completely unconnected are running in parallel.
Like the novels he writes, the stories and characters are not necessarily connected to each other, but are parallel ensemble dramas in different spaces and times. It is a sense in which the boundaries between the real and the fake, reality and fiction become blurred.
When I listen to music, I often find connections between genres that are completely unconnected and try to combine them.
However, if this goes too far, the piece will fail as a piece of music, and if the connection is too obvious or blatant, it will be boring. As I went back and forth between these boundaries, I settled on this form.
As a result, even in this piece, there are many places where I myself am not sure what is original and what is a quote. However, the combination and balance of the various materials in this song can clearly be said to be my own original.
Lyrics / House Music / Blues for Replicants by Synthetic Gene / Tamara de Lempicka
(TI continues:)
Inspired by 'Sans chagrin pas de joie suivons le tempo' and 'Explore la face cachée du rêve', which are thought to be key phrases in the original Marie lyric, and cut-up lines from various songs, films and dramas. collages, giving them different (multiple) meanings that she probably did not intend.
One is a major theme in early 'House Music' (dance music for marginalised minorities) (Let's immerse ourselves in the beat (and dance) in a world without sorrow or joy.)
The other is the image of the dreams and memories (Explore the hidden side of the dream) of the characters in P.K. Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (the replicants in the film Blade Runner).
It is also reminiscent of the life of Tamara de Lempicka, a female painter who defected from Russia to France.
The lyrics of this song are what particularly attracted me to it. Therefore, a lot of care has been taken to integrate the sound aspects with the lyrics.
At first listen, it may sound like there is no connection between the sound effect or collaged lines and the original lyrics, but I always make some kind of connection.
Production Process
(TI continues:)
The initial idea was to create a dance version of La face cachée du rêve with an increased tempo.
Based on the rhythm, bass and basic sequence phrases created by TM, I created a temporary track with an increased vocal tempo taken from the original song, and left it as it was.
Later, on a whim, I tried modulating this temporary vocal track with a vocoder, and it sounded very good (I didn't think Emma's voice could ride the vocoder so beautifully), and I liked it, but I didn't get any ideas for what to do with it after that, so I left it as it was.
In the process, I discovered that BPM 100 is the basic tempo of Funk, and that the commonality of the structure of the one-chord progression allows it to be combined with various classic songs from the past, so I cut up the beats and voices from various songs.
I wanted to add a Sax like Maceo Parker's in JB's to it, and when I approached WBE, they agreed and sent me a great solo.
At first the rhythms were patched together from various songs, but in the end I narrowed it down to just TM's original rhythms.
I also used all the sounds from Titalee's original version and the version I provided to Titalee as FMT.
All I did for this is just...
(TM writes:)
After we made the "Remix 2" version, I heard from TI that Titalee suggested some dance version of this work be great. At that moment, I thought, "yes, yes, I agree! I see what you mean. It's something like this, isn't it?" In a few minutes I finished re-arrangement on MuseScore, our regular notation software. It was that quick because I just changed the tempo and that was it.
I loved that "re-arranged" dance version, but I wasn't sure if we could release it because it resembled the Remix 2 -- no, those were almost identical except only for the tempo. Despite my minimum change it was completely different, though.
But then, after a while, TI gave life into it, which was great -- I mean, TI's eccentricity is reflected very well in it. It's "chaotic" not musically but in terms of... how can I say... sociological interpretations. WBE's sax solo is fantastic as well, and gave even more life into it.
(After reading this comment, TI told me that I was more eccentric in his view. Although comparison doesn't make any sense, both of us are so and the ways each of us is eccentric are quite different, in conclusion.)
Even though I like TI's remixing or dub works so much, there has been little room for such endeavour in FMT's recent works, since those aim at something natural with FMT's unique methods. I think and told TI the other day that he should go for this direction further in various ways.
Anyway, what I wanted to say here is that all I did for this version is to quicken the tempo and that was my huge contribution -- the former is true while in the latter, no, I'm just joking.
Sax solo part from The Windscale Blues Experiment
(TI continues:)
I told him just to "blow around like Maceo Parker from JB's", and he somehow put a great solo exactly where I thought it would be cool to have a saxophone here.
(It's a tenor sax solo, not the alto sax that Maceio Parker plays, at his discretion).
Also, the original song is in Em Scale, but in the middle of the song I started playing Em Major in parallel, and he responded to that and put in a solo with a solid E Major Scale.
The rhythm of the solo responds to the Rhythm and the break, and it breathes perfectly with the virtual rhythm section (however, there was a mistake in the mix, the length of the files did not match, and it was very difficult to get them to line up. (We had to analyse the provisional mix he created to work out the timing and match it up).
Emma's singing, Marie's Percussion and lyrics, WBE's wonderful saxophone solo as well as past songs converge and spread FMT rhythms and phrases in the same format.
Message to Emma Jack/Titalee
(TI continues:)
Hi! Emma!
I made a remix, or rather a remake Version, based on the motif of the 'slightly faster tempo Morning Raga' that I sent to you before.
It deviates greatly from your production intention, for which I apologise:)
Originally, as a dance version, I was experimenting with a Funk, Hip Hop approach to the rhythm, but the line I quoted at the time (repeated in the second half of the song), 'synthetic genetic', inspired me to change the lyrics of the original song to 'The replicants are singing, I tried to read it as 'blues for replicants'.
Then the voice 'Dap with record' used throughout was also interpreted as 'record/memory' and came to be seen as a cyberpunk novel.
The subtitle is an homage to P.K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (not sure if the French is correct).
Your voice is a robot voice at first, but it switches to your voice halfway through. That's another aspect of 'Androgynous' and 'Genderless Replicant' that I'm aware of.
Please listen to it first:)
Thank you!
(Note that the intro and the lines are homages to the structure of famous songs that are instantly recognisable if you like hip-hop, but the beat and the song itself are Original:)
TI/FMT
Here is her response to this.
"I think you are a little crazy my friend! I guess you had a lot of fun very interesting version, maybe a little long for many people but so surprising."
She is very correct. She understands me precisely.
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