Neither West, East, North, Nor South
Notes On "Neither West, East, North, Nor South"
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 4 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 4 Professional
Number of tracks: 65
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Mai-Tai, Mojito (All built-in sound sources of Studio One), TAL-NOIZEMAKER
Composition and Recording period: Aug 8 2020 - Sep 6 2020, Mar 4 2021
This track is also a sound track for Sagi Tama's art film called "FUMON 246" (released in June 2021). (As FMT have been frequently asked questions on it, TI has written an explanation as far as he can on the Notes On "FUMON 246".)
[Background]
(TI writes:)
We were asked to provide music for a movie, so we created this music with the idea of a movie.
But the music was not meant to be attached to a movie, but to our music, so we didn't think about the movie at all, we just wondered what would happen if a movie was attached to a track like this.
The track itself was finished in September last year, but we didn't want to release the movie until the following year, so we kept it in stock.
However, as this song is not a music with a movie, I decided to release it without worrying about the timing of the movie release.
[Composition]
(TM writes:)
I am writing this text in March 2021 and cannot remember specifically what I was thinking from August to September 2020. “Neither West, East, North Nor South” is a piece I composed around the period. I just remember the title has been that since the outset.
As it implies, I intended to make music of somewhere in the middle, or music of nowhere. The history of my listening to music last summer shows a variety of musicians like Hindemith, Paco de Lucia, Aditya Prakash, Decoy, DJ Cam, Sandra & Joeroen van Veen & Tamara Rumiantsev, etc. I always save my favourite music pieces at the time into the “2020” or “2021” playlist, by the way. Although I want just a single playlist that includes all, I gave it up because it would be too long.
FMT see all kinds of music in neutral, and it can be said that this track is a symbol of that. Looking back on the notation I first wrote, I found it neither tonal nor atonal, neither chordal nor scale music… very ambiguous. It begins with a simple chord of Bm but the tonality does not last. That implies some oriental scale is being used, but is not actually. I cannot say it’s atonal and scale music for sure.
In terms of chords, there often appear add2 and sus4 chords, which sound a little bit Eastern. The motif on the strings and piano, somewhat along the tonality and chords, sound more Western.
My aim is to generate beauty from such ambiguous features, which is common with the track called “Sound Track One For M To W: The Realm Of Mother Nature.” Also, another track called “Ascending Stairs”, which I was composing in July 2020, is likely to have influenced a little on this track.
(TI writes:)
TM created a classical motif of stringed instruments in 3 time, and I dared to match it with phrases in 4 time and harmonies mainly in long tones.
I also randomly shifted the rhythm and harmony of the regular phrases written by TM. So I think you will not be able to understand the beat.
[Tone and Mixing]
This track was written around 6 months ago, so I was using a previous version of Studio One, which is what I'm using now.
So when I went back to check the mix before releasing it, it was a bit of a struggle to get my head around it. The latest version of Studio One has been updated a lot and has different effects, so it's quite different to the previous version.
For this song, TM specified a lot of the timbres, and I followed that, but I wanted to give it a bit of an electric, industrial feel, as the original had a classical feel to it.
For the electronic sounds, I was thinking of the music of Warp artists from the 90s, like Black Dog and Autechre. The phrases and tones of the ending may have that feel.
In the middle of the track, around the one minute mark, there's a mechanical sound, but that's a photocopier at home. When I was writing this track, my son was copying next to me, and the sound really suited the track, so I just incorporated it. I use the recording function of my smartphone to record live sounds. I used the recording function on my smartphone to record the live sound, and then just imported it into Studio One, set the tempo and equalised it.
I used a record player simulator, VYNAL, on the live instrument samples to give them an unstable pitch.
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