(electronic/post-rock) New free album: Unforgotten

[adfielding]

Ever since 2016 I've been working on a selection of music that, until now, never saw the light of day. Over the years it's been through several iterations, and I've grown (perhaps unreasonably) attached to it as a body of work. For whatever reason, I could never really find the right time to release it. Given the current state of the world at large, I thought the most positive thing I could do right now would be to finally release it. So that's what I did.

I'm still working on making it available for streaming outside of Bandcamp, but right now you can stream & download it in the format of your choice via my Bandcamp page.

As far as what it sounds like, it relies a bit more on organic/live instrumentation than a lot of my more recent releases, though it's still primarily an electronic album. In a way I think it works as a neat companion piece to one of my earlier albums called Pieces, and I think the spontaneous nature of its original creation had a bit to do with that.

The bulk of the album was made using Reason, though as a consequence of it being produced before VST support was a thing I ended up using Studio One to sequence certain elements (which were then bounced and brought into Reason). Funny how things have changed! That said, I ended up bringing a lot of that stuff over from Studio One once VST support became available in Reason to give myself a bit more control over proceedings.

I'd love to know what you think of it if you decide to give it a spin, and I hope you're all staying safe wherever you are. Cheers

[EdwardKiy]

Sounds great, but a bit too slow for my personal taste. Probably what you were going for anyway. Music on!

[Auryn]

So I took a listen to this in its entirety, and here's just some fairly random comments/observations:

I came here pretty much straight from watching a Doom Eternal video on youtube, and in terms of atmosphere and intensity the first track slid right in there without much of a break in musical atmosphere. Only everything is slowed down to a very solemn pace, like I'm watching the final boss fight in extreme slow motion. Breaking News: in a shocking turn of events, Adam Fielding, musician, has revealed himself to be The Destroyer.

I think the album art is aptly chosen as during most of the album I felt like I was standing on top of a precipice, surveying a great cataclysm below me, a beautiful but also deadly collapse. I am an awestruck but otherwise mostly impartial observer in this, taking stock of the passing of things, but hardly understanding it at a human level. So far, I'd say that's music for the times indeed.

There were some deviations from this general picture. In particular I found 'Slight Decline' to be fairly uplifting highlight. I suppose a slight decline is in some way preferable to a collapse, so the name still fits. "Rural Chill" I liked as well, both of these tracks remind me of those few "slight glimmer of hope" tracks that FSOL dotted throughout "Dead Cities".
There was also a track with a 4/4 beat, Sunset something, which I found less successful (the track sounds ok but the beat feels like a fairly dry and rudimentary club house/garage type beat that clashed with the rest of the track/album). In fact, I would like to solicit "Sunset Something" as my 2-word review.

Of the longer, grander tracks I liked the best:
-"Takes me Back" Awesome broken-style beat makes the rhythm here feel exciting. If this is what takes you back, make what takes you forward next.
-"The Great Spark" The ever-so-slightly ravey synths here gave the track a slow-motion-prodigy type feel.

Not so good:
-"Look beyond The Past": if there's one general criticism of your music I would have, is that with the grand vistas comes a certain emotional distance. On your best tracks, it's not a problem because there's more than enough there for the music to be very engaging. But on this track: yeah... it's kind of trite, listless, new agey even. It's like you sending your best mate a big, expensive, glossy postcard with dolphins and "best of luck, Adam" written on it, after his dog just died. Ok, that's kind of harsh but I'm trying to articulate the quality of what is lacking here, rather than the extent to which it is.

Overall though, this was an excellent album. A lot of skill and attention clearly went into sound design and mixing, that part is spectacular. I don't always find it engaging on an emotional level (this is mostly down to taste) but when I do it is inspiring, evocative, beautiful, and (indeed) timely. Well done! (I realize this might be interpreted as damning with faint praise, so let's just say that if you cut "Sunset..." and "Look Beyond..." I wouldn't hesitate to call it "Superb")

edit: made it nicer

[Leighbeater]

Nice sounds used
Are you playing the guitar for the guitar sounds?
What about the drums? What are you using for those?

[Wav-E]

great Album ,good job,
I like the guitar and the drums, the ambient parts are also cool, thanks for sharing.

[adfielding]

Sounds great, but a bit too slow for my personal taste. Probably what you were going for anyway. Music on!

No worries, sorry to hear it wasn't your cup of tea - but thanks for giving it a go!

So I took a listen to this in its entirety, and here's just some fairly random comments/observations:

Blimey, thanks for the detailed write-up - lots to unpack there! Thanks for taking the effort to put that together, I really appreciate it!

Really interesting to hear that you're not too keen on Sunset Wonderland and Look Beyond The Past in particular, I've sent the album to a few people as I've been working on it over the years (I like to pester), and SW tends to be a bit of a Marmite track. I uploaded LBTS to Soundcloud a while ago and people seemed to really like it - personally, I thought it worked as a nice breather in the album before going back to the more guitar-oriented tunes, but I can totally get why it might not resonate in the same way as some of the other tunes. SW is also an interesting tune in that it's pretty much the only "full" track that didn't change at all from the 2016 demo to the current release.

I'm really glad you mentioned Rural Chill as well, I'm really pleased with how that turned out despite being a shorter "interlude" of sorts - again, that's another tune that didn't really change from the original demo.

Once again I really appreciate you taking the time to put together such a thorough write-up of the album, and I'm glad that you liked it for the most part. Cheers!

(also I spent last weekend playing through Doom Eternal and completing it... absolutely bloody loved it!)

Nice sounds used
Are you playing the guitar for the guitar sounds?
What about the drums? What are you using for those?

Thanks! The guitars are me, a lot of the tracks were written very shortly after I picked up my first 7-string - so a lot of it was recorded while I was very much still figuring out the shift from 6 to 7 strings The acoustic drums are mostly Superior Drummer 2 with additional drum triggers layered on top, and a lot of the electronic drums are samples bounced from DrumSpillage (which is a fantastic drum soft-synth).

great Album ,good job,
I like the guitar and the drums, the ambient parts are also cool, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for checking it out, I'm glad you liked it!

[Auryn]

Blimey, thanks for the detailed write-up - lots to unpack there! Thanks for taking the effort to put that together, I really appreciate it!

Really interesting to hear that you're not too keen on Sunset Wonderland and Look Beyond The Past in particular, I've sent the album to a few people as I've been working on it over the years (I like to pester), and SW tends to be a bit of a Marmite track. I uploaded LBTS to Soundcloud a while ago and people seemed to really like it - personally, I thought it worked as a nice breather in the album before going back to the more guitar-oriented tunes, but I can totally get why it might not resonate in the same way as some of the other tunes. SW is also an interesting tune in that it's pretty much the only "full" track that didn't change at all from the 2016 demo to the current release.

I'm really glad you mentioned Rural Chill as well, I'm really pleased with how that turned out despite being a shorter "interlude" of sorts - again, that's another tune that didn't really change from the original demo.

Once again I really appreciate you taking the time to put together such a thorough write-up of the album, and I'm glad that you liked it for the most part. Cheers!

(also I spent last weekend playing through Doom Eternal and completing it... absolutely bloody loved it!)

You're welcome! I was a bit stoned while listening/writing and I tend to ramble then... but really some of this tracks wouldn't be entirely out of place on the doom soundtrack. When the first guitar wall hit I was like "damn somebody really managed to piss off Adam Fielding! He seemed like such a friendly bloke in his picture..."

I picked out the two shorter "interlude" type tracks because I felt they really worked well as more intimate counterpoints to grand spectacle of the bigger tracks.

I'd be interested to hear what made you "sit on" this album for so long by the way? Is there a particular aspect you were struggling to be satisfied with?

[adfielding]

I'd be interested to hear what made you "sit on" this album for so long by the way? Is there a particular aspect you were struggling to be satisfied with?

That's actually a really, really good question, and one I haven't really consciously thought about at any great length so apologies in advance for the rambling

I guess a bit of it comes down to intent. I have a bit of a semi-regular tradition of writing as much music as I can in October without any set goal in mind, and this started life as one of those so-called "October Sessions". This is why I wasn't too worried about the 2016 demos being a bit rough around the edges - that sort of goes with the territory. But, at the time, it wasn't really written with any sort of release in mind. So, that was the first thing.

However, unlike my other October Sessions-material, this was written & recorded right before I moved house. I wasn't able to get any real work done for about a month afterwards due to pesky real-life stuff, and when I came back to it I realised "hey, I really want to clean this up". So I did. Then, instead of releasing it, I started working on something else. This basically became a bit of a vicious cycle, and there came a point in 2018 where I started thinking "do I even want to release this?" as it didn't really reflect the kind of thing I was doing at the time, and the temptation to update everything with newer sounds and production techniques kept creeping in like this weird sort of musical feature-creep. So I shelved it.

Then, several projects later, I came back to it in early 2019. Turns out a bit of distance from it gave me a fresh perspective, and I was actually really happy with it as an album. I also had a couple of additional tracks that I thought would slot really nicely in there to help round it out, so I started playing with the track-list. Once I got to that point I sort of realised that it was definitely shaping up to be a "proper" release, so I started to run with it... and then, for some reason, I didn't release it. It just wasn't gelling quite the way I'd hoped, and I was a bit bummed about it not all fitting together quite how I wanted it to. So I shelved it again.

2020 rolls around, and I decide to start messing about with it again (bear in mind it's been through at least 4 revisions by this point!). I'd recently picked up an Analog Heat (which I absolutely bloody love), and decided to try using it as a post-mix tool here... and, wouldn't you know it, it gave it that "glue" that I thought was missing before! So, sometime around the start of March, I commit to releasing it. I figure out some artwork, pencil in a bit of time to work out a proper release schedule and strategy... and then COVID-19 happens. I start thinking about the release details and this thought creeps in: what's stopping me from just releasing it now?

I saw NIN release Ghosts V & VI out of the blue, and so I mention to a few musical friends that I've got this album that's totally release ready that I'm thinking of just releasing. One of them gets back to me and says (paraphrasing) "staying creative and productive is the most positive thing artists can do right now. The world is craving some sense of comfort and connection, perhaps even temporary escape"... and that was the last push. I released it the next day.

And there we go, the (somewhat protracted) version of why it took me so long to release it!

[Auryn]

However, unlike my other October Sessions-material, this was written & recorded right before I moved house. I wasn't able to get any real work done for about a month afterwards due to pesky real-life stuff, and when I came back to it I realised "hey, I really want to clean this up". So I did. Then, instead of releasing it, I started working on something else. This basically became a bit of a vicious cycle, and there came a point in 2018 where I started thinking "do I even want to release this?" as it didn't really reflect the kind of thing I was doing at the time, and the temptation to update everything with newer sounds and production techniques kept creeping in like this weird sort of musical feature-creep. So I shelved it.

Then, several projects later, I came back to it in early 2019. Turns out a bit of distance from it gave me a fresh perspective, and I was actually really happy with it as an album. I also had a couple of additional tracks that I thought would slot really nicely in there to help round it out, so I started playing with the track-list. Once I got to that point I sort of realised that it was definitely shaping up to be a "proper" release, so I started to run with it... and then, for some reason, I didn't release it. It just wasn't gelling quite the way I'd hoped, and I was a bit bummed about it not all fitting together quite how I wanted it to. So I shelved it again.

Wow this part is so recognizable (about wanting to update with new stuff/revise and then shelving again). Might be a sound designer occupational hazard. Needless to say I run into the same problem quite regularly. (on soundcloud you can update the sound files on already-released tracks which arguably makes it worse)

2020 rolls around, and I decide to start messing about with it again (bear in mind it's been through at least 4 revisions by this point!). I'd recently picked up an Analog Heat (which I absolutely bloody love), and decided to try using it as a post-mix tool here... and, wouldn't you know it, it gave it that "glue" that I thought was missing before! So, sometime around the start of March, I commit to releasing it. I figure out some artwork, pencil in a bit of time to work out a proper release schedule and strategy... and then COVID-19 happens. I start thinking about the release details and this thought creeps in: what's stopping me from just releasing it now?

Hmm Analog Heat, never heard of it... ah some kind of hardware processor! So would you recommend this to someone who doesn't have any hardware, as a kind of "mojo box"?

Anyway good thing you released it!

[adfielding]

Wow this part is so recognizable (about wanting to update with new stuff/revise and then shelving again). Might be a sound designer occupational hazard. Needless to say I run into the same problem quite regularly. (on soundcloud you can update the sound files on already-released tracks which arguably makes it worse)

It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't already been through the same thing with another album! Not quite to the same degree, but I ended re-mixing one of my earlier albums and sprinkling it with Rack Extensions when they became a thing... evidently I just have issues with musical feature creep (in my defence, in that instance it was very much the right call!).

2020 rolls around, and I decide to start messing about with it again (bear in mind it's been through at least 4 revisions by this point!). I'd recently picked up an Analog Heat (which I absolutely bloody love), and decided to try using it as a post-mix tool here... and, wouldn't you know it, it gave it that "glue" that I thought was missing before! So, sometime around the start of March, I commit to releasing it. I figure out some artwork, pencil in a bit of time to work out a proper release schedule and strategy... and then COVID-19 happens. I start thinking about the release details and this thought creeps in: what's stopping me from just releasing it now?

So would you recommend this to someone who doesn't have any hardware, as a kind of "mojo box"?

I love it! I'm very much an in-the-box kind of guy (and, handily, Overbridge keeps things seamless in that regard), but I've never come across a software equivalent that has the same "depth" to it - to me it just sounds right. I read a few user reviews mentioning that they didn't find it so great for master-bus processing, but I was fortunate enough to have some hands-on time before picking one up and I was very happy with the results I was getting using the clean boost circuit. I mean... it's not going to make a terrible mix sound great, but I think it's done a great job in making my tracks sound "finished" to the point where I use it on pretty much everything now. As a creative tool it's fantastic as well, it's become a regular staple in my sound design sessions.