what's it all about?

while i was working on some of the soundtrack demos for 'the killing zone', i spent a lot of time 're-writing' scores to some of my favourite films just to get a feel for where i would have taken mood, which images and actions to pick up on etc...  one of my favourite films is called 'dark city' about a race of strange beings who are carrying out elaborate experiments on the world.  the story is deeply allegorical, and utterly wonderful - and not a little scary.  worth seeing if you missed it so far.

i submitted this piece to 7th12th but they never used it - which is a shame because i think i prefer it to all the other stuff they used!  but that's the film industry for you.

i like the brooding of this track, and it was a real departure for me in terms of a lot of the guitar sounds in the background.  I had to force myself to write that jangly/goth backing - and it was really hard to break my conventions and just play the arpeggios.  even though the end section is quite prolonged, it was more an exercise in textures than structure, and i think the end section works really well and has a lot going on in it that's quite subtle.  the sustained electric tracks are very cool, but a happy accident.  not written that way, but just the way they worked out.

instruments & tone sources

all the guitars are the rock standard ibanez again - this time through a soon afterwards to demise morley wah, then into the sansamp.  all the sounds are variants of gain and pickup position.

the bass is the old squier.  the synths are gr1 i think with some jv1080n piano right at the end.

the simple drum loop is zoom 234 processed up a bit.

some have commented on the satriani feel to this track and i quite like that description, as i've always felt that for tone, there are few to beat satch - even vai - in this respect.

production comments

tricky one to get right as there's so many elements here.  at one point it was the biggest song trackwise on the mac.  it's a fairly simple track to mix if you keep your wits about you, just a loy going on, probably too much in hindsight if we use joe meek's old 5 elements rule of thumb.

again this was recorded on the vs 880 at 16bit so the quality isn't as spot on as it could be and there's obvious stretching of headroom throughout this track.  when i feel inclined, i may go back and record a new 'radio edit' version of this song just to get everything 24bit spotless.