In 2010 when I returned home from the Shanghai Biennale where I performed with Zen Lu music to the Isaac Julien's film "Better Life", using different instruments, sometimes DIY boxes and contact microphones I realised that I don't want to use any synthesizers or plugins to create my music. I thought that all soundscapes can be created out of the remains of the sounds which you can hear using the reverbs and delays. I also thought that I can play all sounds myself, or I can use field recordings and try to find all that remaining sounds.
I really like the sound of the tape. It adds this vintage analogue sound to the music, which I really like. I used my old SONY TC-252 tape recorder to add that analogue touch to my recordings. Therefore things I recorded in Ableton were recorded to the tape and again returned to the computer. The fact that the head of the recorder is worn out adds even more old style analogue hiss and sounds which were earlier considered unwanted by many producers.
I also acquired a nice Tascam Porta 07, which was used during the production of the album. I used it to “destroy” the soundscapes I recorded with the “freeze” option of the Reverb effect. The sounds from the tape were processed with the Gleetchlab 3.0.
I started each track with just one sound, and sometimes this sound was transformed so many times, that almost the whole track was made of it. Sometimes I started adding different sounds to get more space. As mentioned before I also recorded many of the tracks into a tape, and than back into the computer to get the characteristic analogue hiss. I like the sound of the traditional instruments, so I recorded many guitar loops and some piano sounds. The things which surrounded me became the source of sound recorded in many different ways.
The first sketch of the album was ready just after a few weeks. Later I started changing things and recording more tracks. When the album was almost ready I experienced a hard rive failure and lost many tracks. Than I recorded a lot of music using only Tascam 4-track tape-recorder. Some of the loops created during that session were also added to the final version of the album.
Although some of the tracks sound more or less experimental, I implemented some melodies into the compositions. I must say, that I am a big fan of harmony and nice melodies, and no matter how hard I try to get rid of them, they simply slip into my tracks and became an integral part of the music.
The mastering of the “Remaining Sounds” was made by my friend Krzysztof Orluk (his latest album “Blurred Reflection” was published by Databloem). Apart from using his new gear, he also used the analogue device created by Andrzej Starzyk (Looptrotter). It is an analogue tube saturation system. It is a stand alone, fully functional device. Thanks to Krzysztof Orluk the album sounds really analogue, just as I intended at the very beginning.
released June 15, 2012
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Instruments and "stuff" used to record the album:
electric guitar, electroacoustic guitar, acoustic guitar, melodica, old battered school piano, wuahn cymbal, chromatic bells, kitchen utensils, chopsticks, paper, nuts in a box, contact microphones, DIY toys, DIY coil, turntable clicks, analogue taperecorder, tascam 4-track taperecorder, field recordings
All tracks written, performed and mixed by Grzegorz Bojanek
Track 2: Clarinet by Michał Kędziora (Noiko)
Mastering: Krzysztof Orluk
Thanks: Evan Sornstein, Jarek Grzesica, Piotr Michałowski, Mateusz Bąkała, Zen Lu, Krzysztof Orluk, Isaac Julien
Special Thanks & Love: Anna, Ben, Jagoda
originally published by
www.dynamophone.com