THU20, third session

Sunday, October 4, THU20 once again visited the EARLabs studio. Aside from catching up with friends it was a great musical experience. After the previous session I had made some alternative mixes of the first part of the composition which were closely scrutinized. The first 15 seconds were slightly changed and was then left for the time being. We worked on the second part which was already half way through (more harmonic, rhythmical), and made some modifications there (of course).  The middle/second part consists of loop-like sounds and back up with a.o. some bass guitar sounds (since Jacques/DMDN is now playing bass in metal band Bünkür, we were pleased with his contribution). Next it was important to get an idea about the finale. That would give us a sense of the length and forced us to decide about structure.

After some deliberations (see picture) we decided to do a tape cut up session. I rigged up my old Akai reel-to-reel. We recorded the first 5 minutes of the piece and then spliced the tape into five different sections, which in themselves were spliced into pieces of various length. Next was the recombining part. Purposely we worked quite roughly with blanks and overlaps. Unfortunately the result was a bit disappointing (not quite the Williams Mix all of us had in mind) so, after we transfered everything back into the computer we had to do some extensive extra editing. Still, it provided us with material to let the piece go out with a bang :). And it really bangs, I tells ya.

The current version takes approximately 12.5 minutes. We then decided to call it a day and go get some good Chinese meal. We exchanged discs and tapes and had a good laugh. That's what it's actually all about: having a good time together.

As usual I got some good ideas for the piece the day after, so our next session (to be scheduled) I'll have my proposal ready. Perhaps I'll upload some sketches this week, since I'll be gone next weekend for a trip into Germany, visiting no less than seven museums in the neighbourhood of Essen, Duisburg and Dusseldorf. If anyone wants to meet up: mail me.