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9/2/10

Side Project: The Great Nothing

To blow off some creative steam while the The Golden Vine slowly coalesced, I decided to buy a bare bones copy of protools and put together an ambient / doom side project to give my OWM writing skills a rest. Sometimes the best way to get fire up your creative energy is to do something new and totally unrelated to what you're accustomed to do.

I'm very pleased with the result of this project, and I feel very revitalized to start writing for our next album already.

The Great Nothing is a 20 minute, four movement piece about the creeping of nihilism that haunts our steps towards improving the world. Time coldly erases all. It is about facing the part of ourselves that wants us to fail at any cost. It is a scary piece, for sure, but ends with hope. The fight can never be won but we must fight regardless, for all we have is our actions. We must be good.

We must be good.

In this song, I play using only guitars I've built (a doubleneck bass/guitar and a p bass), my voice droning, and sound effects from objects in my reach including a squeaky chair and a computer keyboard. I avoided doing multiple passes on each track to correct mistakes, it felt better with chopped and chipped notes. The musical lines are threads of thought, attempting to make sense of The Great Nothing, with imperfect results. No matter, minute details are of little importance. It's about the journey, and it's about the cause.

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This EP/really-long-song is best administered in a quiet room with headphones. I made the track downloadable so you can carry it to wherever would be best to listen to it.
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It's a personal journey.

I won't name the movements. I won't explain the stories behind each section. I won't impose any more meaning beyond what I've said.

Like all of life's experience, it's only you who can imbue it with ultimate meaning.

It's a personal journey.
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http://soundcloud.com/derekowm/great-nothing

4 comments:

  1. This was pretty good for an ambient album. I liked the Blaster Beam-ish sounds at about 3:00, and some of the calmer sections reminded me of Robert Fripp's soundscapes work like The Gates of Paradise.

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  2. Thanks Aaron! That's me hitting the strings near the bridge pickup with a broken tuner, then doubling the part. I went into this doing it just for the hell of it, so I'm glad you gave it the time to listen.

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  3. Just finished it; very nice! So, that was your voice all the way through? Ending with little prose on The Great Nothing was a poetic wrap up of a great listen. The very slow deep droning sound was also distorted vocals? Anyway, really liked it.

    Are there any OWM songs that don't have the growling/gutteral vocals? I like metal/doom, but I just cannot find a way to enjoy those sounds.

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  4. Thanks Matt! Yep, that was me just doing nasal drones all the way through, then adding lots and lots of reverb and distortion. I've been looking for something to do with that short little poem for a while, and this song finally seemed to be the right place to put it.

    There's going to be a little singing / shouted talking on our EP, but it's mostly screams and growls. You might be out of luck, haha.

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