Release : God Moving Over the Face of the Waters (New Orleans Edition)
Overview:
The single God Moving Over the Face of the Waters (New Orleans Edition) is the first release from the Into the Machine collection by Raized by Robotz. It was released on November 8th, 2021.
Music:
Fresco: God Moving Over the Face of the Waters is a Moby composition, ya?
RxR: Yah, I was surprised to learn that fact, although I love Moby. I first knew the song as the outro credit music from the movie, Heat - it's the music that kicks up when De Niro gets smoked at the end of the film.
It wasn't until I was in the process of arranging and recording my version that I looked up the credits for that arrangement and learned Moby penned that one. But Moby is pretty heavy man, he's somebody I'd like to study with or have a coffee with at least.
Fresco: Oh yah, why is that?
RxR: Well, I don't know if you've seen any of his videos of him playing piano in his studio, I mean, he can play his instrument, he's probably got some classical training in there, plus, he's been able to write some pretty magical stuff, and, he's super technically proficient with production and gear. He's just a great modern musician and artist, I guess.
Fresco: Why did you choose that particular song to cover, and as your first release for the Into the Machine collection?
RxR: I always loved that tune, those brilliant chords, simple, but always gave me this "I feel awe" kinda vibe. Very reflective. Plus, I loved that arrangement.
The film version was, I assume, arranged and performed by Kronos Quartet. It has a kinda Steve Reich or Phillip Glass thing going on in there, the arpeggiated counter melodies serving as the backbone of the piece, only in this case, not much phase shifting going on in the melodic content, it's rather static within both the A and B sections of the arrangement. Maybe those composers had an influence on the film arrangement, I don't know for sure. They were in vogue at the time in the conservatoire. I can remember some of the Steve Reich CD's I had back then, Music for 18 Musicians, etc, pretty powerful stuff.
Anyway, I was just getting my studio setup again, after taking a good 8 year sabbatical from recording and performing, and this tune was on my mind. I thought it would be a good challenge for me to experiment with all the parts, applying them to synthesizers, instead of piano and strings, which is the instrumentation in the movie version. This allowed me to take very short melodies, and see what I could get modular synths to do to them. I thought for the first release, I could focus on an interesting arrangement, something the scope of which I could handle, by which I mean, mostly rhythmic content, limited harmony, and no lyrics to write or vocals to record. I had to relearn a ton of aspects, so I didn't want to overwhelm myself, and wanted to produce and see if I still had it in me.
Fresco: The arrangement is intricate. How did you go about the recording process?
RxR: It's not a one to one transfer of the film arrangement, but definitely borrows from it. So at first, I think I put down the ascending and descending triads. Those parts are played between patches on the Arturia PolyBrute and several combinations of Eurorack modules. Several of the parts I just recorded manually using patches from the PolyBrute, so I was at the keyboard for those. And then some of the embellishments are sequenced, using the Intellijel Metropolix.
For the sequenced parts, I know I used both the DixieII+ as well as the Noise Engineering Loquelic Iteritas as sound sources. And then created modulation using the function generation of the Make Noise Maths, which is sort of a jacknife of a module, but one of its main applications is creating interesting LFO's to modify parameters of other modules. And so those LFO's were sweeping either the Z 2040 VCF, a nice filter by TipTop Audio, or modulating parameters on the Make Noise QPAS unit, which itself is a kinda grand stereo filter, and produced those tiny bell-like sounds I was after. Effects there after were... I know I used the Happy Nerding FX AID XL, which can load all kinds of effects, and then the TipTop Audio Z-DSP, which is another nice Eurorack FX unit.
So that's the gist of the signal path I was goofing around with to get all those layered embellishments. I mean, Eurorack is endless, what you can do with it. So for me, I usually either imagine something I need, like some part or embellishment, a sound I'm after, etc. Or if I'm exploring, I find Eurorack is dangerously easy to produce interesting ideas that can form the basis of a whole new tune.
Fresco: In the B sections, there's this strummed instrument ascending and descending on the quarter notes, how did you produce that sound?
RxR: Yah, that's a patch using the Loquelic Iteritas oscillator, passing through I think both the QPAS and the Happy Nerding FX for a bit of delay. There's an example of the Maths unit at play, modulating the frequency of the QPAS. When I stumbled across that sound, it just had a bit more, I dunno, meat, and it fit nicely in that B section. So that sound is all Eurorack modules. The gist of this project is to see what I can produce with just synthesizers, and I’m finding Eurorack to be a pretty refreshing approach.
Fresco: The bass part that enters after the intro is pretty enveloping. Is that the Deckard's Dream?
RxR: No, in fact, I don't think the Deckard's Dream makes an appearance in this arrangement. That is the Prophet REV2; it's a very rich machine. I remember opening up the filter pretty wide on that, and you can really hear the grit coming through. Very rounded attack on the envelope, so kinda that classic synth expressiveness. The chordal pads are also a patch on the Prophet. That is a powerful machine.
Fresco: Yah, definitely powerful in this recording. Now, the song's conclusion is fairly cinematic, very pretty, very legato phrasing on the melodic content, in contrast to the rhythmic melodic content of the A/B sections earlier. What's producing that sound, and why did you choose to go that route for the conclusion?
RxR: Uhh, well, that's a tip of the hat to the film score. The soundtrack version of Heat that I have, the end of God Moving Over the Face of the Waters bleeds into this theme from the movie, and so I was just picking some content from that section and improvising. I played all that on the Arturia PolyBrute, which is an amazing instrument for creating lush pads, cinematic for sure, as you say. You can hear the sweep of the filter in that CODA section there, just amazing! So yah, I think I just improvised for a good half an hour, hit record, and did that whole section in one go. I mean the PolyBrute is an amazing instrument. If I was a better piano player, I think I could subdue the world with that machine. I remember listening back to the take, and letting it fade out, and standing there looking at the PolyBrute, thinking "What are you?". Beautiful synth.
Fresco: Wait, so you said earlier you took 8 years out from recording and performing?
RxR: Yah, about that.
Fresco: Why?
RxR: It's a long story I guess, for another time.
Listen:
Listen to God Moving Over the Face of the Waters (New Orleans Edition) by Raized by Robotz.