Release : Robotz in the Sky
Overview
Robotz in the Sky is the second release from the Into the Machine collection, and dropped on all major streaming platforms on December 25th, 2021.
Storyline:
A short story of love lost in the time of robotz, the protagonist loses the love of her life, and flies away heartbroken. Clearly something happened, presumably something bad, but we don't know what transpired to bring about the loss and the need to flee.
Music:
The piece heavily features Black Corporation's Deckard's Dream MKII - a wonderful clone of the legendary Yamaha CS80, the synthesizer at the heart of the postapocalyptic soundscape of Vangelis' 1983 Blade Runner soundtrack. "I'm interested in that sound, very rich, but also icy and dispassionate. The definitive sound of dystopia".
Tango: How is the Deckard's Dream used in Robotz in the Sky?
RxR: I wanted the Deckard's Dream to be the centerpiece of the song, and it's definitely dominant in the palette. It's playing the chordal pads, it's the searing lead you hear in the bridge, and doubles the bass in the coda for extra drama. The tuning can be a challenge with the Deckard's Dream, but what a sound!
Tango: Were you using a bloom effect on the Deckard's Dream?
RxR: No. For the chordal pads, which you can hear clearly during the intro of the track before the singer comes in, the patch was off the panel [custom], I don't think I saved it [shrugs]. I think I used two cards per voice [a setting in the Deckard's Dream] to get as many of the synth's voices playing at once. And then I ran it through a Source Audio Collider set to shimmer, with the feedback cranked up. And while recording, I'd play the chords with one hand and drive the feedback after the downbeat by riding the output of the synth. The resulting effect created these sort of shimmery feedback waves, and I just rode the waves by ear, roll your own bloom, I guess.
Tango: I think I hear a Moog in there.
RxR: Three, actually. I think the secret star of the song is the Moog Minitaur. I think the whole piece became a bass solo in slow motion for the Moog Minitaur [laughs]. I applied a super slow LFO arc to the filter on the Minitaur, which just happened to crest at key moments in the song - happy accident kind of thing. So the whole character of the bass is developing throughout the entire song, and the Moog filter slowly eats you, without you noticing - that angry, gritty Moog sound slowly takes over the spectrum, and plays a sort of metaphor for the pain of loss, and how it slowly corrupts the heart. I'm pretty certain I ran it through a strymon Big Sky, maybe on the room reverb setting, I think.
The chorus melody is played by the Moog Mother 32 run through a digital delay. I wanted to break the heavy, motorous monotony of the Eb to C- vamp of the verses with something more humorous, with like, Muppets for background singers". Mission accomplished, it’s got that Mos Eisley sound. "Thanks, those cats were hip!.
Tango: An ostinato outlines the song's very pensive chord progression, it's lumbering along in a static 8th-note pattern.
RxR: It's played by a Korg Minilogue XD, powered by a sequencer. I was looking for something a bit more snappy, sort of skippy, to provide some irony and anchor the tune, and to fight against the melancholy drag of the Deckard’s Dream. For that patch, I think I started with a preset and mucked about with the settings, the filter and its onboard effects, until I got something percussive with a fast acting envelope on the filter. It lines up with the percussion part played by the Moog DFAM - the third Moog appearance - which I added later, and doubled-up using an echo effect. The bass drum is generated by the Mutable Instruments Plaits - that unit can sound like a Tom Waits drunken percussion ensemble, love that thing!
Tango: Additional percussion embellishments are marking time throughout the piece, are those samples?
RxR: No, those are real - items from my tickle-trunk. Those are Afgani finger cymbals and Indian Elephant bells [cowbells for elephants] - I wanted to mix the analog synth scape with old World percussion. I'm not too keen on the overheads I used to record those, so I'll probably redo those in the collection release later this year.
Tango: Tell us about the thematic tremolo that returns over and over in the melody and backing vocal parts, it's really unique.
RxR: Yah, I was trying to create this sort of ethereal, flighty mix between the vocal parts and an analog signal, so there's a number of modular synths mixed into those vocal tremolos - the Dixie2+ run through the QPAS, the Loquelic Iteritas run through the Happy Nerding FX, and I think also the 4MS Ensemble Oscillator run through the strymon Starlab. And combined they create that sort of fading-into-a-dream kinda sound. I wanted it to be an unexpected soft-overwhelming type thing. There's two worlds when you're heartbroken, the above stream stuff, dealing with the real world, doing what you have to do, and then there's that stream below the surface that bubbles up and you can't help it, the feeling like it's raining in your chest - it's not a feeling you can conjure, it comes outta nowhere, and that's what I was after. I think I got there with what I was hearing, but there's a number of things I'll improve during the re-mix and re-master for the Into the Machine collection release - stand by.
Tango: Will do! Looking forward to that.
The intro, that’s not the Deckard’s Dream, is it?
RxR: No, that’s a special guest appearance, and a tip of the hat to Hans Zimmer. It's the Arturia PolyBrute - I’d sleep with that machine!.
Tango: Really?
RxR: No.
The vocalist remains anonymous to this day, I never met her.
Tango: Really?
RxR: Yes.
Listen
Listen to Robotz in the Sky by Raized by Robotz.