[ABeautifulVirus]

'Arabian' Alternative Heavy Rock.  Some Middle Eastern guitar scalics & modals with some lush vocal harmony layering. A few Arabic singing samples too. I wrote this after a trip to Morocco. Not sure if we have the funds to buy the publishing to keep The Beatles 'I Am The Walrus' loop in towards the very end of track, so that may have to be X'd if we publish this ourselves.

http://soundcloud.com/abeautifulvirus/letters-never-sent

LETTERS NEVER SENT (demo)
Words & Music by Daren Thomas Turner
© 2009 MRI

Letters never sent to no one
Written out of passion storming
Sentences of self destruction
Stacked inside a box of donuts
Scrawled onto gum wrappers
Etched into walls
 
Letters never sent to no one
Sticks and stones will break your homework
Habit of possessive language
Harsh, direct, imperfect wording
Scrawled on old newspapers
Etched into stones
 
Letters never sent to no one
Each replacing of the former
Burning not a bridge too far and
Close enough to hear some laughter
 
Letters never sent to no one
Double negative to grow on....
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Daren Thomas Turner: vocals (baritone), guitars, loops
Pete Murray [guest appearance]: vocals (tenor Arabian screams)
Alan Cruz: percussion, apple loops
Daniel Denial: bass
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since some comments were made about this perhaps being a 'soundtrack' vibe i'm posting the video i did which kinda goes along w/ this idea

[Apophenia]

Loved the song... The lyrics are great.  They paint a picture and definitely go with the feel of the track. Good job!

[S.T.C]

I like this track....but towards the end wanted to hear a guitar step out of line and lead...a bit of DAVE GILMOUR...just my opinion ?

But only had one listen,,will have another when the captain Morgan kicks in  !!

[ABeautifulVirus]

hey cool. thanks to you both. i hear you on the david gilmour angle, but i wanted to keep this w/ an eastern sound esp in the lead. good idea though. food for thought

[Boydie]

I really like the feel of this track

You have pulled off a very difficult task of getting those Eastern influences in there without being "cliche" flawlessly

You have also captured a little more "energy" in this track

My only "critique" point is that the track loses a definite focal point in places

On my crappy tablet sprakers the vocals get a little lost so I think it would be useful to pull them forward in the mix - not necessarily upping the volume but perhaps EQing or reducing the processing to help them cut through

There are also long passages with no "lead line" to give a focal point

The textures during these sections are top notch but I think some sparse lead lines now again during these sections would give the listener something to grab on to and maintain interest

All in all a great track and I think it would fit perfectly on a movie soundtrack

[aunt_acid]

This is pretty cool. I am not one for "heavy" rock sounds, but I do love the Eastern influenced sounds...

And I really like how the lyrics are kind of...interesting. Cryptic almost. To me anyway. But maybe I'm just a little slow. lol

[faero]

Great work - how many vocals did you put on there?  I'm intrgued as to how many recorded voices it takes to get that tone.
To me it's quite Led Zep ish but with heavier distortion

The hard cymbal going through is a bit too much (in these headphones at least) at the beginning but mixes in well later

Love the distorted fuzzy percussion

There's just enough melody in places to catch my ear (I struggle without melody but this type of song normally has very little and you have a hook in there which is good)

There's been a lot of layering and mixing in that and a great result for what sounds like a lot of effort.... Needs listened loud!

[montydog]

This just sounds overwhelming played loud (that's a good thing). It has that wonderful eastern feel but doesn't lapse into cliche. I would have liked more of the guitar at 4:25 and I think the melody falls a little short of great. It's good but this could really soar with a more memorable "tune" (I sound just like my Dad!).

Amazing job though.

[Dutchbeat]

Extremely cool, Virus
heavy and sweet!

well done

[Kafla]

Wow!

You are an ace producer my friend - love the middle eastern angle - like Aladdin on speed  

Lovely drawling vocal although I struggle to make out the words - but it's not the type of song were you need to hear the lyrics - its all about the attitude

Astonishing energy for a home recoding  

[nooms]

like kulashaker crossed with george harrison & the edgar broughton band.. out demons out ! hear that walrus sample works great...
'psychedelic deckchair’
amazing
love it

[ABeautifulVirus]

Great work - how many vocals did you put on there?  I'm intrgued as to how many recorded voices it takes to get that tone.
To me it's quite Led Zep ish but with heavier distortion

The hard cymbal going through is a bit too much (in these headphones at least) at the beginning but mixes in well later

Love the distorted fuzzy percussion

There's just enough melody in places to catch my ear (I struggle without melody but this type of song normally has very little and you have a hook in there which is good)

There's been a lot of layering and mixing in that and a great result for what sounds like a lot of effort.... Needs listened loud!

cool. thanks. yeah to answer your query i tracked six different harmonies for the verses spanning almost two octaves from bass through baritone-  & then doubled them all, tripling the root and 5th.... placing them at various points in the stereo spread and eq-ing them out to 'gel together' into one lush larger than life vocal.  the lowest note is a tad below my range so i compressed it more than the others to beef it up a bit. 

[ABeautifulVirus]

Boydie - "All in all a great track and I think it would fit perfectly on a movie soundtrack"

thanks. actually this started out as a project for a videographer in school but was never finished.  later i'll post a video that i made for this as i agree about the soundtrack thing.

Aunt Acid- "And I really like how the lyrics are kind of...interesting. Cryptic almost." thanks Eunice. indeed the lyrics are somewhat abstract. but it's just kinda a song about not hitting the 'send' button when one writes a hate letter/email lol

Montydog - " I would have liked more of the guitar at 4:25 and I think the melody falls a little short of great"   this is true. I was going for a more linear approach since there are so many layers in this.

Dutch - " Extremely cool, Virus---heavy and sweet! " thanks. aptly described.  

Kafla - " Wow! You are an ace producer my friend - love the middle eastern angle - like Aladdin on speed. Lovely drawling vocal although I struggle to make out the words - but it's not the type of song were you need to hear the lyrics - its all about the attitude. Astonishing energy for a home recoding"
 Aladdin on speed ;p lol . love it. thanks!

Nooms - " like kulashaker crossed with george harrison & the edgar broughton band.. out demons out ! hear that walrus sample works great...'psychedelic deckchair’ amazing love it"  Psychedelic Deckchair ;p that's great. thanks!!

[Redster]

This is cool! Love the scales you have used here to generate the "Middle Eastern textures" and the combination of constant droning hardcore distortion, good stuff

Mind some production comments?

1. Its far too fat. I'm guessing you have compressed the hell out of it at master - it has almost no dynamics.

2. Perhaps vary the drums a bit more - break it down then bring it up, use velocity, vary the high frequency percussion to up the interchanges - maybe even add some Tablas or Dholak samples? For example at 1.26 - 1.30-ish could do with dropping a bit to bring it back in with a punch?

3. That said in many cases this track kinda works with a lack of dynamics so perhaps I'm just speaking out of my arse. Although maybe chopping 30 seconds off the track would prevent ear overload.

4. Does it need better separation? Not pan, maybe a bit of EQ to pick out the individual instruments and boost the solo inflection at 4.04?

Good though, great to hear something different





 

[ABeautifulVirus]

This is cool! Love the scales you have used here to generate the "Middle Eastern textures" and the combination of constant droning hardcore distortion, good stuff

Mind some production comments?

1. Its far too fat. I'm guessing you have compressed the hell out of it at master - it has almost no dynamics.

2. Perhaps vary the drums a bit more - break it down then bring it up, use velocity, vary the high frequency percussion to up the interchanges - maybe even add some Tablas or Dholak samples? For example at 1.26 - 1.30-ish could do with dropping a bit to bring it back in with a punch?

3. That said in many cases this track kinda works with a lack of dynamics so perhaps I'm just speaking out of my arse. Although maybe chopping 30 seconds off the track would prevent ear overload.

4. Does it need better separation? Not pan, maybe a bit of EQ to pick out the individual instruments and boost the solo inflection at 4.04?

Good though, great to hear something different

thanks Redster. I must concur your comments/suggestions.  There is a lot going on in this track, + the rhythm guitars are triple tracked as well, using a Mesa Boogie Dual Recto, Marshall JCM 2000, and Line 6 on each track for a thick layer of the droning distortion w/ as much warmth as possible.  It was saturating the music bed so in mastering i compressed it all down to not lose the other elements, but it did create one rather large sonic wall, which I let pass in the spirit of 'alternative heavy rock' lol