Sign of Weakness Album Discussion
Sign of Weakness:
Hey Everyone. This is my first ever solo album so I'm pretty thrilled to be sharing it with you all - although yes there are no vocals on this time, instead you are getting pure 100% Frecre from the flesh of the album to the bones (including the artwork). I think going through the Folder of songs I discarded in the making in this album only 18% of the songs made it this far so I can assure this album is of high calibre.
So what has Frequency Creature been up to this time? After having done my exams for the year I have gone through one of my music folders and this time rather than leaving them in a graveyard to stew I have used my expertise to generate 10 high quality instrumental tracks containing elements of electronic music, synthwave, ambient, rock and even a little bit of pop. The trouble with people that write a lot of music (cough cough me) is that the versions of the song can change quite a lot so within the week I spent perfecting the tracks they came out really quite different from how they started - maybe except Ice Chariot and Young Forever.
One of the interesting facts is that every track has at least three layers made of the Surrealistic MG-1 Plus synthesizer which helps keep a sense of continuity across all the tracks.
Here is a run to on my thoughts of the album track by track
1. Keep Staying Afloat
If you hate positive songs in major keys then this song is not for you. This is one of the younger tracks on the album but I really liked it and it reminded me of Viva La Vida so I put it right at the front of the album for as many people to enjoy as possible. I also think it is quite dreamy so works well next to electronic funeral. I also like the fact the vocoder part sets for a nice introduction to the album as a whole "All of humanity has been set free, the dawn of a new age has come". Some people may not like the descending chord patterns but I've always been a really big fan of them.
2. Electronic Funeral
Love is the Drug meets Aphex Twin meets MGMT. Not that anyone asked for that either. This was first track that I finished after Young Forever and I think it's probably the easiest song to listen to on the album. You get a very funeral like build up and then we get smooth verse and the philosophical beast that is the chorus. I really enjoy falling asleep to this one at night when I've been testing my response to some of these songs. There is a bit of a lullaby element and it's a fairly easy melody to remember. The drums are also really fresh in the chorus I think and different from a lot of the things I have done in the past. It's also a bit odd that I had an electronic funeral in my family carried out over zoom soon after I made the track - spooky, eh? (I should be more careful with song names in the future).
3. Alien Cowboy
I saw the name Alien Cowboy was free so I took it as soon as I found it. Also there's a lot of inspiration from Ween's Buenas Tardes Amigo. There even is a key change to make things more exciting for those people that love music theory (and also to prove that I can write really advanced stuff I just choose not to). The pads on this one are extremely dreamy because I decided Orpheus should get a spin rather than surrealistic again. You can just imagine riding out into the martian sunset on your space horse - I know I can. Also I thought it was nice to have a fade in for a change.
4. Beautiful Daemon
If I had to put all my money on one song from the album I would probably put it on this one or the next one. I think I caught myself listening to a lot of 80s Genesis and also I can hear myself going through a little bit of a pop phase which I have no clue where it has come from. It sounds completely different really from anything I have ever heard- and it's also quite catchy I think. It's also the longest track by far so really it's quite a good thing that it's not just filler.
5. I Want To Go To Florida
As a British person who has never been to the USA I've always loved the thought of going there despite an intense introvert that dislikes leaving the house except on walks where there are no other people. The song really is inspired by Kyoto by Phoebe Bridgers which really stood out to me as one of the few songs I do not get tired listening to. This was actually the last track that I completed so I guess it was nice to end of this positive high note - although it's right in the middle of the album. I also like the name I came up for it. The chords throughout the song are an unsual Dmaj Emin Dmaj Bmin which for some reason I really liked. I really rebuilt the track of the Surrealistic MG-1 Plus #3 pattern as you can see in the above figure and after starting from scratch found this song that I really liked. It is probably the most perfect song on the album thus having very few flaws.
6. Sign of Weakness
Subconsciously artists always name their albums after the song that means the most to them. The reason why this one means the most to me is because it probably feels like the most coherent of all the songs on the album with clear reason behind every artistic choice that has been taken and therefore does not require explanation. Really the song is inspired by Momma Sed by Puscifer which was one the first songs that really resonated with me for some reason. The track is very heavy on drum machines type drums since as GwD once observed about me - "with everything you do if you have a synth it sounds like a synth, electronic drums sound like electronic drums and vocoder sounds like vocoder". I think the bassline in the verse is also really quite strong and maybe that is what did it for me.
7. Ice Chariot
Ice Chariot was probably the first track that stood out to me the opening riff is especially great (E E B B E E E C C x3 then E E B B E D C B A C B A G) and so is the chorus riff (B E B E D D F# A F# B E B E D D F# D E). If you do have an ice chariot that has an internet connection and can stream the song I suggest this is the perfect song for you and you should definitely send a picture of you in your ice chariot. In the end there are two melodies being combined which maybe a bit over the top but I thought helps gives a sense of continuity between the choruses but also rising tension.
8. Lemonade Sunday
Lemonade Sunday is very much the sort of track nobody asked for - a bunch of random ideas that weave into one another. A man claiming to be death greets and gives you a mad laugh and then tense verse melody pressures you to move quickly to the chorus. The chorus is no more comforting than the other sections and leaves you wondering if there was any purpose of the track (hint: it was filler to make it up to 30 minutes). It does have some interesting sound textures though and the drums are pretty hypnotic.
9. The Final Warning
This is probably the weakest song out of all of them - mainly because its a very creepy downtempo track. That being said I think it's nice to have a feeling of tension and resolve on the album so I decided to leave it in. The main concept of the track is having two very different contrasting sections - the verses are eerie and then the choruses are very dark and noisy. Not that much to say about this one but if you are wondering what the sample is saying because its a bit quiet it is "have you or someone you know been suffering from mental anguish".
10. Young Forever
How many people can say that one of their vocalists has been a parrot. Well Frecre has only gone and done that. Obviously it's a sample of a Parrot so there are not really lyrics as such but I made out "Ask them I'm not clever, what's the weather, yeah but which one's real, young forever" as the chorus - it took a lot of splicing to find something that logically made sense as a chorus even in the most vague sense. Mebo said to me this was one of his favourite songs from the album and thought it would prove to be very popular. In the old version there was more variation in the drums which I decided sounded better with drum simplification which was one of the important methods I took when perfecting all the songs.
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