This one is tentatively titled ‘3000 Down’. Early on in the creation of these pieces, we we were treating them as seperate entities that all had their own lyrical themes, this one being vaguely about the titanic wreckage. We soon realised how well all the pieces worked together, it seemed as if we could switch into any one of them at any stage and it worked seamlessly. The pieces, about 6-7 of them, were all written in a burst of creative activity over a year and a bit, so in a way it makes sense that they all share the same ‘sound’. We have had numerous creative explosions over our time writing together, and we have always found it interesting that they all have their own little vibe. Sometimes formed by new tunings or experiences, but often times it feels like they just create themselves.
This set was our first attempt at putting them into some sort of shape. We had sheet music and lyrics and structure sheets strewn all over the floor of the stage. We loved the majority of the ideas that each piece had and were reluctant to leave anything out, so we set ourselves the challenge of keeping everything in. There were numerous little snippets that could have gone in any order really, so the Longplay set was our first attempt at a structure for them. They have changed a few times over since then and now, we will eventually upload more recent, near completion versions so you can see their evolution.
We experimented with numerous ways of making the pieces fit, sometimes it was obvious where it needed to go, in terms of lifting up or bringing down, whilst other times we needed to help soften the transitions by creating a bridging idea or section, or playing around with the tempo.
This particular piece ‘3000 Down’ is now a little more compact. The sections mostly remain, however they are shorter, and the ordering has been played with a bit. A friend who was in the audience that night gave us some great feedback, which we now regularly draw upon. He said “If you can’t sum up the premise of your song or piece in one sentence, two max, then you will struggle to finish it”. This piece of advice has introduced a reassuring sense of focus which we have long struggled with. It has stopped us from wandering aimlessly or rambling too much. It works both for instrumental or sung compositions, however has been particularly helpful with lyric writing.
