I’m looking for some talented musicians, both technically proficient and with a very good sense of “groove” to see if they can play some of the songs I’ve composed.
A little about me first:
I’m 27 and very creative. It runs through my blood and as a result, I have many different projects on the go at once. In the grand scheme of things, I’ve only been into the alternative scene since 2001. A very short time, but over the years my music tastes have matured exponentially.
The first band I listened to was Rage Against the Machine. After which came One Minute Silence, Kittie, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, Cradle of Filth and Pantera. Except for Pantera, I’m a bit ashamed looking back hahahaha, but then I discovered Mudvayne and things started to change.
I progressively got into harder, faster and more technical music over the years until one beautiful evening, I heard a song played in a club in Teeside. I’d never heard anything like it before, having listened to evenly structured songs (theory wise 4/4) I was confronted with disjointed and chaotic rythmns, heavy glassy guitar tone and the weirdest solo’s and effects.
It was Rational Gaze by Meshuggah and that song changed my musical life completely. Having studied Clarinet and Classical/Jazz music both on a theory and practical basis, they led me into a completely different way of thinking. I started to seek out more music with the same “ordered chaos”, Ion Dissonance (pre Minus the Turd), Despised Icon, MateriA, Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, Embrace the End etc. Alongside this journey I developed a great love for technical death metal, power metal, progressive metal and Punk bands, such as, Beneath the Massacre, Melt Banana, Vital Remains, Decapitated, Anaal Nathrakh, Akercocke, Houwitser, Abremilin, Commit Suicide, Raised Fist, Darkane, Soilwork and a whole lot more.
During all this time I was learning to play guitar and bass but never had the time to fully dedicate myself to become technically proficient, due to jobs and studies.
So that’s enough about me. About the music. Brocket Hollow started off, around 2004, as a blatant rip off of Meshuggah…I don’t hesitate to admit it. I was young and grabbed myself a copy of Guitar Pro/Sonar and wrote the only stuff I knew how to. It was absolute trash, I look back now and think “what on earth was I playing at?”. But somewhere along the years, Brocket Hollow became something completely different, more rhythmic, harder, faster and intensely more complicated.
This was due in part, to my decision to solely compose the music and not limit my writing to what I could physically play within my limits. Guitar Pro became my best friend and my imagination was let loose.
So I come to the actual point of this advert. I can’t play the music I’ve written. It’s well out of my jurisdiction on so many levels. And the musicians I know, for want of a better phrase, won’t touch it with a barge pole either. So I’d like to “float” some of my songs out there on the web to see if any one is able to actually learn how to play them. Possibly leading to the formation of a session band ala Spastic Ink, where by each person records their own part, which is then all brought together for a final mix? Not really important, I’d just like to hear someone play it…hell, if there were a group of people that could play this stuff and formed a local band, I’d gladly endorse the usage of my songs.
But that’s getting ahead of myself. I’ve attached some links to download the mp3’s. These are midi recordings, using Guitar Pro’s RSE engine and midi drums/instruments. The mixing is the absolute best I can do, so some sounds do get drowned out.
Some notes about one song:
Bethany Dances by the River Dreaming of Seven – I need to slow this down, I think it’s playing at 270 bpm (most songs are at 260bpm). Listening to it recently, it’s way too fast for what’s being played. Also you can’t hear the drums that well, this was exported with a different soundcard and I have yet to re-export it.
Vocals wise, atypical growls/screams (none of that core crap) would be cool like Gab from ID, Mikael Arkefeldt from Bloodbath etc…but I’d also like to hear someone, a female or a male, pull of some vocals like Yasuko from Melt Banana, her style/voice is incredible and it’d be interesting to see how it would/could fit in with the music.
Hmmm, what else? Some points to note about the structures of the music. There is a lot of alternate picking and string skipping, tapping and fret jumping (although before each jump there is generally and open top string played to allow enough time to move frets). There are very few even bars, most bars are in 7/4, 6/4, 5/4 9/4 10/4 etc, with 16’s, 8’s, 12’s and 4’s reserved for bridges or groove bars. Drums are usually playing some sort of syncopation and there are a few polymetrics/rhtymns lieing about (the outro to Venetian Shadowcarp Massacre is, if I remember, a 15 bar polymetric). The tuning changes slightly from the beginning of the album, originally each guitar played in the same tuning (F,A,D,F,D,A – I think) but one guitar played either a fret above or below the lead. Now each guitar plays the exact same notes but in different tunings, one guitar is dropped a step below to E. These are drop tunings below standard, so a lot of gain and eqing will be needed unless you like the sound of mud. There may be some rubbish at the end of a few tracks, ignore this, just junk riffs I forgot to cut out of the export.
Erm, that’s pretty much it, there’s more on the concept but this ad is long enough as it is. Download, have a listen and if your interested I’ll send the tabs your way…I must stress I’m doing this for fun, I don’t expect some super band with touring prospects to come out of this…but a group of people with a love for music coming together to create an album I wrote for fun…that’s an awesome thought.
Also, I know alot of people on this site despise blastbeats with a passion...don't download them if you do. I'd also like some constructive criticism, not flaming or derogatory comments, but intelligent constructive criticism on the music. Thanks.
Aquamarine Flower
http://www.mediafire.com/?jym4xxgguxg
Save Point
http://www.mediafire.com/?bdtthug9smg
Bethany Dances by the River Dreaming of Seven
http://www.mediafire.com/?t4myjngymn9
Crescent Moon
http://www.mediafire.com/?yzuczwyvmj2
Venetian Shadowcarp Massacre
http://www.mediafire.com/?myjdjxozemh
Omnipotent God of Malevolent Intent
http://www.mediafire.com/?e1ydyjilyzm
Enjoy or don’t.
Bethany Seven
