bagginz's blog

Bill says:

First off, credit where credit's due, Key to the Innerverse was very much a a co-written track. Props to the Laughing Buddha himself: Jez Van Kampen.

 At that time, Jez and I were living out of each other's pockets musically and financially and practically living in the studio and out partying in London when we weren't.  So the track was born from that environment. And like all successful collaborations I like to think the result was greater than the sum of the parts. So; that said...

>Hey Bill,

Hello matey,

below are the sleeve notes to the Contact track, taken from the sleeve notes to the album.  ( whole album track notes at the bottom)

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As I mentioned, the title track contains a key monologue which unlocks the underlying concept. I wanted the music to support this by conjuring up otherworldly images. So I created a (hopefully) evocative, spacious intro sprinkled with a few appropriate samples. Also I deliberately avoided using any familiar or clichéd melodic intervals (as far as is possible in composing music anyway) as it would sound familiar and therefore not otherworldly. To this end I ended up playing any melodic phrases using harmonics via the cutoff knob on some resonant synth patches, which gives a different flavour. In addition I used a square wave-form, which unlike a saw or pulse wave, has an unfamiliar sounding harmonic series, which also adds to the overall weirdness. All melodies apart from that is, the spooky sounding melodic theme played with a bell like sound, which make it's first appearance right at the intro in the intro and occurs throughout the track.

The vibe of the track also called for a slower tempo, as it is difficult to convey the type of poignant emotion and space that I had in mind with faster tempos. So I used a dub style bassline coupled with a slow funk groove, which then progresses up into a slow trance groove for variety. It also gives the track somewhere to go dynamically. By far the most difficult thing technically was to tune into the frequency to receive the alien transmission. In the end I had to interview a earth resident alien and pretend that I had recorded one of the real transmissions broadcast from somewhere beyond Sirius ; ) 

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>>The sound that comes in on 1:52 in "Contact", the "AA EE OO", vocal sound. Was the synthesized? <<

Yes, an Access Virus Indigo B. (not that you need a Virus btw...)

>>I assume it was two band pass filters? <<

Yep

>>Can you explain the 'architecture' behind the sound? <<

Here you go: http://cosmosis.co.uk/tips-and-tricks/creating-talking-synth-sounds

Do that, then add a bit of distortion...

Cheers,

Billy Cosmosis

 Music Webshop: http://cosmosis.bandcamp.com

Next up is a Cosmosis and Headroom collaboration titled "High Volume".  Adam Headroom and I wrote the track at his studio in Cape Town while I was on tour in South Africa.

It was interesting working with Adam. The approach to bassline and percussion was very easy to agree upon but the melodic component was another story and took quite some time, with us both floundering around trying out and discarding a huge amount of different ideas before we could even begin to agree upon something that may have satisfied us both 100%.

What I found really interesting is that we appear to have an almost perfectly opposed melodic sense. I'd describe Adam's approach as a chromatic modal approach in which all 12 notes are melodically available and are just considered by their relationship to the tonic (a la Arnold Schoenberg) and in which he tends to favour the dissonant intervals, whereas I tend toward a scalar approach with it's inherant harmonic potential and tend to favour the consonant intervals. Which is about as opposite as you can get.

This is my take on the tune which I mixed once I got back to Switzerland.