Wild Light Decade #09: KOAECAX (Patreon)

We have FOUR versions of the same track for you this week. It is a real shame that Patreon won’t allow more than one track to be embedded in a post. But we’ll embed the first one, and if you look to the bottom of the post you’ll find the others as downloads. If you want to follow along with the story of how 65daysofstatic figured out some interesting chords, tried to turn them into an interesting song, got weird, and then abandoned the whole thing, listen in this order:

1. KOAECAX PIANO
2. KOAECAX ELECTRONIC BEGINNINGS
3. KOAECAX BANDTEST
4. KOAECAX WEIRD SONG VERSION WITH CUT-UP DRUMTESTS

//

1. KOAECAX PIANO

Here we go. The point of origin. It’s got a bit of a Badlamenti vibe. A little bit Season Two Twin Peaks.

This song was one of various attempts to actively find ‘new’ ways of making chord progressions.

A music theorist could probably describe the rules of chord progressions that an archetypal 65days song would use. Songs like Radio Protector, Fix the Sky a Little, AOD, Sleepwalk City… You know the kind of thing: a four to eight chord sequence, root notes going up and down, all the relations between the notes effortlessly summoning tears and joy and romance and heartbreak… A savvier band would realise that, iterating on this reliable idea that they stumbled upon would be a good way to, y’know, be successful. Not us!

And yes, it is true that ultimately Wild Light ended up being full of this kind of thing. The aforementioned Sleepwalk City, Taipei, Safe Passage, Heat Death… But it also has Unmake the Wild Light, which was the one success story of our numerous attempts to find a ‘different’ or at least weirder way of approaching the same idea of, y’know, putting some chords in an order. But instead of relying on regular Radio Protector-ish chords, we'd use some major/minor shifts, key changes, create unexpected jumps between the notes. Moments that would subvert expectations and make the listener go ‘oh’ or ‘oh?’ or ‘eeww’.

Koaecax comes from this place. An effort to find different combinations of movement, to give things that don’t conventionally work enough intention that they succeed anyway. And it works! It’s a kind of fascinating progression. And if we were writing a soundtrack then really, it is already done. Maybe shift the arrangement a little to fit it to the picture and we’re good to go. Except, we were trying to write a standalone song. So how to do that?

2. KOAECAX ELECTRONIC BEGINNINGS

Enter PROGRAMMING. Some kind of temporary drum MIDI loop sets the tone. It is not great, but it is recognisable (at least to us) as a kind of sonic shorthand for ‘do something weird, fluttery and percussive here at some future time’. So’ll we’ll give it a pass.

The guitar is doing the chord progression now, which is interesting. The piano is entirely absent, although it seems likely that it was turned into MIDI and then fed into the ghostly synth that starts accompanying the guitar.

And then we try to add some kind of second section. This is a dutiful (or perhaps aspirational?) nod to the idea of how you’re supposed to write proper songs. This new section doesn’t really do much, but is almost worth it for the really great minor to major shift from the big sci-fi synth at 01:16. (Echoes of Silent Running much?)

And then the glockenspiel comes out. This is a 65 red flag for when we’re getting ‘a bit much’, a lesson learned after we took one on tour for The Destruction of Small Ideas. Imagine being the sound engineer trying to figure out how to make a live glockenspiel be audible amidst the 65daysofstatic backline night after night… Salad days.

Along with the glockenspiel, out come the big synths, which revel in the weirdness of the chord progression, highlighting all the strangest notes. Which is a nice idea, though doesn’t quite make for a catchy melody.

And so, if in doubt… BIG GUITARS GETTING LOUD FOR A BIT.

And then it ends.

3. KOAECAX BAND TEST

Enter BAND. At this point, we probably put a pin in the electronic-y version, but clearly hadn’t found a way forward with it. We no doubt dedicated endless, very serious conversations over coffee about how best to proceed. And it seems like, devastatingly, we decided that we should at least try to pretend we’re a post-rock band and chose, of all things, the glockenspiel to lean into!

Big mistake. Rob is gamely doing skittery jazz beats all over it, so that’s good. Other than that… ‘flailing’ is the word that comes to mind. The bass riff that comes in toward the end definitely has potential, but it is potential fit for a different song. Not this one.

4. KOAECAX WEIRD SONG VERSION WITH CUT-UP DRUMTESTS

Here it starts getting interesting. Attention to detail starts to win out. The layered drum loops that kick off the song have got decent energy and personality. And then, out of nowhere, a sudden, bold drop out to weird sub bass. Could this be the origin of the idea to have a sudden, bold drop out to massive distorted kick drums in Unmake the Wild Light? You’ve got to assume so, right?

Along with this dropout there’s a neat shift to triplets and some Modeselektor-ish sawtooth bouncing, which is fun. And then, because the song was clearly getting pretty weird by this point, we attempted to drop a 65daysofstatic BigPianoMelody™ on top of it to glue it all back together. Plus some kind of synth choir for good measure. You have to admire the ambition.

CONCLUSION

Well, as we all know, there is no song called KOAECAX on Wild Light. Bad luck, 65. With ten years of hindsight, it seems pretty clear that if we had just stuck with a little two minute piano arrangement, recorded it really nicely, got some minimal, ethereal guitar tucked away in the background, it could have worked as a lovely, petit ghost of a track. We could have called it Bad Lament, the rarest of titles that would have worked as a pun, small tribute and somehow captured the mood of the song. But we didn’t. We put it on a hard drive and threw that hard drive in a trench and buried it for ten years. Oh well.

Here’s a photo that makes us look like serious musicians who know what we’re doing:

That’s your lot. See you next week!

65.x