FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

LAYERS: Cracking The Code Of The Host's "Internet Archaeology"

A track from the new persona of Boxcutter, on an album dropping tomorrow courtesy of Planet Mu.

As Boxcutter, Northern Ireland musician Barry Lynn brought to electronic music an intricacy more commonly heard in the 90s age of IDM. Cast into the genre of dubstep due to his preferred tempos, Boxcutter’s brilliance shone through the constraints of its definition through meticulous attention to detail manifested in various EPs and four killer albums on the Planet Mu imprint.

When Planet Mu head Mike Paradinas (AKA μ-Ziq) announced The Host as the newest signee to the label in early 2012, for a time no one knew that this was the new persona of Barry Lynn. Shifting to compostions of textured sound, utilizing a collection of vintage synths to do so, The Host is a new man. Lynn’s first self-titled release under this pseudonym is out tomorrow on Planet Mu.

Advertisement

In this week’s LAYERS, we get an exclusive break down of a track from the upcoming The Host album. Whereas this column usually covers producers using a software-based approach, Lynn’s process involves classic machines and recording techniques and, despite the deliberate nature of the final product, all the wonderful fortunate mistakes that occur when using such a setup to build a track, making for some awesome sounds. Kids, get out your notepads.

Drums + Guitar loop
Some toms from a Cheetah MS-6 through an echo unit, and sampled and chopped drums put through a cheap digital gated reverb, with a high, picked guitar line through lots of reverb.

Outro dub bass + Drums
Drums are a loop of SCI DrumTraks sounds tapped in and playing off an MPC 2000 XL into a BBD delay. I think I’m tweaking either the EQ of the drums going into the delay, or else the tone of the repeats. Bass line is a Fender bass into a bass amp, picking one octave about the fretted note for a round tone. The time signature is alternating between bars of 4/4 and 5/4 throughout the tune.

Sub + Echo synth
The sub is an SH-101 into a bass combo amp. The percussive pattern is the SH-101 re-triggering with the filter resonance, into a BBD delay, then into a guitar amp. Sampled drum machine snares through some tape echo. And there’s a resonant breathing sound at the end of this loop, I don’t know what that is.

Synths
These are the main synth parts. The repetitive arpeggio is layered, all from different settings of an SH-101 playing through a built-in sequence, into a guitar amp, with different amounts of spring reverb and EQ. The slightly unusual time signature came about from accidentally adding an extra beat to this original sequence, so it lasts nine beats altogether. The string drones are a blend of the Cheetah MS-6 and a Juno-106, both playing the same MIDI part, with loads of portamento and PWM.

Advertisement

Tape FX
I recorded the finished version of the tune onto tape, then played it back and messed about with it as it ran, switched the machine on and off, etc, then chopped out the sounds I like and edited them into the track. You can hear the tape edits fade in and out with the hiss off the tape. It’s a nice transition, so the edits and effects feel softer than if it was a plugin.

Put together the pieces and here’s what you get —The Host’s “Internet Archaeology.”

Previously: LAYERS: Disassembling Co. Fees “Koi”

@ImYourKid

Previously: LAYERS: Disassembling Co. Fee’s “Koi”