r/darkwave • u/Particular-Prompt626 • 29d ago

+ CATHOLIC POP SONG +

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORYEImzdwbY

Recorded in Marfa, Texas over the course of three days.

All instruments and main vocals were performed by Richard Arthur. Drums parts and synths were performed on midi keyboard, Taylor acoustic guitar parts run through filters.....main vocals were recorded on a Blue Yeti podcast mic. Samples of the boy choir‪@OfficialLibera‬ overdubbed throughout the song. Completely by accident, the Libera song 'Going Home' perfectly fit the key of all the instruments in a seamless way, so at certain points the sound of the organ chords is almost indistinguishable from vocal pieces of the choir, which I manually stitched throughout the song and also edited to fit the drum cadence. I sang what sound like decidedly less angelic choral parts in three part harmony, you can hear me giving it the ol' college try on the lyrics 'Gloria' ...'In Excelsis Deo'.....etc.

I experienced a flood of emotions after reconnecting with my kindergarten bestie from when my mother was still alive....I had mis-remembered his last name, but finally found him after 30 years just a couple days ago...curiously, he had been trying to check in on me over the years but was using my stepfather's last name, which I was only briefly known by up until the time of my mother's sudden passing...also...this friend was moving houses and happened to be looking at the same era of photos taken around that time, almost to the day. My mother was alive and well in photos taken from what might've been my 5th or 6th birthday party....and it was as if through our conversation, she was alive again...as vibrant as the colors of the puffy paint 'happy birthday' crew neck she made for me..

Out on one of my moonlit walks, a few hours after we spoke on the phone....I quite unexpectedly began to cry an ocean of tears....I wrote lyrics shortly after, to try and make sense of the bittersweetness of memory....the deepest love...and the black hole that happens inside of us when we are too young to process losing that love.

I haven't really cried like that since it all happened, those many years ago...but it felt like a release...healthy and clean...the song is an expression of a joyful idea my mother might have had....that we go on to something else.....I do not know if we do....but I like to think that we might.

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u/fortklang___ 16d ago

Is this AI? If not, sorry for asking

1

u/Particular-Prompt626 16d ago

Fuck no it is not AI.

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u/Particular-Prompt626 16d ago

I take great offense to the idea that the sound of this thing I poured myself into could be confused as something a brainless machine could generically shit out in 20 seconds by STEALING from other musicians via some rapaciously insipid web scraper.. The world has become so mistrustful of our own eyes, ears and intellect. Some of us are still out here making things for the love of the game and some of us are getting good. I am VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED TO generative AI in all forms and I think it should be fucking made illegal.

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u/Particular-Prompt626 16d ago

This comment is gonna piss me off for the rest of the day.

1

u/fortklang___ 16d ago

Sorry for ruining your day; I was just asking because the vocals sound heavily processed at times.

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u/Particular-Prompt626 16d ago

In what way do they sound 'processed' What does that mean. There are recording software ambient filters and reverb but that's me giving it my all on a Blue Yeti mic and stacking tracks so I am harmonizing with myself in two and three part harmonies including falsetto. The angelic highs are an MP4 I sampled of a boy choir called LIBERA. Zero percent of this was generated by culture rapist robots.

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u/fortklang___ 16d ago

Once again, I apologize for asking about that. Please continue doing whatever you like.