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Noor: Technical Notes For Those That Are Into This Stuff · Sep 30, 08:24 AM

Basically, all these tracks were recorded with a Triton Extreme slaved to a Tascam 788, giving a total of 24 tracks available (16 sequenced on the Triton, 8 on the Tascam). Outboard consisted of a Lexicon XP15, and the compressor and delays/reverbs etc within the Tascam. The mics used are the ubiquitous 57s. Here’s a current gear list, much of which made its way into this music.

‘Take Me Up’ started as an intentionally ‘funkier than some’ groove, on the Triton, quickly augmented by the ESP bass guitar, compressed on the way in as well as during mix down. The percussion is a Remo ‘Kid’s Djembe’ taken very wide in stereo, and the didgeridoo.

‘Yasmeen’ was built in three sections, the first around a Steve Wright ubang, and synthesised guitar and marimba patches retuned in an ‘Arabic’ fashion in an effort to approximately pastiche West African balafon and ardin/tidnit voicings from Mauretania and the Sahel. For the middle, Oriane Hazan and Sofia Maria Efraimsson relaxed on my couch and had a delightful Parisian conversation, and then Sofia, with her faintly accented ‘foreign’ (she is Swedish) voice impersonated the BBC radio broadcast. Dumbek, bass and a Gibson J45 guitar tuned in double-drop D, along with Clav and other synth sounds, play the last section out.

Child was improvised using guitar and voice, it’s the first take subsequently decorated with synth sounds. This is the only track where the first mix made it onto the final recording.

As well as a lot of keyboard work, ‘Anima Camera’ features a Gibson J-185 twelve string guitar, the didgeridoo blown into two guitars tuned to resonating chords and miced in stereo, a rainstick, the ubang, and an ocarina. The lyric really was born in a shower.

‘Noor’ started life as a piano improvisation, cut and pasted then tied together by an udu (stereo micing). There are three guitars, one synthesised in the Arabic tuning, the J45 capoed high up the neck, and a Seagull A6 using a Dean Markley humbucker pick-up and pitch transposition (in the Tascam). Plus various synth sounds in various tunings.

‘After Dark’ is essentially ‘Noor’ deconstructed into a series of loops, with added synth ‘guitar’ and ‘vocal’ parts. This is the only track with keyboard bass.

‘Witness’ features a lot of voice layering, obviously, and processing in the Lexicon, along with two talking drums and other percussion, and the J45 again in double-drop D. There’s also a fair amount of compression on the voices.

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