Update on my next album: Of How a World Is Built

Hold your horses: the thing still has a LONG way ahead before it can be considered finished. Still, I feel confident enough to give some info on how it's coming along.

This album has been a real headache. I'll be honest. Big Robot, Little Robot was challenging, tricky, somewhat time-consuming and sometimes frustrating to make. This bastard, though, is just time-consuming beyond all imagination. But then again, whose fault is it other than mine? I can't complain. The problem, basically, is that the songs are LONG, the arrangements are THICK, and the requirements I've set to myself are way beyond what I did on the previous album: brass, woodwind and string ensembles in nearly every song? Check; complicated and carefully balanced quiet/loud and slow/fast dynamics? Check; breakcore section with dozens of different drum sounds? Check; pseudo-neo-classical collages and juxtaposition of parts? Check. Yeah, all that and a bit more

Good news, though: the album IS progressing. My initial plans were to first write the album ENTIRELY, and only then start the recording. I felt that mixing those two processes was slowing me down and sidetracking me, so I decided to keep the recording details for later, until I had all the melodies, arrangements and instrument parts worked out. The result is that the songs are all in a pretty advanced state. Here's a rundown:

1. roughly 12 minutes long. Nearly finished. Only a few parts left to write and details to fix.


2. about 9 minutes long. Almost finished. A couple of parts left to write.


3. about 8 minutes long. Very advanced. A couple of difficult parts left to work out and closing portions left to write.


4. about 14 minutes long. Pretty much finished. Probably nothing left to write.


5. about 16 minutes long. Advanced. Several difficult parts left to work out, but might be more simple than I estimate.

As you can see, the whole thing will be about 60 minutes long. I had planned another 40 minute album or so, but the songs turned out to need more than that.

Anyway, I have now broken the plan to keep the recording stage for later. I'm already setting down the recordings for the first track, and let me tell you: I'm quite impressed. I had never imagined that I'd ever be able to make my MIDI works sound so vigorous, dynamic and convincing. I'm trying pretty hard to keep myself away from making it sound "realistic", because that was never my goal. The sounds, however, are very alive. The drums are amazingly dynamic and responsible; the guitars sound pretty thick, without falling headfirst into Uncanny Valley (at least it seems to ME); there are sampled MELLOTRONS, produced by a freeware VSTi called Tapeworm, by Tweakbench. Seriously, I'm really excited by it.

As for the title, I have settled with Of How a World Is Built (Music Without Emotion) several months ago. The primary title is justified by its "concept" (hint: it sort of follows the trend of the previous album), and the secondary title is something I've been carrying for a pretty long time, and I think this album is just the right one to put it in. The thing will be explained later on. The main point of this post is to inform that, yes, I'm STILL working. Maybe way slower than I wish, since college and work take away much of my time, and this album is littered with "dead ends" that I have to beat. But I'm doing it. Maybe by the end of the year I'll have a finished product, or something very, very close to it.

And, if my mood is good enough, I might put up the first track for a sneak preview once it's finished.

Things I like a lot less than I probably should, part 2

Led Zeppelin.

For a long time, I thought my tastes weren't quite "attuned" to this band, and even though I enjoyed a lot of what they did, I seemed to somewhat "force" myself into their material. Then, I think this sort of backfired, and I got to simply not being able to stand them at all. Led Zeppelin sort of became my nemesis -- just like some people hate the Beatles because they're oh-so-overrated and stuff, I... well, I didn't hate Led Zeppelin, but I simply wanted to stay as far from them as I humanly could.

Time passed, and I thought I might as well give them another chance -- after all, I'm a man of many tastes and I'm open to everything, and I don't want to simply stay away from a band because of oh they seem not to be all that good, and oh, they were such rip-offs and jerks (yeah, look at the Stereolab fan calling other people "rip-offs", even though I got into this band WAY after I put Led Zeppelin on my black list). So I put on their forth album, the one with no title, and... ... yeah, I don't like them very much, really. Of course, I'm not making judgements based on only ONE album -- I only have the first, second and fourth LPs on my collection, and I'm missing quite a lot of important stuff. Still? I really, really like several of their songs (off the top of me head I can name Communication Breakdown, What Is and What Should Never Be, Ramble On, Thank You, Immigrant Song, When the Levee Breaks, Over the Hills and Far Away and maybe a few others), but their albums are the primordial hit-and-miss affairs: one time you have an awesome song going on, next time you have one of the worst drum solos ever (Moby Dick, of course), next time Robert Plant is being the most obnoxious singer ever, next time they're doing whatever the hell they feel like doing and doing it wrong. And then there are the stupidly puffed up lyrical affairs (Tolkien references? Really?? And people make fun of Rush!) and, oh, did I mention Robert Plant being the most obnoxious singer ever?

I don't care about the "sexual" aspect of it all. Whole Lotta Love executes its purpose very well, but I couldn't care less about the proposal. The lyrics are raunchy, and I tell them to shut up. Really, just shut up. Whether you're saying crap about giving someone his love, or saying crap about going to live in the misty mountains, or saying crap about anyone remembering laughter; just shut up, guys.

But either way, I still really like several of their songs.

Dwarf Fortress: the infinite possitibilies and the unwillingness to try them

"Sandbox" games are a kind of thing that are quite en vogue recently, fuelled by the increasing hardware capabilities of computers and video-game consoles, and by the success of games like the Grand Theft Auto series and so on. In theory, and in our imaginations, it seems like the best thing on Earth: have an entire world, or an entire universe, entirely to your disposal, free from the shackles of what the game WANTS or EXPECTS you to do. You just do what you want: try things, see the consequences, try again, have fun. Awesome, isn't it? It's no longer "no, you CAN'T go over this tiny fence because you HAVE to stay inside this building and complete the boring mission you don't care about". Now it's "oh, if you don't want to do the mission, it's up to you. Come back later if you wish".

There are problems, though -- and I think it's very hard to determine how much of those problems are in the games themselves instead of in the heads of the gamers. As a "case study" of sorts, I bring my experience with Slaves to Armok: Good of Blood, part II: Dwarf Fortress (phew!), a game that is... how can I say it? So huge, so massive, so unbelievably detailed and meticulous that it got me wondering how much human interaction a person must have avoided in order to do it (sorry, I don't want to be offensive, but I have to be honest!). It was programmed by a single person. The game generates a world, with all its biomes, villages, rivers, mountains, aquifers and lava pools, simulates erosion, and presents it entirely to you to select a place and build a fortress, construct living spaces, workshops, collect food and water, build farms, produce valuable items, choose dwarf professions, keep track of their health (including which limbs and internal organs are damaged -- no, I'm not exaggerating), construct machines and contraptions, make trade -- all that without any objective. And you see all that happening in real time, in ASCII art, a la Rogue and Nethack.

First: there are so many things this game controls, keeps track of, lets you choose and decide, that not only it raises questions of how the hell one single guy was able to do it, but if it's all necessary. It's a basic fact of game designing: you'll never make something 100% accurate and correct, so there has to be a limit -- both theoretical and practical -- to the level of detail you're willing to descend to. How does one determine that? It's mostly up to what the game intends to be; and Dwarf Fortress intends to be EVERYTHING: no stone left unturned, no detail left unchecked, no variable unconsidered, no consequence ignored. And yet, the game throws you headfirst into it and lets you figure it out yourself.

Okay, so some people like that; They like challenge. Also, they have TIME start 200 games until they start getting the hang of the basics. The game's motto says: Losing is fun. That to me sounds like a way for the game's developer to ignore completely the fact that he's making, you know, a GAME, something to be PLAYED. Dwarf Fortress sets out to be a real universe, however, something to be LIVED, not played; it overloads you with possibilities and details, makes you feel like you're dealing with something savage, uncontrollable, that has your entire existence on its hands. And the rewards? Oh, they are many! They are... um... well, you... uh... oh, you know? YOU play the game 200 times before you figure out if the game is worth playing or not, AFTER you wasted all your time in it.

Second: ... ASCII art? In a real time game?... okay, so you can pause the game and take your time to make all the vital decisions. But, really?... Yeah, so some people say that the ASCII art HELPS the experience, because if forces you to visualise the world yourself and get immersed in it. I say: elitist garbage, just like when people once said that cinema was an "inferior" art because it gave you all the images, ready and done, while in books you had to use your own imagination. Those people didn't realise two things: cinema isn't there to replace the imagery suggested by books, but to push art forwards even further, present even more questions and suggest even more interesting possibilities; also, cinema CAN let many things to the viewer's imagination, and the more skilled film-makers know that and know how to use it (tell me 2001: A Space Odyssey DOESN'T leave a lot to your own imagination and prepare to duck the tomatoes). Cinema is just a different form of art, as valid and noble as literature.

So you see: computer games have been investing in graphics and visuals, realistic representation of objects, realistic simulation of physics and other real life concepts, and so on. This DOES NOT MEAN that the games are losing immersion. A game, even made in pure ASCII, can be every bit as shallow and lifeless as yesterday's generic FPS shooter. Bioshock, however -- at least in my opinion -- created an amazing experience due to the atmospheres, the environment and settings, the characters and the objectives. It didn't even need much of a "storyline": the basic concept is sufficient, and the visuals and physics help to enhance those characteristics. You see? It's not the visuals themselves, but the fact that they're working in favour of the game's design ideas. Now, imagine Bioshock done entirely in ASCII. Maybe the most hardcore gamers (by the way: "hardcore" is a class of gamer that I dismiss entirely) would love it, but think about how you'd miss the hilarious 50's style cartoon advertisements to the power of setting people on fire, the radio tunes merrily playing along to brutal battles with deformed freaks, and so on. When it comes to games, interaction is the key; and the difference between the "textual" and the "visuals" are not equivalent to the difference between reading the book and watching the film, but far closer to the difference between reading a textual description of a breathtaking landscape and BEING THERE, or the reading a technical review of von Karajan's recording of Beethoven's symphonies and LISTENING to them on excellent equipment. The final point is: in Dwarf Fortress, it's impossible (to me, at least) to truly see what's going on. I've played Rogue-like games, and the descriptions and ASCII maps mostly work because the games are turn-based, and the interaction with the world is done through the eyes of an adventurer; in Dwarf Fortress, the game is in real-time, and you're just watching things happening to their own will, and mostly trying to change its course. In the end, you're only watching ASCII characters flashing about -- the most you can do is pause the game, look closely at some of the elements and read the cold, precise, lifeless descriptions of what they are. What kind of immersion is that? With time you may be able to naturally associate the ASCII characters to the objects they represent, but you still will miss all the tiniest details -- which are CRUCIAL to the game. If you're into the game simply for the pleasure of abstraction, why not choose a text adventure then? At least you won't need to play 200 times before you realise you can't put too much salt on the food, or else you'll die of intoxication 40 days later. And if "losing is fun", just play I Wanna Be the Guy -- that one will knock your socks off. Dwarf Fortress, as it is, is the prime example that the difference between everything and nothing is minimal, when in fact it's the difference between something and everything that counts. The skill and effort put into the game are undoubtedly impressive and deserving of praise, but that alone doesn't make a good game. Still, it doesn't mean you shouldn't try it, though. If you're a hardcore gamer, you'll probably love it; and in that case, stay away from me.

Three extraordinary albums, part 3

I guess I screwed up my plans for doing a post like this every other Monday. I don't know whether I'll be able to (or WANT to) keep this on a regular schedule or just post it whenever the heck I feel like it, so let's get started. This time, I'll repeat some artists I've covered in previous posts, but I'm using here, as a sort of criterion, albums that I've been obsessed with recently. They're the sort of "instantly extraordinary" albums in heavy rotation in my playlists, so don't expect anything perfectly balanced. Ok? So here's the three of 'em:

1. Chemical Chords - Stereolab

Once again, it's the stereophonic laboratory I'm talking about. Last time it was Dots and Loops, but if you play both albums back to back, there are only two things that can tell you it's the same band: Lætitia Sadier and the obsessively, microcosmically intricate arrangement and production. Because, you know, the music is a world apart. Gone are the days when Stereolab would listen to 'Hallogallo' by NEU! and write a song on top of it (even though I really like that part of their career) -- Tim Gane turned into a wild music devouring monster by the time Emperor Tomato Ketchup came around, and their discography shows. Even still, Chemical Chords represents a drastic rupture for the band -- not only in moving to 4AD, but in using Motown as inspiration. The rhythms, brasses and tuned percussion will probably give that away. But, MAN. I think that, in terms of combining sheer fun with insane complexity, only Mike Oldfield's Amarok beats it, and that's not saying little.

Let your finger randomly fall in any title on the track list, and you'll be SURE that there'll be something absolutely devious going on in the respective song. Really. The album is that good. Not a single moment goes by in blank -- to the point where the first listen will probably be a mess, with all songs becoming a big mush in your mind. But learn to distinguish them and you'll start paying attention to all the moments the album is consisted of: the childishly funny trombone melody of 'Neon Beanbag', the little xylophone melody near the last chorus of 'Three Women', the chromatically "falling" strings near the end of the title track, the tingling melody bookmarking the chorus of 'Valley Hi!', the call-and-response in the beginning of 'Silver Sands', the vibraphone breaks in 'Self Portrait with "Electric Brain"', the buzzing synth melody on 'Nous Vous Demondon Pardons', the dissonant string haze on 'Fractal Dream of a Thing', the vibraphone patterns on 'Daisy Click Clack', and that's only covering the surface. The band was obviously in a phase when the music should constantly do something -- and not merely to make it "intellectual". This is not labour for labour's sake: this is music to keep you entertained. CONSTANTLY entertained.

But not only that: many songs here are already impressive only for the songwriting. 'Neon Beanbag' is an endless succession of little melodies that bounce off each other, switching between vibraphones, organs, Sadier's voice and whatnot. The title track is a miracle, built entirely on an unbelievably effective rhythm pattern, with melodic phrases coming in on every turn (I speak sincerely: if there is one song I wish I had written, in the whole world, THIS is the one). 'Valley Hi!' is short and very sweet, the closest to "cute" that the band ever got to. 'Daisy Click Clack' is so fun and so childlike it's more Syd Barrett than Stereolab. And it works! The band sounds totally at home with it, and Lætitia mixes lyrics like "Clap clap, clap clap, all will join in / Tap tap, tap tap, simple rhythm" and "Sensing the symbiotic forces" like only she can.

The musical ideas just keep coming in this album -- and unlike some other review suggests, I don't think the sense of fun is undermined by the complexity and labour contained in the album. In fact: one amplifies the other, and to me, only helps to prove that they are not mutually exclusive. Try it on road trips.

2. Just a Souvenir - Squarepusher

Though I still think Ultravisitor is his magnum opus, this album finds Tom Jenkinson at the top of his game. With Hello Everything, he tried to stitch all his different influences and styles into a "patchwork" album, but here, he throws them into a blender and lets it all loose. Jazz? Check. Breakcore? Check. Classical guitar? Check. Rock 'n' roll? Ch-- what, rock? Squarepusher playing rock? Yep, check! The songs have such an amazing combination of skills and talents that they're nearly unbelievable. Need an example? Check out 'A Real Woman'. The only way I can describe that song is "The Ramones meet jazz fusion breakcore". The brutal simplicity of the 'Blitzkrieg Bop' verses never directly clash with the unusual harmonies from the Vocoder or the insanely twisting bass breaks, but they actually live together in harmony and cuddle.

The trend goes well for the rest of the album: the jazzy bass lines go right along with freaked out pseudo-disco grooves AND with copiously distorted guitar riffs. The songs go from pleasant soundscapes of tuned percussion and synthetic pads to twisted one-man-band interplay, and the drums many times blur the line between sequences samples and live playing. I think Just a Souvenir has Squarepusher finding HIS sound, something that only he can produce, something that mixes the extremely refined with the violently intense, the pleasant and the exciting, the ugly and the complex. Of course he has already done similar things in previous albums, like Music Is Rotted One Note and the aforementioned Ultravisitor, but THOSE albums didn't have themes dealing with shimmering coat hangers, women that are happy because they're real, and acoustic guitars that can distort time.

Okay, I'll explain: the album is titled so because it's a musical representation of a "souvenir", which is Jenkinson's memory of a daydream which featured "a crazy, beautiful rock band playing an ultra gig". The liner notes describe in detail his "daydream", mentioning the crazy guitar that distorts time, the band members being washed by an electrical storm that turns the entire building into a guitar amplifier, and a snare drum that floats in mid-air and explodes due to "electromagnetic radiation emitted by nearby neutron stars". Knowing Squarepusher's purposefully "mythical" and sometimes mysterious image, I'm quite comfortable with taking the whole narration as a put on (what kind of daydream would go into such detail and feature "a small dent where a pantechnicon lorry had smashed through the back wall of the stage to deliver a replacement snare drum"? I mean, I don't think it's dishonest at all for a musician to make up a "story" to envelop his work of art. And, really, the story is so funny in its mix of dream fantasy and incredibly snobby descriptions ("sounded as if the bass guitar was actually a RSJ played with a chainsaw, enclosed in a ventilated cabinet of fine mahogany") that it's definitely worth reading. And it's even better when you hear, in the music, cues relating to the story. The time-shifting guitar? It's actually there! Three tracks are pieces for acoustic guitar and digital effects that sound exactly like that. The "chainsaw RSJ"? Check out 'Delta-V' and the AMAZING 'Planet Gear'. The gleaming coat hanger? Yup: observe it, respect it. Really, what can be better than a virtuoso electronic jazz musician being pseudo-humble and attributing his creativity to a bizarre daydream? The answer is, of course, the resulting album. Check it out.

3. Heaven of Las Vegas - Cocteau Twins

I don't think this is their best album (that post is occupied by Treasure), but this is the album I listen to far more often. I have difficulty talking about Cocteau Twins, because, really, how can you talk about their sound? Unlike a lot of people, I don't get the "music from Mars" vibe from this band. They don't sound at all like "aliens" to me -- they simply concocted a very unique sound and made excellent use of it. But, really, how close is this to "pop" music, or to "synthpop" or whatever? I think labels like "ethereal" are pretty silly, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Cocteau Twins. Better leave it unlabelled, you know? "You wanna know what they sound like? Well, listen to it yourself! That's what YouTube is there for!" That's better. However, Heaven or Las Vegas is unique for a reason: it's POP! Really, it's POP MUSIC. All songs are meticulously crafted like pop songs -- all with their usual mix of instruments and layers, but applied to extremely catchy tunes. In fact, there's exactly one thing that prevents this album from being 100% radio friendly: the unintelligible lyrics. Just like with every other Cocteau Twins song made since then, you just can't understand what Liz Frazer is singing -- and that's the POINT. While it sounds sad that excellent songs like these don't fall into people's tastes ONLY because you can't discern the words, the move reveals a sense of humour that's very in tune with the band derailing critics by titling all songs in Treasure with names of people. Liz purposefully sticks in SOME intelligible phrases, that is, the odd "thank you for mending me babies" or "must be why I'm thinking of Las Vegas", but only to give you the wrong impression that there ARE actual lyrics there, and you must make more effort to pick them up. And so did many people. And the results are beyond absurd. It's not a "new" trick for the band, but here, it makes more sense than ever.

Some people complain that the album lacks the band's "edge", because the moods in the different tracks are more similar than before. There aren't any truly ominous or moody songs. But why should I complain about that when the songs are nothing short of brilliant? The title track, alone, is worth the entire album, with guitar layers that spread into vast infinity, vocal harmonies that are at the same time complicated yet catchy, and even gritty guitar solos. I'm obsessed with that song -- and many others get really close, like the vague yet catchy 'Cherry Coloured Funk', the insanely groovy 'Iceblink Luck', the beautiful and soothing 'Fotzepolitic' and the glorious 'Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires'. Even the less catchy songs always have something nifty going on -- usually Frazer's vocal melodies. Just like Robin Guthrie can extract all sorts of amazing and wonderful sounds out of his processed guitar and synthesizers, her voice takes all sorts of shapes and forms, producing tiny symphonies in these otherwise simple songs. Unique sound and ingenious songwriting make this album truly extraordinary. Start here if you want a smooth yet effective introduction into the band.

Talkin' 'bout Flash Games (and how they can be the best thing ever AND the worst thing ever) Blues

Yes, since this is a blag about music and whatever else (and since nobody reads it), I take this place to talk about Flash games -- not as a programmer, mind. I never programmed in Flash and have no means to make a Flash game. No, sir: I talk as a PLAYER. I'm not your everyday Flash junkie, but I do have an account at Kongregate and I like to collect badges (erk). So, what's up with Flash games?

They can be the best thing ever because Flash put A LOT in the hands of extremely creative and talented people who always wanted to make and publish games in a way that wouldn't attract the attention of only hardcore gamers who're willing to download and run .EXE files. Flash games are immediately playable by pretty much anyone - many systems already have the Flash plug-in installed, and most of the others make it very easy to install. To play, you just follow a link and -- presto -- no more needed. They allow fancy graphics, the performance is halfway decent, and many websites collect hundreds of Flash games because each game is a single, (generally) small file. Flash is a moderately easy tool to handle, it makes things very easy and simple, and ActionScript allows quite a lot to be done. People with a lot of ideas and a lot of willingness to break the rules and explore new territory are finally able to do so, without too many hurdles.

They can be the worst thing ever because, well, Flash put a lot in the hands of people who seem to have NO IDEA of what makes a good game. Really: go out there and see. It can become frustrating, as many games have great concepts and premises, but the execution? ICK. Horrid. It's not a matter of "knowledge" or things you learn at school, and it's not a matter of me talking because I never actually went there and made a game to see how hard it is: it's merely a matter of COMMON SENSE. It's concepts even a child can grasp. They are easy, simple things that we many times fail to realise exactly BECAUSE they're so easy and simple. It's things we take for granted, but forget they have to be actually implemented.

One example: go out, take the games you play the most and see how much your performance depends on luck. I'm not telling you to see how many games use luck as a deciding factor: I'm telling you to see to which extent luck is necessary in those games. I'm not kidding you: many games I've played DEPEND on luck to ridiculous extremes, to the point where you're simply left with nothing to do to save your skin if you're unlucky. An actual example: the game Death Dice Overdose is a very simple action game in which your character has to move left and right and jump in order to avoid dice falling from the sky. Get hit and die, simple. But not only that: you need to pick up "pills" to keep your panic down. Your panic increases over time, and if it reaches a limit, you die. The pills appear randomly (yes, ABSOLUTELY randomly) all over the screen, and there's a lower limit, so you can't simply pick up pills at will.

Bottom line: you have a limited amount of time to eat a pill in order to keep alive. The smart readers realise that if the game does NOT give you a pill before the timer expires, you're hopelessly dead, and there's nothing you can do. The game has to ENSURE that the rate of pills are enough to keep you alive, and you should only die of panic if you fail to reach the pills in time because of his limited skills. Well, to put it bluntly, the author of the game wasn't that smart. Yep: you can DIE because the game is too randomly. It does not calculate the rate of pills, and it simply gives them away at will. If it "decides" to kill you, you die. See? When you play the game, you DO NOT have the guarantee that you'll only fail because your skills are too limited. You can die without committing any mistakes. So what's the point?

It seems like programmers think that adding a bias will make the game too "easy" and not challenging enough, and that it HAS to be random and luck-based in order to be challenging. First: challenge is worthless if there's no fun. Second: luck and luck ALONE is not fun. If it were, people wouldn't bluff in poker, and people wouldn't need to prospect of earning money to bet on horse races and slot machines. Many games do depend on randomness and chance, but PURE randomness and chance is no way to make a game. You know why?

People play games because they want to be good at it. Just ask your friends and see how many of them play games because they want to suck at it and lose. They don't. People play games because they want to beat them, they want to play them once, lose, learn with their mistakes, get better at it, slowly advance, learn new tricks and tips, and FINALLY beat the hell out of it, and then try again at a higher difficulty. For that, people need an INCENTIVE to play. People need to feel rewarded by the game. I'm not talking about promising free cookies if they beat the game, no sir: I'm talking about making the game show the players when they're doing good, and KEEPING them at it. Did the player make a mistake? Punish them and let THEM see what they did wrong by themselves. Let them learn what they shouldn't do, and let them try again. You don't need to pat the player's back and say you love him, no way! It's not about being "nice": it's about being fair and balanced. The player wants to know he's playing well and want to see the consequences of that. He doesn't want to hang by a little thread and be brutally, unexplainably killed at the slightest mistake, or worse, see all his efforts WASTED because the game was badly programmed and was unfair to him. Didn't you ever wonder why many Flash games allow you to earn money or experience and "upgrade" your player as you go? It's a simple concept, see! As simple and obvious as you can be. I'm not saying the Gospel and dictating how all games should be: there are exceptions, but mostly, the player should be compelled to play. If he loses, he should sit back, think carefully, review his strategy and try again. Instead, many games have the player tearing out his hair and running his keyboard into the monitor in anger and disgust. Why? Because THE GAME'S AUTHOR SUCKS, that's it. Plain and simple.

Yet some people fail to grasp it. There's a game called Amorphous+, which is extremely frustrating. The concept is great: with a top down view, you control a guy with a sword who has to kill blobs that kill you at the slightest touch and in annoyingly long and stupidly violent ways (I'm talking Family Guy style here -- folks, gross-out humour is OLD. GET OVER IT). Basically, one touch and you're dead. And the stages are LONG. So, all the time, you have to watch your back and be careful and follow your strategy tightly. But that's not all: the smallest deviation, one millisecond you lose, one thing you failed to see -- or worse -- a completely insane and stupid situation means you're dead, and you have to start ALL over again and play through the BORING, SLOW early stages in order to get to the hard part. What was the "incentive" to the player? Achievements. Yep, the most dishonest and lazy way to keep the players hooked. And I'm talking about illogical, time-wasting achievements, and even some that depend on "one-in-a-billion" situations that, in order to be reached, either the player was born when all planers in the Solar System were aligned, or he's sick enough to play for a billion years uninterrupted. Months later, a "clone", called Cell Warfare appeared. It has achievements, but WAY fewer and more logical ones. The gameplay is instantly recognisable, and this time, the player can take more than one hit before he dies, AND he recovers his health with power-ups. This means, FINALLY, the premise was made playable. And just to give you a hint: the toughest, hardest achievement on that game is equivalent to the LEAST Amorphous+ expects from the beginning players. Yep: beating the easiest level without being touched once is the "ultimate" achievement on Cell Warfare. Wonder why!

Amorphous+ was fun, but it was unforgiving. It didn't give you the space to grow and sharpen your skills: by having to go through the boring parts ALL the time, the player loses patience and interest, only to be mercilessly killed by the slightest, most subtle slip. It's not a rewarding game: you don't tell your skills are paying off, because the game just throws them out of the window at random times through the level. And so do many, MANY games. You know, I sometimes wonder if the game makers actually PLAY their own games. Maybe they get so attached to their "brainchild" that they somehow refuse to see its most gaping flaws, and disguise them as "challenge". But if a guy does that, he's not fit to be a game maker, an artist or anything. The guy must be able to look at his own efforts with a critical mind if he wants to go. A guy that gets stuck to his illusion of "perfection" in his works gets stuck. He doesn't evolve. And worse: he unleashes garbage into the unsuspecting world. Don't do that, people: if you make a game, play it like an actual player would. Revise your expectations. Be clear on what you want the game to demand from its players. Is it a skill-based game? Don't make it too random! DO keep the randomness, because it adds unpredictability and interest. But see, chance and luck should merely force the player to learn to adapt to new and surprising situations. The player should be compelled to explore all the possibilities and adapt quickly, change his strategy when needed, NOT to pray for his life and hope the game doesn't throw him into unavoidable death. Make the game fun.

And please, PLEASE. STOP THE TOWER DEFENCE GAMES. Really, there are billions of them already. The formula got old ages ago. Stop it.

Things I like a lot more than I probably should, part 1

Yep, MORE than I probably should. This is a counterpart to the previous post. And today's "thing" is:

Where the Streets Have No Name, by Pet Shop Boys

YES, I said Pet Shop Boys, NOT U2. Even if you know Pet Shop Boys reasonably well, you might not know about this relatively obscure item in their discography. Yep, it's a cover of the U2 song -- and predictably, done in early-90's synthpop/disco style. But not only that: it's not just a cover, but an actual parody, and maybe even a mockery of U2's song. Just to give you a hint, it was the B side of the single How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?, a song that comments on famous rock stars that use their exposure and fame to taken on "serious" acts, and how they can often believe they're far more important than they actually are and forget they're still mainly seen merely as rock stars. By putting the U2 cover on the B side, it becomes more than obvious who Neil Tennant was using as an image for his lyrics.

The cover basically wipes out every significant mark the original song had: instead of the magical, mystical chords coming from another dimension and the Egde's echoed guitar picking, you're slapped across the face straight away with a heavy disco beat; Tennant's vocals are absolutely detached and unemotional; and to top things off, the main hook of the song is rightfully mocked as Neil turns it into "Can't take my eyes out of you", and the song launches into the actual titular song. It's absolutely cynical, disrespectful, and of course, brilliant.

Now, I'm talking here as an actual admirer of U2. I'm greatly fond of the band and their music (well... at least until they released Achtung Baby), AND I really like the original song. My feelings about Bono's "political" stance are... mixed. I have never been able to determine how seriously he takes himself and his actions. There's little doubt he has the best of intentions, but hey, no one said you can't use your good intentions for second intentions (ha ha, ha ha, ha ha ha), and I definitely can't tell if he's really determined to make a difference and show it's possible to do good things for the people, or if he's just stuck with a Messiah complex and is trying to show how badass he is. But I'm not here to judge anyone. I wouldn't ever try to judge Bono, especially since I never even met him. But Tennant's criticism is very valid, in my opinion, more as an "alarm call" rather than an angry rant -- and even more because Pet Shop Boys is a REALLY badass band, that was able to stick in bitter, acid social critique into a music genre that's supposed to shut off people's brains and make them dance. Tennant is a guy who knows what he's talking about, and Pet Shop Boys is great and I like them. And their version of Go West is one of the best 90's songs ever, in my opinion, hands down.

Big Robot, Little Robot -- in depth, part 10

Noisy

Phew, that's the last one!

The concept to this piece was one of the very first ones to hit me, and the very last one to be finished. I purposefully left the writing and recording of this song for last, because I figured it wouldn't be easy at all to make. I wasn't wrong. It wasn't hard, but it's a song that needed quite a bit of care and attention to detail. Writing solos is a bit of a problem I have. After all, it's not easy writing and programming something that should sound immediate and spontaneous. The notes you're laying down might not have the same effect as what you have on your head -- and with me, for some reason, sitting down and opening the piano roll seems to make the ideas vanish from my head. I can make pretty cool sounding solos in my head, but I can hardly cling on to those ideas. And since this song was about 70% a solo, things wouldn't be easy. But it was a challenge to myself.

I guess this is the song that most literally translates the character. Noisy has a trumpet for a noise and often carries a drum around, and even her voice is naturally loud and rough. So, you get the drift. The idea was pretty much the first thing that hit me: Noisy's drum playing immediately evoked a marching band, and from there, it was a matter of finding the the way of making the most noise with a few instruments. My first idea was to have only a guitar solo, but then, the ideas I was having for solos started to become more suited for a violin, so I decided to include both. The chord progression is a slight deviation from the more cliché C → B♭ → G progression, by making it into a C → Bdim → G. It sounds a little more grating and sort of grabs your attention more. The recipe for the song is very simple: you have the percussion, the bass, a piano and a guitar. The problem: how the heck would I create the sound of a marching band?

See, I had the sound of the snare drum, but it had to sound bigger, larger, like dozens of drums being played together. Same thing with the kick drum, which should be turned into a large bass drum. The solution was the application of a chorus effect, with a few tweaks to make it change slightly over time. This makes some snare hits sound "tighter", and others "looser". The bass drum also has a bit of chorus applied, and only the splash cymbal is "dry". Too much chorus would add an undesired "phasing" effect, so it needed a bit of balance. Also, there are two different snare sounds and two different kick sounds used at the same time.

Another problem with the percussion is that the snare drums shouldn't repeat themselves too much. So, pretty much every bar is different from the ones close to it. There are triplets, quintuplets, rolls and other things going on to keep things constantly fresh. The same problem also plagued the rhythm guitar -- and if you're curious, the rhythm guitar was the last part to be written in the entire album. It was a slow, boring process that took several sittings.

The instruments are added gradually, until the solos end, and then this massive ensemble kicks in with a melody with north-eastern Brazilian overtones. This wasn't the first time I used that kind of music as influence: Thunders uses it as a rhythm in certain places of the second half. The melody was pretty much made up on the spot, using a few motifs as "building blocks" for the larger thing. As for the instrumentation playing the melody, there's brasses (trumpet and trombone, as well as alto, tenor and baritone sax), guitar, violin and piano. I wanted it to really come from nowhere, and keep up the heat until the final crashing chord. Initially, I envisaged it erupting into sonic hell, a wash of loud noise which would be jarringly cut short -- but I ended up opting for a simple echo effect which took a few resonant frequencies and made them louder and louder over time. Then, it's abruptly sped down, and seguéd into Sporty. That's the way I liked it better.

So all's good: but what with that weird intro? Once again, I thought of kicking in with a haze of weird, unrecognisable noise, but the idea I had made things a little bit more welcoming. And there couldn't be anything more simple than that: it's all ten tracks played at the same time. First, played at very slow speed, then pushed up to normal speed, and then into ludicrous speed. The metallic "twannng!" is, once again, the endless echo. I REALLY went overboard with it, didn't I? But to make it fun, I added a really strange effect -- I don't even remember what it's called -- that transformed the boring metallic hum into something that almost sounds like something out of an early Residents album. It was pretty fun coming across that effect, because I hadn't even imagined it, and even if I had, I wouldn't have had any clue of how to produce it. I reached it by accident. Poof: there I got it. Cool. So, I played with the speed a little more, and laid the song over an echoed, twisted, slowed down snippet of all ten tracks playing at the same time at hyper-speed. Is that EXPERIMENTAL enough?? Nah, it's not really experimental. It's just weird, and fun. Like the whole album! Ha!

Finishing this song was a great relief to me, and it meant that, FINALLY, I could listen to the album that lived in my head for more than two years. What a thrill! Never, I repeat, never did I have such a fixed and clear vision of what I wanted, and never did I expect to get so close to it. I had gotten attached to the album even before I started doing it, and there I had it, before me. Complete. I was genuinely satisfied with myself, not because I thought I had made an "awesome" album, but because I had beaten all the challenges I had set myself. After that, I took a little break, and started working on my next album, which was ALREADY living in my head.

Also, a small curiosity: the album is exactly 42 minutes and 2 seconds long, and each side (i.e. tracks 1-5 and 6-10) are exactly 21 minutes and 1 second long. I managed to split it exactly in half, and that wasn't planned beforehand. It was just something I realised upon having all tracks recorded. I noticed I had gotten very close to having a perfect 50/50 division, so I tweaked the noise bits a little here and there and settled it. Of course I could have further reduced it to 42 minutes exactly, but there's a special charm to that extra second per side... yep, it's an idea taken from Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, in case you're wondering. What can I do? It was just too good to pass up, you know.