OCR04789 - *YES* Chicory "Að leggja höfuðið í bleyti (Lay Your Head in the Water)"

[Emunator]

Artist Name: Emunator feat. Ergosonic, Pixels & Paradiddles

Credits:

Emunator: Arrangement, production, orchestration, sequenced bass/guitar/percussion, mixing, mastering
Ergosonic: Additional arrangement, guitars (acoustic)
Pixelseph: Guitars (rhythm, lead distorted)
ParadiddlesJosh: Drums (kit)

Artist Notes:

This is now my third time covering Sips River since Chicory released - the original has become my top-listened to song of the last 5 years and has truly become my comfort song. It's such so simple in its beauty and infinitely fun to play along to. This arrangement is based off of an arrangement that was done for the second installment of my Cozy Games LoFi series with Curaga Records, which should be released by the time this song is submitted. It includes 3 brand-new chill/lo-fi arrangements from Chicory, featuring a relaxing version of this piece that more prominently features Ergosonic on the acoustic guitar, and a stunning vocal performance by Laura Intravia. They're my favorite lo-fi productions to date, so I'd love for you to check it out!

During the Cozy Games Lo-Fi production process, I had a studio session with Ergosonic, who laid down some impossibly beautiful guitar parts that formed the basis for the lo-fi version of this. He recorded so many good takes and the fires of inspiration were still burning, so I wanted to craft an alternate version that was unbound by song length or genre requirements. It so happened that there was a Dwelling of Duels Free Month competition going on that had a few days before the deadline, so I challenged myself to see how fast I could actually do this.

It's no secret that I love post-rock at this point. In fact, on my first remix of this theme, I remember @DarkSim commenting that the track sounded a lot like Untitled 3 by Sigur Ros. And I took that personally - I'll show you what it sounds like to really go full Sigur Ros! To do that, however, I needed some extra muscle from the Pixels & Paradiddles team, who are always down to accommodate my rush deadlines. You guys made the track come to life in the second half and gave me everything I needed to make it a true wall of sound. On the morning of the deadline, with about 3 hours to go, I decided to add orchestration to the arrangement and quickly knocked out the string and brass section, gave it a quick mixdown and finished in the nick of time. All said, this song came together in 4 days, and it ended up placing 9th out of 32 entries against some very fierce competition.

The title is an Icelandic phrase that literally translates to "lay your head in the water." It essentially serves as an invitation to slow down and let life flow over you, and just take a moment to reflect in peace. When I was working on this song, I had a picture in my head of laying down on a rock in the middle of Sips River. You are the only constant in an endless stream of fleeting thoughts and turbulence, and I wanted to capture the feeling of being surrounded by chaos and noise but still maintaining your peace regardless. This idea is also reflected in the arrangement itself - the iconic Sips River arpeggio is present throughout the entire song without much alteration, but in the periphery, everything is awash in a stream of reharmonization and noise and evolution. It's an ode to maintaining your sense of self even when everything around you is conspiring to disrupt you.

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Games & Sources

Chicory: A Colorful Tale - Sips River

[prophetik music]

i heard this back in early august and loved it then, so i'm excited to hear how it changed since then.

opens with some water sfx, some beautiful chords and reversed piano elements, and an out-of-time chirping that reminds me of Bon Iver yet again. the feel of not being in a specific tempo in this opening section, combined with the physical elements of some of the instruments, is just so rich and inviting. the bass comes in at 0:54 and is very enveloping as well, although i found the patch to be a touch rough down low initially. there's some fun overtone-heavy guitar elements that are being layered in through this section that i really like.

there's a big crescendo into 1:29's string entrance - the strings entrance and the subsequent sustains are a little heavy for me, but i see how you're using them to drive intensity. we start to get some percs alongside the arpeggio and sustained melodic elements, and it continues to build through those elements for over a minute. the strings feel a bit forced through some of this section overall - i wouldn't have minded hearing them handing off with another lead element occasionally.

there's a bit of a break with some acoustic guitar, and then we finally start to get the real build with drums. this gets pretty noisy as it gets to the climax around 3:35ish, and then we finally get the payoff hit at 3:42. guitar sounds great in here (may be a tiny bit loud), and the drums are excellent - i love how crunchy they're mastered, lots of character in the tone. there's a lot going on in this big section but i can still hear everything, which is great. it's a little heavy in the 1k range or so. i really liked the lead guitar layering in alongside the strings.

the track maintains intensity for a long time, like two minutes - normally i'd say that's way too long without a break, but this feels good and strong and doesn't feel overwhelming. we finally hit the last chord at 5:18 and it's a drop from there alongside the ring-moddy guitars and some sfx. the bass cuts out abruptly mid-outro rather than fading out - i'm guessing that's accidental.

this is a real journey of a piece. the melody is such that it feels a little noodly in the original, but the pathway it takes you down feels very familiar and comfortable. it's neat to see that same melody used in such a different manner, to take you down such a similar yet different path. this is an excellent example of a significant genre shift without losing the soul of the original piece. nice work.

 

 

YES

[Liontamer]

Source writing that I recognized arrived at :53.5. The orchestration definitely feels last-minute in the sense that its way in the uncanny valley (the attacks and sustains), but it's at least more of a supportive element to add color than sound realistic. A swelling transition leads to impactful beats joining in at 2:54 as things ramp up with the strings also filling a stronger, more critical role before things finally rock out at 3:41. Now the mixing feels too cluttered and messy, and the sequenced strings are swallowed up, while the guitar chugs also sound relatively indistinct. The bassline is also mostly obscured too, but when it pushes through enough, the writing is good. Unlike prophetik, I couldn't hear the individual elements well. Lots of splashy noise until the soundscape opened back up at 5:19 for the last few moments, nicely bookending the finish with a similar texture to the start. The performances are strong, love the arrangement, can look past the exposed strings, can't countenance the extended muck & murk for a minute and a half. Wish I could make an exception for Wes, but I'm mean, old, and (most importantly) even-handed. :-D

NO (resubmit)

[Chimpazilla]

I had actually not heard this one before, and that really speaks to how productive Wes has been lately! 

Sips River is such a lovely source, and this track is amazingly written and performed.  I was all set to YES this and call Larry an old man, but as I neared the end I found my ears were hurting from the heavy-handed mixing and slammed master.  I actually reached out to Wes to offer my final mixing services.  I do feel that even with this vision I could get it a little bit cleaner, but he shared his inspo track with me and cruelly forced me to skip ahead to around 4:30 in the video.  I was all set to tell him that this Sigur Ros song was "wall of sound" yet mixed more cleanly than his, until I got to that point in the video.  He asked me if I liked it, and I had to honestly answer, no I don't.  But this was his INTENT.  Ok, ok.  I was already leaning toward a yes because this mix is good enough for OCR's bar even though I don't like this mixing style.  So I am going to yes it, the arrangement and performances are too good not to have posted on the site, but dangit Wes, stawp it already with the walls of sound!

YES

[Emunator]

On 9/24/2024 at 7:27 PM, Liontamer said:

Source writing that I recognized arrived at :53.5. The orchestration definitely feels last-minute in the sense that its way in the uncanny valley (the attacks and sustains), but it's at least more of a supportive element to add color than sound realistic. A swelling transition leads to impactful beats joining in at 2:54 as things ramp up wth the strings also filling a stronger, more critical role before things finally rock out at 3:41. Now the mixing feels too cluttered and messy, and the sequenced strings are swallowed up, while the guitar chugs also sound relatively indistinct. The bassline is also mostly obscured too, but when it pushes through enough, the writing is good. Unlike prophetik, I couldn't hear the individual elements well. Lots of splashy noise until the soundscape opened back up at 5:19 for the last few moments, nicely bookending the finish with a similar texture to the start. The peformances are strong, love the arrangement, can look past the exposed strings, can't countenance the extended muck & murk for a minute and a half. Wish I could make an exception for Wes, but I'm mean, old, and (most importantly) even-handed. :-D

NO (resubmit)

I realized I didn't share my reference track in the original submission, that's on me. Here's the track I was referencing here - the whole structure/dynamic curve of the arrangement is followed but specifically from about the 4 minute mark onward was what I was intending to go for here. I know I'm not going to have the same resources or experiences as a band with a full budget for studio engineering, but I think I got reasonably close. Accolades aren't everything, but this album has been consistently highly acclaimed and influential within its genre. It uses wall-of-sound as a deliberate arrangement and production technique to create catharsis and contrast, where clarity of the individual instruments isn't the point during that part of the song. If I missed the mark on executing that or it somehow conflicts with the submission standards because of its inherent nature, that is a different story and a conversation I'm totally open to having! But I'm not just making this shit up to be difficult, there are real artists doing this :)

We've always been about trying to understand the conventions and approaches of unfamiliar genres, even if they seem unpleasant or obtuse at first. Here's just a few tracks that have been posted that undeniably require a change in perspective on what makes a "proper" song to appreciate, from a mixing, arrangement or conceptual perspective. I think our catalog is stronger because each and every one of these songs is included in it.

https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02443
https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR04429
https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR04689
https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03970
https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03109
https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR04347

If all of these remixes are a-okay but a minute and a half of not being able to hear every instrument distinctly is a bridge too far, that's disappointing but I'll make my peace with it. We've had this same discussion on other songs before so I don't really expect to change any minds at this point, but consider it my last attempt to justify the validity of a production technique that doesn't seem to get the same benefit of the doubt as all of the other unorthodox techniques that have found a place in our site before.

[Flexstyle]

Larry is getting senile in his old age ;)

 

This is a good arrangement, it's a great mix for the genre, and I've got no beef.  MOAR WALLZ OF SOUND PLZ KTHX

 

YES

[Hemophiliac]

You're just another brick in the wall...of sound. Arrangement is good, clearly goes places and tells an uplifting story.

At the end this is borderline too full with too many parts going on, however it's all a giant contrast to the sparseness of the first half of the song.

Creative suggestion: save the high string octave later in the song and let them be another level of lift or energy creation. I felt like they came into that octave too early, it's like...ok they are at the top, where else can they go now?

All that fullness aside this is great, and it absolutely should be on the front page.

YES