Our fourth full-length on the surface doesn’t display any major changes, but does display a number of refinements. The process of recording it, however, was drastically different than all previous efforts. Further emphasis on live instrumentation meant a lot more “out of the box” recording, scheduling a guest vocalist who was shuttling back and forth between Chicago and Riyadh was challenging, and nearly every track was written with the distinct knowledge that it could be played live. Jill Sheridan was also deemed a full-on member of the band, instead of just a guest vocalist.
 2011 Nilaihah RecordsNR044 |
1. Fearful Symmetry 2. Notes from the Fallen 3.Blades of Grass (feat. Raya Wolfsun) 4.Teapots Orbiting 5.Many Forms (feat. Raya Wolfsun) 6. Waterproof 7. Breathe You In 8. The Rim’s Edge 9. Blow My Mind 10. Inkblots |
released 25 June 2010 © 2010 Null DevicePersonnel: Eric Oehler : Vocals, Studio Geekery, Strings, Percussion Eric Goedken : Lyrics, Additional Vocals Jill Sheridan : Backing Vocals, Keys Elizabeth Scheef : Dumbek, Cello Chuck McKenzie : Bass With assistance from
Recorded and Mastered at Submersible Studios, Madison. |
| Fearful Symmetry This was originally an extended intro to “Inkblots”, which is why it recapitulates (or, due to the track order, precapitulates) some of the same musical themes. | ||
| Notes From The Fallen oehler/goedken On cool nights like these With sunlight gone from sight I’m striking out on my own Feel the pulse inside ignite This town’s on fire With shimmering beams of light Falling up and soaring down We’ll be floating here all nightFake Don’t let it show The air is all aglow And everyone you know Is looking on tonight Anyone who’s anyone And everywhere you know Everyone below Is bathed in neon light
Hours start slipping by Fallen The dawning day breaks Everything’s aglow This originally began as an attempt to write some minimal house music. After I had layered in some sarod and esraj samples, that notion quickly vanished, and it became a more straightforward electropop song. [EO] |
Blades of Grass oehler/goedken/merenkov I am looking for you In every word and every glance Searching for you Lost along every blade of grass The reasons that keep us around The ideas that are pulling you down Maybe they’ll be revealed When quiet answers fall to the groundI am searching for you With every step and every dance Trying to find you Here among every pane of glass The seasons and the ages torn I am looking to you The regions that midnight holds down I am searching for you The reasons that sweep us aground Arabic lyrics adapted by Raya Wolfsun from “My Cup and My Wine” by 8th century Sufi poet Rabi’a Al-Adawiyya. Arabic vocals also contributed by Ms. Wolfsun. Raya is someone I’ve known for a while, initially as a friend-of-a-friend who studied classical languages. She’s lived a number of places, from island nations in the Indian ocean to metropolises on the Arabian peninsula to…Chicago. While visiting her in Chicago, driving down Lakeshore Drive, I made some offhand comment about how great it would be to write songs in classical greek. Raya started singing. I nearly drove off the road. She them mentioned that she was, in fact, trained in classical arabic singing as well. After a few minutes of me nearly hyperventilating I suggested that maybe when she came to visit me we should log some studio time. So one snowy winter weeked, Raya hopped a bus to Madison, we ate some garlic-roasted potatoes and then I fired up the mics, while she scoured the internet for arabic poetry that she liked, settling on “My Cup and My Wine.” I gave her a root drone and a 4/4 beat and let her do her thing. Then I added a trance beat, Dr. Goedken took a translation of the poem and wrote a very impressive “response” to it, and the end result was one of my favorite Null Device tracks to date. [EO] |
Teapots Orbiting oehler/goedken The nights hold their dreams And I hold at mine The lights strike me blind But I still see The tides pull us in I play my role The names used in vain But now I see Maybe there’s a teapot The strings hold their seams Maybe there’s a teapot Spirits shine their beams Cello: Elizabeth Scheef. Based on the Betrand Russell’s Teapot thought experiment. Loosely. Much of the rhythm track was built on field recordings from around the house. There’s a clanky noise embedded in the track that is in fact a cat knocking over a ceramic mug full of pens while I was trying to record something else, which happened to fit both the rhtyhm and the overall feel of the song. Most of the drum track was reamped – I wasn’t happy with the “atmosphere” of the song. So I played back the drums, while simultaneously re-recording them with a microphone placed about 20 feet away. This pulled in enough “air” and added the mic’s somewhat dark frequency response to everything. The strings at the end were originally all done on electric violin, but late in the game we decided it was probably best if they were an actual string ensemble. I re-recorded all the violin and viola parts with acoustic instruments, and remembered that long before she was a percussionist, Elizabeth had been a cellist. I sent her a pdf of the cello part, she came over, I mic’ed the cello with a pair of small-diaphragm condensers, and pulled it in about two takes. [EO] |
| Many Forms oehler/merenkov Pollai morphai tôn daimoniôn, Polla d’ aelptôs krainousi theoi: Kai ta dokêthent’ ouk etelesthê, Tôn d’ adokêtôn poron hêure theos. Toiond’ apebê tode pragma. Adapted from Euripides “Bacchae.” Classical Greek vocals by Raya Wolfsun. Recorded in the same session as “Blades of Grass.” The method was much the same – I gave Raya a drone and a simple click track and she laid down the greek in a few takes. [EO] |
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| Waterproof oehler/goedken Even in the shallows It’s easy to drown Waves wash over my head And I’m going down Never deterred Just saturated To contemplate Is too complicated I keep on breathing And the tide keeps rising As I push on towards the horizon I’m waterproof The dam is collapsing Blood in the water Between about 2006 and 2009 we were beset by studio floods. From full-on sump-pump-backup gushers to slow foundation leaks, I lost a lot of cheap carpeting and some gear to heavy rains and bad drainage. This song resulted, as a tongue-and-cheek reference to the constant water problems. It was at this point that the studio got christened “Submersible” as well. There were several revisions. The first attempt sounded kind of like a Pendulum track – heavy drum-n-bass with aggressively autotuned vocals (so much so that Bogart Shwadchuck referred to me as “E-Pain” for about a week). That didn’t sound right. The song then received a vaguely Bollywood-style intro, which didn’t sound so great either. Then I switched the key and ditched everything except the primary melody, and tried to write the whole thing around a certain raga. It retained some drum-n-bass elements for a while, sounding a bit like Orbital’s “Times Fly” (in fact you can hear an early mix of this in the background of the Null Device video podcast #1), but it still wasn’t quite right. I stripped back all the percussion to a good trance beat and some tabla samples, aggresively edited the arrangement, and re-recorded the vocals to better fit the new sounds. Et voila. I’m not sure if it still conforms to the original raga after all the edits and changes, but it made a good starting point, and the raga is still introdtuced with a swarmandal sweep in the intro. [EO] |
Breathe You In oehler/goedkenWhen I’m falling Silence holds me down When all’s faded Darkness takes me ’round I breathe you in Just a tiny drag Bathing in your glow And then I know You’re the perfect one When we’re broken You’re the perfect one When I’m dreaming You’re the perfect one This was my attempt to infuse some Burial-style atmospheres to a track. The obvious example is the noisy rain field recording. However, as I often do, I got a little carried away and started layering in other recordings made live around the city. [EO] |
The Rim’s Edge oehler/goedken The still of silence breathes The quiet of this night lives Moving on through the air The rush Holding up the clouds And I wonder where this will go And I wonder if I should sleep If not here, if not there This touch Fading in the warm air Looking over the rim’s edge The still of this life shakes Hanging over the rim’s edge The silent cold release This was one of those rare songs that just sort of fell into place quickly. Aside from some tweaks along the way, once I had the basic beat and had put in the bollywood samples that make the backbone of the track, pretty much everything was ready. It didn’t really sound polished until Jill laid down her vocals. Additionally, the dhols at the end were some of the first attempts at recording live dhols I’ve tried. They’re layered with some samples. [EO] |
| Blow My Mind oehler/goedkenA hunter knows its prey Like a river makes its way Down the mountain slopes The cold edges into play Make me a promise Just a little off the top A lion sees the trend Take me by surprise Bull in your china shop The desert pulls away Make me a promise Just a little off the top
One of the poppiest songs we’ve written in a while. It’d been a live staple since long before the album was released. A few times we’ve performed this with the dhol parts played live. Unusually for the ND production style, everything in this song – from the drums to the synths to the vocals – is re-amped, either literally with speakers and an amp or with an amp simulator. “Overtaken from behind” became a running joke on the Fading Belief tour, used every time one of the band vans passed another on the highway. [eo] |
Inkblots oehler/goedkenIn black and white Small print dotting the lines Ink trails that pool Right between the eyes These facts and follies Are blurred grey and mottled Like liquid flowing They read like lies (Each street Tried to press the pieces together See blues and reds (Each street Tried to hold these thoughts together A fiction so outstanding
This one was a beast to mix. While the arrangmement was fairly straightforward (especially after trimming what became “Fearful Symmetry” from the beginning), there were a fairly ludicrous number of overdubs on the vocals and drums. Dan alone sent 6 of his vocals, plus an equal number for Lane. Admittedly I did not use every one of them, but not ever having attempted anything on that scale before (with the possible exception of “The Choir”), plus about ten tracks of epic dhols meant I spent a lot of time fighting my own poor choices of gain staging. |
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