Portrait of Guy Baron (photo: Robert Bartholot, Berlin 2021).

Post-Euphoria – A Reincarnated Ruin: Part 2

Short Essay

In part 2 of Guy Baron’s Norient series on his practice-based music research project Post-Euphoria, he thinks about compositional strategies to interpret themes of recollection and reimagination.

In the two recordings titled «Too Late» and «Residue», I utilize audio-to-MIDI conversions as a compositional strategy and to foreground sonic transformations that interpret themes of recollection and reimagination explored in my album Post-Euphoria. «Too Late» was conceived through editing and manipulating a four-bar audio sample containing a piano chord progression typical of house music productions. Importing the sample to Ableton Live, I used the software’s audio-to-MIDI conversion tool – a feature that enables the user to reproduce an audio recording in MIDI (a format that digitally stores notation and rhythmic information) – and assigned a virtual synthesizer to the newly converted clip, creating re-arranged versions of the original sample.

I also slowed down the converted sample and created different transpositions of it, while applying audio effects like chorus, phaser, equalizer, and reverb automations to examine how it can be sonically expanded. Further incorporated is a sung phrase based on the lead vocal line from Carol King’s «It’s Too Late» (King and Stern, 1971), which I re-recorded using my own voice as a short, duplicated fragment. I then created an additional, complementing recording titled «Residue», in which the converted MIDI clip is once again rearranged and sounded through another sample.

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Malleability of Sound

Employing these production strategies enabled me to playfully reimagine elements of electronic dance music and to explore new meanings and associations that emerge through their reconstruction and decontextualization. In particular, the audio-to-MIDI conversion made me think of drawing a connection between the malleability of sound and the shifting mental image of recollected euphoric experiences. As the original audio sample is being converted to MIDI, it inevitably transforms and becomes mutated, with some musical information being lost due to failures in the digital conversion process. The misconfiguration of the audio sample was in this way emphasized to present a mutated and reincarnated ruin of the original sample. The conversion also served as a useful compositional and arrangement tool, with which I was able to create different musical sections, distinct in timbre and pitch, based on a single loop.

A Hazy Sentiment

The vocal line, which fragments a lyrical and melodic phrase from a previous song, can be seen as further embodying the idea of a fragmented ruin – mediated and transformed through my own singing body, which operates as a sampler-like device. As the lyrics suggest a sense of belatedness yet remain sparse and ambiguous throughout, the idea of a late and faded reincarnation is further implied, feeding into my understanding of post-euphoria as a subjectivity that entails fleetingness and retrospection. And as the once-pulsing samples of electronic dance music motifs are being reconstructed and abstracted, a hazy and reflective sentiment takes the place of dancefloor euphoria.

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The audio-turned-MIDI sample is being further alienated in «Residue», as it is sounded through another sample. What emerges from conducting such a resampling process can be figuratively described as a memory of a memory, as the original sample is being reimagined twice. This idea is reinforced by presenting the two recordings as part of an integrated concept album, suggesting a sense of intertextuality with which memories of past euphoric experiences and their transformation over time can be portrayed musically.

List of References

King, C., and T. Stern. 1971. It’s Too Late. Ode.

This article is the second of a four-part series on the practice-based music research project «Post-Euphoria» by Guy Baron aka Semi Precious.

Biography

Guy Baron holds a PhD in music production practice and serves as an associate lecturer at London South Bank University, conducting practice-based research in music production. He works as a music practitioner under the name Semi Precious, with his releases being endorsed by Electronic Sound Magazine, The Sunday Times and The Guardian for their conceptual songwriting approach. Baron’s previous works focused on sampling of easy listening music and included a Channel-4 audio-visual commission exploring aspects of queer club utopia. He currently co-runs the electronic music record label and artist collective, squareglass. Follow him on Instagram, and Facebook.

Published on October 29, 2021

Last updated on April 11, 2024

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Post-Euphoria – The Ambivalence of Remembering: Part 3

Short Essay

by Guy Baron

In the third part of the series Post-Euphoria, Guy Baron reflects on his use of audio effects to suggest the faded recollection of lost euphoric experiences.

In «Forget U», I used my voice to re-record a vocal line from Zara Larsson and MNEK’s single «Never Forget You» (2015). I attempted to examine how the act of quoting such a song, with its dance pop sensibilities, can suggest the re-evocation of blissful moments. I digitally edited the re-recorded five-word phrase («I will never forget you»), creating an additional, reconfigured phrase («I will forget you»). I further embedded these vocal elements in an instrumental arrangement that references electronic dance music production – specifically, build-up sections conventionally aimed at inducing euphoric states amongst dancing crowds (Solberg 2014) – yet without including a kick drum. In the complementary recording «Reprise», I processed an excerpt from «Forget U» using a grain delay effect plug-in that samples and adds delay between fragments of audio material (Sasso 2012).

A Memory that Never Fades?

Larsson and MNEK’s song initially caught my attention in the midst of a relationship breakup. It struck me with its determined statement about a memory that seemingly never fades. By isolating and duplicating the phrase, I sought to emphasise this message – but also to point out its peculiarity. Through recreating and digitally editing variations of the original phrase, I was also interested in elaborating its meaning and presenting a more ambivalent reality: as the word «never» is digitally cut out to form the phrase «I will forget you», the meaning of the sentence is inverted, suggesting a thin line between the remembering and the forgetting of once-blissful experiences.

The instrumental arrangement of «Forget U» further embodies notions of faded recollection. Recreating stripped-down motifs from electronic dance music, I sought to convey muted and missing dancefloor euphoria – underlined by the lack of elements deemed fundamental to electronic dance music productions, such as a four-on-the-floor kick drum. In addition – and unlike electronic dance music productions, where the build-up usually progresses to a bass-heavy drop section – here the arrangement remains suspended and unresolved throughout. What emerges from this arrangement strategy is a musical aesthetic that dwells on absence and unfulfillment, suggesting partial and transformed memories of recollected euphoric moments.

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A Fleeting Flashback

As the musical matter of «Forget U» undergoes radical processing and transformation in «Reprise», it is presented as fluid and malleable and just about recognisable. Brief and structureless, the latter recording suggests a fleeting flashback to a bygone experience. The fragmentation of sonic grains, as induced by the application of grain delay, figuratively suggests how memories of yearned-for experiences may shift and become fragmented over time.

These meanings are further conveyed through placing the recordings alongside one another as part of an integrated body of work, presenting «Reprise» as a faded afterthought of «Forget U».