I’ll discuss the component parts of the track, how they fit together, why they work so well and how the creative team made the decisions that formed this uniquely melancholy song. ​

I’ve been splitting my listening between streaming while out and about, via Apple Music, and a 96kHz 24bit .wav version purchased from bandcamp​. You can find the song on all the major streaming services or hear it right now, featured in the player below. Be sure to follow the Listen Close playlist on Spotify for quick access to some production or mix inspiration, and follow Mix Perspective on Instagram for a reminder when a new blog is ready, plus insight into my listening process. 

​Before we deep dive into the listening, it’s important to remember that very few songs we hear are entirely the work of one person, the album ‘Punisher’ was produced by Tony Berg, Ethan Gruska and Phoebe herself, engineered by Will Maclellan and Joseph Lorge, mixed by Mike Mogis and mastered by Bob Ludwig. Phoebe wrote the song, with the albums liner notes listing Christian Lee Hutson and Marshall Vore as having provided “emotional and lyrical” support.
 
‘Punisher’ was released on the 18th of June on Dead Oceans, with ‘Garden Song’ being the lead single, getting a video and streaming release back in February. While instrumental mood setter ‘DVD Menu’ opens the album officially, ‘Garden Song’ is the first track that introduces Bridgers' finger picked guitar style and delicate vocal delivery that is so key to hooking you into her song writing as well as setting a tone for album going forward.

​‘Garden Song’ initially seems like a rudimentary production, comprised of a number of guitar parts, a constant kick drum with several layers of vocal bolstering the choruses. Despite this apparent simplicity (especially compared to something like this previous Listen Close subject track by occasional Bridgers collaborators The 1975) listening in more detail reveals that the production is constantly engaging the listener, using a sharp focus on the vocal performance and subtle shifts in the textures surrounding it to gently lead your ear from section to section. Many momentary background special effects keep a casual listener’s ear from getting bored and provide extra depth to lyrical phrases for those paying close attention. 
 
The first verse sets the scene, presenting an almost underwater sounding instrumental, with the central baritone electric guitar part and kick drum having been subjected to a steep low pass filter. These sounds define the overall emotional tone of the song, a muted melancholy feeling, but your ear is also caught by the stuttering and garbled sound that swirls around the stereo field giving the track a sense of width far greater than the mono guitar, vocal and kick drum could readily provide (see Get That Sound below for more detail).

At 00:19 seconds Phoebe’s voice enters, and opens up the frequency range of the track massively. As you can see from the FFT Spectrum graphics below, before she sings the track is restrained to 3kHz and lower, her voice then pushing the frequency content right up to the upper limits of our hearing at 20kHz.

​It’s worth noting that the track does still contain some frequencies above that rough 3kHz cut off in the intro, it’s just that their level falls below the threshold of the analyser I’ve used here. This content is primarily just the noise floor of the recording, a white noise like hiss, but its inclusion is essential to keep the track feeling natural and ‘whole’. The presence of this noise softens the apparent severity of the filtered guitar and allows the vocal to pleasantly add to an existing sound rather than jarringly barging in as an entirely new-to-our-ear frequency. New frequencies can be exciting in a mix, but here the intention is to keep things more mellow and relaxed sounding. 
 
This first verse is used to introduce (or reintroduce if you’ve listened to Bridgers previous album)  the listener to the finger picked guitar and striking but gentle voice that make up the core components of the Phoebe Bridgers sound. On the mix side of things the track defines its boundaries in terms of frequency content, the kick drum controlling the low end, the guitar confined to the low mid while most of the upper mid and high frequency space is reserved for the vocal. After a full minute of this balance ‘Garden Song’ moves into its first chorus, and here is where things start to get a little more interesting. 

​It is common, particularly within pop and alternative genres, for the chorus of a song to expand the sound out from the preceding verse. While there are many different ways to achieve this, the easiest and perhaps most common method to achieve this is a widening of the stereo field (check out my thoughts on Hayley Williams ‘Simmer’ for a look at another particularly effective method).  What caught my ear with ‘Garden Song’ though is that its chorus takes almost the exact opposite approach. 
 
The chorus arrives at the 01:00 mark, and almost immediately the sound design element that has been providing the sense of width in the verses fades out, pushing the track into a much more mono place. This potentially sharp transition is covered by the bold introduction of the much lower pitched vocal part, which I’ll come back to, while the additional guitar part that arrives at 01:01 is panned slightly to the right, ensuring that some sense of stereo is maintained. The effect is subtle, but reducing the stereo width gives the track a more focused feeling, your ear can hone in on Phoebe’s lyrics. 
 
While ‘Garden Song’ eschews one of the most common methods of making a chorus feel bigger, it does still utilise some classic tricks in this regard. During the choruses a double track of Phoebe’s voice is quietly introduced, thickening the sound in a way that is almost always pleasing to hear, without distracting from the main melody in the way a higher harmony part might have. 
 
The most obvious addition though is the aforementioned low-pitched vocal, which adds an interesting and slightly peculiar texture to the chorus. This voice has an entirely different timbre to Phoebe’s, which I initially thought had been achieved by manipulating another double track of her vocal with a pitch and formant shifter. But, having scoured Punisher’s credits I found there is reference to a Jeroen Vrijhoef as having performed on track 2, ‘Garden Song’, but not to what he played. Wikipedia has jumped to the conclusion that he’s featured as a vocalist and I am inclined to agree, but I’m also not sure we’re hearing exactly Jeroen’s natural singing voice...

​The texture of Jeroen's low harmony part feels slightly unnatural, there’s a slightly buzzy quality to the midrange that suggests it has had its formant and possibly pitch shifted down. The result of this is that the vocal gains a kind of anonymous and mysterious feeling that ensures it remains a supporting part, enhancing rather than distracting from the lead vocal and ensuring the song doesn’t start to feel like Phoebe Bridgers feat. Jeroen Vrijhoef.

These mix shifts in the chorus are individually subtle, but the overall impact informs your ear that this is where the song wants your attention most, pulling your focus to the centre and exciting your ear with new sounds. 
 
For the second verse the mix shifts back to the width and vocal production of the first, letting the stereo information feel new again but easing the intensity of the track back slightly to give definition to the section. As the second verse has more lyrics than the first, a change up in Phoebe’s vocal performance for the final part keeps it feeling fresh. The second chorus uses the same tricks from the first to get maximum satisfaction from the two different approaches. ​

​‘Garden Song’ is a great example of a track that takes what could have potentially been an uninspiring arrangement, and with a few broad brush stroke moves turns it into a production that is intriguing from the outset. When working on our own productions and mixes it can be tempting to get carried away with mix tricks and ear candy moments, but here focusing on the bigger picture of the emotional tone and where the listener is focused does most of the heavy lifting in terms of keeping the song consistently interesting. It certainly doesn’t hurt that those bigger decisions give ‘Garden Song’ a striking tonal quality and use the ‘sound design’ element to add something truly unique. 

This week I’ve really tried to look at the mix from a fairly zoomed out perspective, but like a lot of tracks that I love, listening even closer reveals lots of little details and moments sprinkled over its run time, here are some interesting things I noticed:

• The verses contain a second layer to the sound design element that’s present at the start of every four bars, a low midrangey buzz is central in the mix, which is likely also derived from the main guitar part. 
• A rich stereo Plate Reverb is present around Phoebes vocal and it retains its stereo spread throughout the song, as such it’s more clearly heard in the choruses. 
• A second reverb creeps up and blooms out on the words ‘door frame’ at 00:57, further blending the end of the first verse and the start of the first chorus.
• That reverb then returns at 02:00 to wash out the words “to a tidal wave,” it’s slightly denser here, briefly creating a burst of noise at 02:03 that recalls the sound of ocean waves.
• A deep synth bass sound is subtly adding emphasis to certain phrases in the choruses, it blends nicely with the formant shifted vocals into one texture. It’s most clearly heard at 01:20 under the words "and then I knew."
• The vocal double tracks are more pronounced in the second chorus, helping it feel more intense than the first. 
• A little bit of light googling reveals that Jeroen Vrijhoef is a tour manager, looks like he worked on Phoebe Bridgers European shows in 2019. Hope he’s doing ok while live music is taking such a hard hit from the pandemic! 

 
#LetTheMusicPlay

‘Garden Song’ is immediately followed on the album ‘Kyoto’ which I thoroughly recommend to hear another side to Phoebe’s songwriting, as well as some triumphant sounding brass, something I’ve particularly responded to after Last Week’s blog.
 
While researching this blog I discovered that ‘Punisher’ co-producer Ethan Gruska is an artist in his own right, check out his track ‘Blood in Rain’ featuring previous Listen Close subject Moses Sumney.

​Thanks so much for taking the time to explore another song with me. I would love to hear your thoughts on this track; you can find Mix Perspective on Instagram, leave a comment on this blog post or email me by following the Contact tab below. What’s your favourite track from ‘Punisher’? Do you know of another song that gets narrower in the choruses? Or one that separates its instrumental in such an extreme way? I’d love to hear what you think!

Listen Close is a weekly feature where I take a long hard listen to a song that really grabbed my ears. I think about which elements of the mix have got me so interested and try to understand how and why they work, as well as how they can give me a better perspective on my own productions.

This week I’ve been paying close attention to Jack Garratt’s new album, ‘Love, Death & Dancing’ which was released on the 12th of June 2020. I’ve found myself particularly taken with the track ‘Time’, which I first heard when it was released as a single back in February. Produced by Garratt and Jacknife Lee, ‘Time’ is the opening track of the album on streaming services, though curiously features much later in the track listing if you buy a physical copy of the album. David Wrench handles mixing duties and Heba Kadry mastered the album. 
 
  
You can listen to this track, and all the tracks previously featured in Listen Close, via the Mix Perspective Spotify playlist embedded below.

I’ve been listening to the album on Apple Music, and as such ‘Time’ feels to me most at home as an album opener (check out my thoughts on another album opener here). In this context, the ‘start small and expand’ philosophy of production is on full display (If you haven’t heard the track in full yet, now is a good time to do so to get the full impact of that expansion!).
 
‘Time’ lives up to its name, stretching out over a 05:37 run time. This is the first clue that despite opening up a heavily pop-leaning album, it’s not afraid to try things that don’t necessarily line up with what we might consider a chart single formula. 
 
Sonically the song uses a palette familiar to fans of Jack’s earlier work, sampled drums and synthesizers cosy up alongside Jack’s guitar playing and layers of his signature vocal. Opening with a minimal arrangement ‘Time’ almost constantly expands from beginning to end, introducing live drums, many layers of synth and electronic percussion and at its climax, some triumphant sounding brass. 
 
The manner in which that crescendo is reached though, is a little less conventional. Rather than sticking to a standard pop song structure of verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus the track uses its relatively long run time to present something that closely resembles a three act structure, commonly found in storytelling media like TV, film, novels and plays. 
 
Elementsofcinema.com helpfully defines this method of story telling like so

• Act 1: Setup
• Act 2: Confrontation
• Act 3: Resolution

 
If we think of the ‘chorus’ parts that feature the vocal refrain “time is on your side” as the transitions between broad sections of the song, then we can start to see those sections as being our Acts 1, 2 and 3, with each act fulfilling those broad headings. 

Act 1 runs from the start of the track to roughly the end of that first chorus (00:00 to 01:39). The song uses this setup phase to introduce the core elements of the mix, slowly building up the instrumentation as it goes along (it does this starting with a frequency band-limited sound, a trick I wrote about in more detail in my piece on The 1975’s ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’. 
 
By the end of Act 1, ‘Time’ has established a clear priority for the organic elements in the mix. As is common for a pop song, the lead vocal is given pole position, but otherwise the guitars are louder and spread further into the stereo field than the relatively small and narrow sounding drum loop and synth parts.
 
As the first chorus finishes new synth sounds creep into the mix from outside their previously established positions, a pad sound sparkles on the left side and a swelling bass extends its frequency range way down past the band-limited drums and tones of the intro. This signals both the end of the first Act as well as introduces the conflict between the synthetic and organic elements that will gain importance in Act 2. 
 
The second Act (01:39 to 04:40) ups the overall energy and urgency of the track, with both the electronic and ‘real’ instruments gaining intensity. The confrontation in Act 2 is presented as a battle for priority between the synthetic and organic sounds in the mix. 
 
During the course of this act a back and forth develops between both sides of this conflict, as rising synth pad sounds are seemingly pushed back by distorted guitars while powerful live drum fills momentarily squash the central electronic drum loop. This disruption to the established mix balance generates a sense of musical restlessness that reflects the anxiety portrayed in lyrics like “now everything you think you know of your design, is trembling at the edges” the tension continues to build until the second chorus (02:47) where the track begins to resolve around the realisation that “time is on your side”.
 
This pivotal moment in the story comes at the exact mid point of the track, a key moment in many three act structures, where the central character will have a realisation or gain new information that will drive them towards the end of their story. From this point the anxiety of the lyrics dies away and the mix begins to move away from feelings of unrest and towards a sense of balance between the synthetic and organic elements. 

​The aggressive electric guitars begin to relax and the central drum and synth loop achieve a much higher position in the hierarchy of the mix, intimating that some sort of resolution between these elements is being achieved. As this section continues to build towards a conclusion, a formant shifted vocal loop asking"‘are your ready?" is introduced, blurring the lines between what it is an electronic element and what is organic, furthering the sense that the conflict is being resolved and a new balance is being reached. This eventually leads into the introduction of brass instruments (from 04:00), which finally burst through the production at 04:40 heralding the arrival of the final section. 
 
Act 3 is typically given the heading of Resolution, and here this is demonstrated in a euphoric climax, with both synthetic and organic aspects of the production slotting together and working hand in hand, both rhythmically and melodically. 
 
The vocals disappear completely from the last minute of the song, and no lyrical answer to the question “are you ready?” is given. Despite this, the uplifting and confident nature of the sound in the final act strongly suggests that the turmoil felt by the central character  has been overcome.
 
By using its first act to introduce you to a character and their surroundings, pushing them through a tense second act filled with conflict before arriving at an uplifting and cathartic finale, ‘Time’ tells an immensely satisfying story.
 
While 05:37 might seem long for a pop song, breaking this length into a distinct three-act structure allows ‘Time’ to take the listener on the kind of complex emotional journey that a two hour film can often struggle to deliver, while at the same time giving it a unique flavour amongst competing pop records. ​

​The mix decisions made throughout ‘Time’ are crucial to the three act structure being successful, as well as keeping the song engaging to a first time listener over its long length (for a pop song). Being the first single released for the album, the track can’t afford to lose the attention of someone who’s come to the track via radio play or a playlist. 
 
‘Time’s key approach to this task is to present a mix that constantly shifts and evolves, consistently changing which instruments have priority, and how much of the frequency spectrum each part is afforded. Like many modern pop mixes, ‘Time’ also deploys many musical and mix ‘moments’ to add excitement to any sections that might otherwise feel repetitive, while also adding to the overall character of the track. 
 
This commitment to changing sounds as the story progresses is most evident in the treatment of the electronic drum parts, which are allowed to increasingly expand out into the frequency spectrum as the track progresses.
 
At the beginning of the track, these drums are simply a single percussion sound looping, with a very limited frequency range (roughly 200Hz – 3kHz), in the middle section this is expanded out with a kick drum sound that extends down to the 40Hz region as well as hi-hat and cymbal sounds that push up into 10kHz territory. During the final act, this is expanded once more with strong mid range clap and snare sounds and even more high frequency content is present in additional percussion loops. While as a producer or mixer we know that this expansion is through additional parts being added, as a listener they all register as part of the same thing, the drumbeat that is rhythmically driving the track, and the mixer has treated them as such. 

The final moments of the track strip the music back to just these drums and a single synth part, which mirrors the opening of the track, the tonal changes that have occurred solidify the sense that a fundamental change has occurred throughout the song and a new equilibrium has been established.
 
The main electric guitar part also undergoes its own tonal transition, using a dense reverb to gain additional mid range body in the middle section (compare 00:15 to 01:41), and then loses some of its top end clarity and boomyness as it moves to support the brass lines towards the end of the song (04:33). These changes in tonality allow the same instrument to perform different functions as the track progress, the extra low mid heft helps to make the middle section feel denser and more powerful, while reducing the high frequencies as more instruments are introduced makes room for the newer ‘more important’ brass parts.
 

‘Time’ uses these shifts, and many others, to move the overall feeling of the mix from its sparse beginning through to its dense and powerful climax in ways that feel natural and support the overall journey. For me, this is what makes the track so successful, while critical listening has revealed a seemingly complex production approach to ‘Time’, these decisions are not obvious to the casual listener, as the production flows naturally from section to section giving you the satisfying feeling of being taken on a journey. 
 
It’s important to be able to see our mixes and productions from the ‘zoomed out’ perspective of someone hearing it for the first time, with no access to the knowledge of what each track is doing or why decisions were made. It feels clear to me that the idea of telling a story with the song was integral to its writing and production, with the mix decisions balancing between this core idea and fitting into the sonic landscape of modern pop. Successfully navigating these two ideas gives ‘Time’ a unique feel, and has definitely helped it stick in my mind long past my initial listen.

Stray Observations

• There is a nice momentary doubling of the electric guitar at 00:48, hinting at the tones that will arrive later in the track.
• I’ve really focussed on the instrumental for this track, but it’s worth noting that the vocals sound great throughout, with some subtle but very effective double tracking and harmonies that keep Jack sounding full and in charge of the track even as the production balloons around him.
• There’s something very cool happening to the electronic Tom sound in the beat at 03:26, possibly some sort of digital delay or reverb with a feedback control?
• I love that the brass parts get subtly introduced quite a way before their big moment at 04:40, but the shift in performance style makes them feel brand new as the rest of the track drops out.
• I focused in on the electronic drums, but there is an accompanying little synth part with loads of personality that goes through just as much change from the intro to outro.
• I mentioned Last Week that it was a bold choice for a pop song to not return to its lead vocal melody for the final chorus, but ‘Time’ one-ups that move by dropping any vocals for nearly a full minute at the end.

​Further Listening
 
The whole of ‘Love, Death & Dancing’ is packed with fun mix and production ideas, but if the climax of ‘Time’ has you in a dancing mood, follow it up with Garratt's current single ‘Better’.
 
Mixer David Wrench has a wide range of interesting credits to his name, for another sprawling and evolving track check out ‘send my love’ by Marika Hackman, from her 2019 album ‘Any Human Friend’, co-produced and mixed by Wrench. 

​Thanks once again for taking the time to join me in overthinking one of my favourite recent productions, leave your thoughts on the track in the comments below and don’t forget to follow my Instagram account for a reminder when ever new posts go up. 

Listen Close is a weekly feature where I take a long hard listen to a song that really grabbed my ears. I think about which elements of the mix have got me so interested and try to understand how and why they work, as well as how they can give me a better perspective on my own productions.

​This week I’m exploring ‘I Know Alone’ by HAIM. Released as the fifth single preceding the release of the bands third album, ‘Women in Music Pt. III’, ‘I Know Alone’ arrived onto streaming services on the 29th of April 2020. At the time of writing ‘Women in Music Pt. III’ is still yet to be released, so tracking down the credits for the mix and mastering engineers has proved difficult. The Spotify iOS app does list, in the following order, the producers of the track as; Ariel Rechtshaid, Buddy Ross, Danielle Haim (of the band) and Rostam Batmanglij.
 
The song can be streamed in all the usual places, but features on the new Listen Close Spotify playlist, as seen below!

​‘I Know Alone’ is an interesting and modern blend of natural and synthetic sounds, which combine to create a unique atmosphere that closely reflects the lyrics. Danielle Haim, the lead vocalist on this track, explains on Instagram that the first lyric written for the song was ‘I know alone like no one else does’, and the whole production takes on this idea of loneliness and separation. 
 
In terms of instrumentation the track utilises programmed drums, cold bass and pad sounds in contrast with a solo cello, a lone acoustic guitar as well heavily affected vocal lines and loops. This conjures an aesthetic where the central character portrayed by the lead vocalist lives in a slightly artificial and detached space, while the track swirls around her. I love how ‘I Know Alone’ places the listener inside the specific world of the song.
 
This concept of the ‘world’ of the song is one that I am constantly returning to when I think about my favourite mixes and something I try and be conscious of in my own work. I think the most successful productions achieve a sense of being a complete piece in and of themselves; it’s that difference between hearing a mix and hearing a song. This is the successful combination of the creative and technical decisions throughout the production process to create an overall feel of the track. 
 
A squeaking noise from a cello opens the track, leading you in to that world, before the first verse introduces the key components of it. The production of the lead vocal, particularly in the first and second verses, really emphasises the feeling of being inside a lonely person’s thoughts. When the verse vocal enters (00:02 and again at 00:54) a stereo widening effect is high in the mix, spreading the sound across the stereo image as well as giving the impression of placing it in a very small space. The stereo effect and pushed forward sound make us feel like we are sharing this very confined space with the singer, and that we are perhaps hearing it literally from inside their head. 
 
The mixer has ensured that the lead vocal still blends with the more open space of the instrumental using a large plate style reverb. This additional reverb has a reasonably long pre-delay (in the 20-30ms range) which creates enough distance between the direct sound and the reverb for the vocal to maintain its unique ambience in the foreground of the track, while still tying it into the overall sound of the song. The single backing vocal line in the first verse (‘I don’t wanna give’ at 00:16) is drenched in a dense reverb, providing a moment of excitement but also helping to bridge the distance between the lead vocal and the rest of the track. 

​The choruses of the song (00:25, 01:17, 02:55) add many more layers of instruments and vocals, giving the track a familiar feeling pop music ‘lift’. The choice of instruments here help the track to stay in line with theme of loneliness while being musically a lot denser and more exciting than the verse that precedes it. 
 
The acoustic guitar part has a close sound that has a realistic quality to it; the ambience surrounding it gives the impression that it was played in an everyday space, such as a bedroom (which it may well have been). This helps maintain the sense of the character in the lyrics being on their own. 
 
When the guitar is pushed forward in the mix at 02:21 this choice is further emphasised. Here the guitar sound contains digital artefacts and is layered with a sample of noise that is reminiscent of low quality phone camera footage, giving the impression of an intimate performance broadcast from isolation. While it’s worth noting that this song was written and recorded before the world entered a state of lockdown, the emotional connotations of those Zoom-like artefacts is certainly a lot more relatable in the current situation. 
 
The cello part doubles the guitar, both musically and in its emotion. The decision to keep the part as a solo cello player, rather than multiple players or a larger string section, adds to the effect of the lonely sound, as solo cello has been used throughout music history in pieces with a melancholy feel, for example, Chopin’s ‘Nocturne in C sharp minor’ or John William’s ‘Main Title (From “Schindler’s List”)’. 
 
It can be useful to remember that our productions don’t exist in a vacuum, and that we aren’t limited to using just similar music as a point of reference. Some sounds have been established as cultural signifiers for certain emotions or situations (like the ‘sad cello’ present in ‘I Know Alone’) and they can be utilised to enhance lyrical and musical choices.    
 
Using these production and mix techniques ‘I Know Alone’ creates a very clear emotional state that the song exists in; this overall feel allows the production to include many different and potentially disparate elements (evolving garage inspired beats and melancholy cello solo aren’t the most obvious combination). As long as these different parts don’t feel like they are breaking the established mood of the song, they feel like integral parts of the whole. 
 
Establishing a world for a song to exist in can be enormously engaging for the listener, but simply containing a large amount of elements that are pointing towards a larger whole doesn’t immediately make a production a success. Throughout ‘I Know Alone’ it feels as though there has been a great deal of care taken in choosing which elements take priority at any one time, and it’s the way those parts are separated in the ‘front to back’ image that gives the aesthetic choices a sense of depth. 
 
As is pretty much standard in modern pop music, the lead vocal maintains priority in the ‘foreground’ throughout the song, only when the lead vocal drops out do other elements step forward to the ‘front’ of the mix. This happens at 02:17 with the acoustic guitar, which is then replaced with the cello at 02:44. Slightly unusually, the final chorus doesn’t feature the lead vocal melody present earlier in the song, instead a warped vocal sample gets the spotlight (02:57) and for the outro the backing vocals drift further into focus (roughly 03:24 until the end).
 
The drums also hold a point of priority; they stay up front in the mix for the majority of the song, with changes in the snare sample used to up the excitement in the choruses, even though its front to back position doesn’t shift. This is momentarily subverted, from 02:42 to 02:50 the drums return after a short drop out pushed far back in the mix and slightly off centre. This section of the song is  dramatically different to other parts, the cello is pushed right forward in the mix and a lot of parts drop out completely, but keeping the drums tucked in the back provides a sense of continuity even if they aren’t consciously being heard by the listener. 
 
The ‘middle ground’ of the track is where things are most dynamic, this is where backing vocal and synth parts are shifting in and out of focus to keep the track engaging and generating a sense of movement, even while the lead vocal and drums stay very consistent. For example, during the second chorus (01:17) at 01:32 the cello is pushed forward, giving this section a sense that something new has happened, even though musically it repeats. 
 
Throughout ‘I Know Alone’ the background of the mix contains elements that aren’t immediately obvious, but definitely contribute to our overall impression of the track. During the second verse (from 00:55) a looped and heavily affected vocal sits low in the mix and slightly off to the right, the lyric is unintelligible though I suspect it is a variation of the ‘when Sunday comes they expect me to shine’ refrain that appears later in the track (02:21). This adds variety to the second verse, as well as providing a sense of continuity for a bold sound that might otherwise feel like it appears from nowhere. 
 
 
‘I Know Alone’ is a great example of a song that manages to conjure a whole sonic world for the listener to explore which continually shifts its front to back soundstage to keep that listener interested. When working on my own productions creating a consistent environment for songs to live in can be challenging, to me it is one of the key things that takes a project from a mix to a finished song. With ‘I Know Alone’, HAIM, along with their producers and engineers have shown that a strong emotional tie to the lyrics of the song is a great starting point, and it gives a clear direction for the choices that follow. Whether it's the choice of instrument or reverb type, many of the decisions in a mix can and should serve the song itself.

Stray Observations
​

• I would guess that the ‘Robot’ setting on Soundtoys’ ‘Little Alterboy’ plugin has been used to create the formant shifted vocals dotted throughout the song. 
• Those odd vocal loops appear in all sorts of places in the song, but there’s an insistent loop on the right side of the first chorus that really adds a nice texture. 
• The choruses have some really fun SciFi-ish synth sounds that bounce around the choruses, helping up the stereo interest.
• I love the use of the really far down the neck squeaky sliding cello sound that opens the song and transitions the bridge into the final chorus (02:53), for me it conjures the image of an opening door, letting you in to the singers private thoughts.
• The second squeak is paid off nicely with a ‘scream’ sound that punctuates the drop into that final chorus. 
• Interesting how the snare sample in the first verse has almost no transient, letting it be fairly prominent in the mix without pulling focus from the vocal and making the full snap of the snare in the chorus that much more satisfying. 
• The intimate and close nature of the acoustic guitar bubbles through in the second chorus, with an obvious hand sliding on the neck sound at 01:26.
• In the second verse the backing vocal ‘I don’t wanna give’ (01:09) blooms into a reverb that travels from right to left as it catches up to the same lyric in the lead vocal. 

Further Listening

To hear HAIM create a much sunnier space, check out ‘Summer Girl’, another single preceding ‘Women In Music Pt. III’.
 
For another dense world to explore, have a listen to ‘Impossible’ by Clairo, which also features production by Rostam Batmanglij and drums by Danielle Haim. 

​Thanks once again for joining me in exploring an exciting mix! I would love to hear your opinion on the song, and any tips you have for creating depth in a mix? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

​Welcome back to Listen Close, this week I’ve found myself returning to Billie Eilish’s stand-alone single ‘everything i wanted’, released on the 16th of November 2019. The song was produced by Billie’s brother and frequent collaborator Finneas O’Connell, mixed by Rob Kinelski and mastered by John Greenham.
 
You can stream the song from Apple, Spotify as well as Tidal, where I also found a detailed list of the track’s credits.
 
‘everything i wanted’ is an intimate reflection on Eilish’s new-found fame after the breakout success of her debut album ‘WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?’, released back in March 2019.  I generally like to listen to albums or EPs in full, but I’ve been returning to this one-off track despite it not fitting into a larger release. The production and mix really enhance the confessional nature of the lyrics and the sense of intimacy in the performance. This has helped etch a solid idea of what the song is in my memory, and there’s a few one-off ‘mix moments’ that quickly spring to mind when thinking about the song. 
 
The song sets the scene with a heavily affected piano part, which has an underwater like quality to it, this is quickly joined by a distant synth sound (00:06) and then the lead vocal (00:16).  As the first verse progresses, the arrangement is steadily built up with backing vocals (00:30), kick drum (00:32), more synthesiser parts (00:34) and electronic percussion (00:40). The first chorus (01:20) introduces a thick subby synth bass line and many more layers of vocal to increase the overall size of the track. From here on, the track drops and builds back these elements in varying ways to keep the audible landscape shifting and holding our attention. Throughout all this, the mix maintains that Billie’s voice is the most important element and that direct connection to the listener is essential. 
 
This prioritisation is happening right from the beginning of the song. The initial piano sound we hear is severely limited in its frequency range, it is focused between 150Hz to 1kHz, rolling off steeply above and below this window, nothing exists below 40Hz and more crucially above 2kHz. This means that when the vocal enters it instantly gets to excite your ear with a huge amount of ‘new’ frequencies.

​This is immensely satisfying for our brains but also makes sure that we perceive the vocal as close to us. Out in the real world we instinctively know that as a sound gets further away it’s high frequency content is lessened and that the opposite is also true. If someone whispers in your ear (which is certainly how the vocals of this song can feel on headphones) you expect it to be a much brighter and more detailed sound than someone talking on the other side of a room to us. 
 
This effect is also emphasised in the amount of reverb used. The piano and synth parts throughout have a much lower direct to reverberant ratio than the vocals, which helps inform your brain that the vocal is closer still. 
 
 
This high frequency prioritisation of the vocal continues even as the song adds more and more elements. The electronic kick drum sound is low and thudding, it lacks the high midrange ‘click’ that is often desired to help it punch through the mix. While this approach preserves precious high mid space for the vocal, it does mean that on smaller playback systems the rhythmic support of the kick would be lost. To counteract this the producer uses the kick drum as the key input for a heavy side-chain compression effect on the other instruments (listen to the rhythmic pulsing of the piano in the intro to hear this effect in isolation). This allows the rhythm of the kick to be imprinted on the rest of the track, resulting in the beat still being ‘felt’ even if the kick itself is not clearly audible. 
 
The synth parts are treated similarly to the piano, with their high end restricted and a good dose of reverb to push them back away from the vocal sound. Other percussive elements are afforded a slightly more midrange-focused sound, although the claps remain much duller than you might expect from a modern pop production. 
 
Keeping the high frequency content of the song so focussed on the lead vocal through out the intro and verse sections is a clever way for the production to connect you to Billie’s voice and lyrics, but it also give the track a great way to expand once it arrives at the choruses.
 
With the brief exceptions of the wide doubled lead vocal sound in the verse and pre-chorus (‘might have been a nightmare’ 00:31, ‘right there’ 00:56, etc) the vocals and therefore high frequencies are central in the mix. As the chorus kicks in, we are treated to a large amount of additional vocal layers that spread across the entire stereo image, adding their own brightness to the sides of the mix and giving the track a really satisfying feeling of opening out and getting bigger. 

​Ultimately the goal of the mixing stage is to make sure that the parts present in the production do in fact ‘mix’ together in a way that gets across the intentions of the song. Using EQ so deliberately to separate the vocal from the rest of the elements could potentially cause issues with this objective, but the producer and mixer (and potentially the mastering engineer) have deployed a particular tool to make sure that disparate elements co-exist in the ‘world’ of the mix.
 
The delicate vocal and rounded off piano sound present ‘everything i wanted’ as having a soft and gentle overall sound, but in fact some form of distortion has been added to almost every sound in the mix.
 
Ranging from the pumping compressor mangling the piano, to the gnarly overdrive on the sub bass in the chorus (and a little more obviously in the middle eight at 03:21). The combination of all this distortion pushes the sounds into a common sonic area, helping them gel together nicely. 
 
Pushing the distortion to extremes on the more band-limited parts of the mix also adds harmonic content further up the spectrum, extending them out of their perceived frequency range and helping them to smoothly blend with the other elements. This technique allows a more subtle result than perhaps boosting with an EQ or doubling with a whole new part might have done. 
 
Take the kick drum for example; the majority of its frequency content is centred at roughly 63Hz, giving it a low, boomy quality that keeps it well out the way of the vocal. Listening at 00:36 we hear the kick drum clearly has a crunching distortion artefact sitting at a much higher frequency, which allows it to subtly overlap with the vocal and piano sounds, resulting it a more cohesive mix. 
 
 
‘everything i wanted’ is a gorgeous sounding mix that very deliberately creates a clear space in the frequency spectrum for it’s lead vocal performance, while ensuring that the overall mix still blends together in a warm and inviting way. It’s really satisfying to hear a track that presents a bold sonic idea, but does so in such a way that it isn’t overbearing or even particularly obvious on a first listen.

While that core concept certainly goes a long way to making a memorable mix, the song also features some really lovely one-off moments and tricks that keep it feeling contemporary and interesting throughout its run time. 

Stray observations
 

• At 00:21 the title of the song is sung and nicely emphasised by a deep reverb.
• The pulsing 1kHz focused synth that arrives at 00:41 has a definite submarine sonar vibe.
• The word ‘underwater’ at 01:57 feels like it’s been submerged as the high end rolls off and the reverb blooms out. 
• There are some beautiful delay throws on BV lines at 00:42 ‘Fly’ and 00:52 ‘Cry’.
• The choruses are given an extra lift by a Mellotron style pad sound that enters alongside the BVs.
• The band limited intro and outro sections have the added benefit of resetting the listener’s ears from whatever they have heard previously and for whatever is coming up next. Particularly important for a stand-alone single. 

​Further Listening
 
To hear some more bold production choices from Billie and Finneas, but with a very different mood, check out ‘bury a friend’ from the album ‘WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?’.
 
To hear another great vocal focussed mix from Rob Kinselski give ‘Tough On Myself’ by King Princess a listen.

​Thanks for listening along with me; I would love to hear your thoughts on the track in the comments below, are there any songs you would recommend that separate their vocal in a similar way? Or any other tracks that have a watery feel?

Listen Close is a weekly feature where I take a long hard listen to a song that really grabbed my ears. I think about which elements of the production have got me so interested and try to understand how and why they work, as well as how I can apply these techniques to my own productions.
​

This week I’m delving into ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’ by The 1975.

‘Too Shy’, as it will be referred to from here on, was released on the 23rd of April 2020. It’s the sixth single from the band’s fourth album, ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’, which came out on the 22nd of May 2020.  The track has production by George Daniel and Matthew Healy (Drummer and Singer of the band respectively) along with Jonathan Gilmore. ‘Too Shy’ was Mixed by Mike Crossey and Mastered by Robin Schmidt.
 
The track can be listened to in all the usual places, Spotify, Tidal etc. I couldn’t easily find a high-resolution version of the track to buy, so I’ve been doing the majority of my listening from an Apple Music stream. Two versions of the song have been released, but I have focussed on the longer album version rather than the cut down radio edit.
 
This week's Listen Close has an extra leg up as the band has made a 96k 32bit version of the mixed stems available to download. If you’re interested in listening to the song in even more detail I would definitely recommend grabbing these from mindshower.ai to get a rare chance to hear parts of a big chart single in isolation. 
 
It’s worth keeping in mind that I’ve used those stems to hear some things that maybe aren’t so obvious in the final master, but I will try and make it clear where that’s the case.
 
On to the listening! I am unashamed to say that this song puts a big giddy smile on my face. If you’re not familiar with The 1975 they are something of a Swiss army knife of a band. Each album they’ve released contains progressively more diverse styles of song, including but not limited to; pulsing electronica, nostalgic indie rock and acoustic ballads. ‘Too Shy’ falls into the style they are arguably most well known for, heavily 80’s influenced pop rock. This song is the band firing on all cylinders from a production standpoint, employing a huge range of techniques that have at times been utilised on earlier The 1975 tracks, but here coalesce into one of their most ear-catching songs. 
 
‘Too Shy’ is absolutely monstrous sounding pop music. Opening with an extended intro section, which features vocalisations from FKA Twigs (00:16) and scene-setting guitar and synth parts, the song launches into a powerful sounding live drum beat and thick synth bass (01:05). From here the guitars and synths come into focus, providing a super wide sound stage and when the lead vocal enters (01:18) it some how increases that sense of size again. This large-scale sound doesn’t let up for the rest of the song, with live brass parts further heightening the chorus sections (first chorus 02:04) and a jubilant saxophone solo (04:07) switching up the lead melody sound, without dropping any of the intensity. 
 
The production and mix of this song make almost every element feel big and powerful, resulting in a track that keeps up it’s level of excitement and that glossy sense of size all the way through an over five minute run time. While that might not sound like a huge achievement on paper, in practice making everything in a mix feel ‘big’ individually can quite easily result in a complete muddle when it all comes together. 
 
What do I mean when I say a sound is big? For me this is sort of an instinctual thing. It’s very easy to hear a song and point to a sound that feels exciting, powerful and larger than life. This is especially true in high-energy genres, such as pop, rock, metal and dance music, where those sorts of sounds are absolutely sought after by producers and engineers to grab the listeners’ attention. 
 
The first thing to note is that size is a relative term. America is a big country, compared to England. The chorus has a massive bass line, compared to the verse. Whether we are conscious of it or not, when we listen we are always comparing the sound to other things we have already heard. Whether that’s the intro compared to the verse of a song, this song versus the previous track on the radio or an artist’s new album compared to their previous one. The trick is that when it comes to how things actually sound, our memory of the specifics is really rather short. 
 
‘Too Shy’ uses that fact to grab it’s first points on the ‘big mix’ scoreboard by giving us a long intro section, where the sound is focussed between 63hz and 4kHz. This means that as soon as the main track kicks in (01:05) we hear a whole new range of bass and high frequency content as it fills out to the full range of human hearing, 20Hz-20kHz. After over a minute of not hearing those frequencies our brains have largely forgotten about them, regardless of what you were listening to before. Their reintroduction is both exciting and gives the song a real sense of getting bigger! 

​At this point the track gets louder, another comparative term, which is an easy way of generating the perception of it getting ‘bigger.’ Out in the world we have visual indicators that loud means large; a big truck makes more noise than a small car for example. When the visual isn’t present and we experience a sound in isolation, our brains reverse engineer that expectation in to a sense of its’ size. ‘Too Shy’ applies this to great effect with the drum and bass sounds, when they arrive they are the loudest things in the track and to us they sound massive. 
 
Something to consider here is that the listener ultimately has the final say in the actual real world loudness of the track, as they can use the volume control on their playback device. So we can only meaningfully make something in the mix ‘loud’ relative to the rest of the elements of the track.
 
Reverb also plays a big part in how we perceive the size of a space. The main guitar part in ‘Too Shy’s verses uses a large reverb sound combined with a delay to conjure the sense that it’s playing out into a huge space. In contrast to this, the drum sound is very tight, with a much smaller ‘room’ type reverb. The difference between these two different reverbs informs our ears that the Guitar is much larger than the Drums, but this doesn’t distract from the drums gaining size through loudness, allowing both elements to feel inflated. The two reverbs are much easier to differentiate when listening to their respective stems in solo. 
 
The third contributor to the large-scale nature of this track is the layering of sounds. Multiple instruments playing the same part can really increase the sense of size. Imagine a solo violin playing a melody, then hearing that same melody played by a whole orchestral violin section. Even if we heard these at the same perceived volume, the subtle variations introduced by multiple players and different instruments would indicate an increased sense of scale to our ear. In ‘Too Shy’ this concept is applied subtly to almost all of the sustained parts in the track, guitar, synth and brass parts are almost all doubled up in some way, but I think it’s most effective with the vocals. 
 
When listening to the song in full there are some fairly obvious double tracks throughout which spread the lead vocal across the stereo image. Using the track stems to listen to the vocal parts in isolation it becomes obvious there is a huge amount going on that contributes to the huge overall vocal sound.
 
The lead vocal track in the centre of the stereo image is doubled in all of the verse and pre-chorus sections with a second, centred performance around 6dB quieter. This thickens up the sound and increases it’s perceived size. During the choruses this becomes two double tracks panned to the left and right, adding a width component to the sound, giving the size another bump. 
 
In addition to this there are a massive amount of backing vocals. They generally follow the lead performance rhythmically, but there is a diverse array of performances, harmonies and pitch shift effects that add up to an impossible choir. Because the same vocalist sings all of these parts we get the overall impression of one giant performance. 
 
Using a variety of methods to achieve a sense of space in the mix allows ‘Too Shy’ to avoid the elements feeling like they are all the same size, while retaining the feeling that they are all ‘large’. 

​So the mix is very effectively giving me this sense of large scale and size that has grabbed my attention, but just as quickly as our ears forget what we’ve heard before, they also get bored with hearing the same thing constantly. 
Modern pop production is all about capturing the listener's attention, and then keeping it. 
 
‘Too Shy’ goes about this by using a lots of little ‘moments’ in the song to constantly tickle your ear with something new to listen to. These include delay and reverb throws, speech samples and one-off synth sounds. 
 
For example, as the first verse comes to the end of it’s first half (01:33), a delay throw of the word ‘time’ steps forward in the mix and descends in pitch keeping the vocal in focus even as there is a gap in the lyrics. Leading into the first chorus a telephone dial tone and a filtered line of speech momentarily distract your ear from the music (02:05), letting the chorus melody have even more impact when your attention snaps back.
 
Delving into the stems reveals that there are many of these moments, some of which aren’t immediately obvious, but keep that idea of novelty throughout. The second half of the first verse (01:36) is announced by a dense reverb impulse bloom from the guitars, and the introduction of a plucky rhythmic guitar in the right channel. In the full mix this isn’t clearly audible, but adds to the sense that ‘something’ has happened.
 
Elsewhere a speech sample "Now all I can see is chaos" is deployed, being played backwards (01:19, BV Stem), as a tip-off that the lead vocal is about to enter, and also forwards (04:52, BV Stem) as ear candy in the final chorus when the drums and bass drop out. It even turns up to support a synth riser that leads us into the second verse (02:43. Synth Stem).
 
All these individual moments continue to add variety and keep your ear interested throughout a song that is both quite long and fairly rigid in it’s structure. The drums, bass, core guitar and synth parts get to continue being just as big and satisfying for the whole run time because your ear is never quite settled, there is always a new sound to grab your attention .
 
‘Too Shy’ is a triumph of a big, loud pop song. The producers and mixer have worked to ensure that every part of the arrangement gets to feel big and bold throughout the song, resulting in a track that feels powerful and energetic despite a long run time. I’m sure there was a clear intention to push those concepts of size and excitement as far as they could go, and in that they have totally succeeded. Going forward I am definitely going to consider which elements of my mixes I want to feel big, and feel a little better equipped to make that a reality. 

Stray observations
 

• The intro features some really interesting reversed guitar and synth parts.
• The intro section is mostly stereo information, which lets the drums and bass really feel solid when they come in.
• Love the guitar slide as that first drum fill hits (01:04).
• The drums stick with that tight roomy sound the whole way through the song, with just some extra reverb accentuating some of the Tom fills (eg. (01:05).
• There’s some absolutely mad sounds in the Percussion stem.
• Percussion carries on providing some very subtle rhythmic information even when the main kit drops out. 
• Cheesy ‘That’s Right!’ at 03:01 is doubled with an 808 clap for added punch.
• The glorious Sax solo features a really wide sounding slap back delay. That delay sounds to me like it’s been given the worst mp3 conversion possible, with artefacts and noise all over the place, somehow this makes the whole thing sound even better!
• There’s a lovely Guitar sound that has a tape speed up and then slow down at 04:54, throwing you into that last chorus.

​Further Listening
 
For another swing at a big The 1975 pop production try ‘It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)’ and enjoy that monster snare sound. 
 
If this is all too glossy for you, try fellow ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ tantrum  ‘People’ which you can also grab the stems for. 
 
FKA twigs features in the intro of 'Too Shy' and I would definitely recommend listening to her own music, start with the song ‘thousand eyes’ for a showcase of what she can do with that voice. 

This week I’m investigating the song ‘Virile’ by Moses Sumney. 
 
This song was originally released as a single on the 14th of November 2019. It features as track four of the first part of the double album Græ, released in February 2020. I first heard it while listening to the whole of Græ after the second part of the album launched on May 15th 2020. Moses himself is listed as the producer, with a mix by Ben Baptie. For a full run down of the credits and the lyrics for this song, check out the lyric booklet here. 
 
 
For my in depth listening I purchased a 48k 24 bit .wav of the song from bandcamp, but you can easily stream to the song on Spotify or Apple Music.
 
I have been listening to Græ a lot this past week and would definitely recommend taking an hour of your time to absorb it as one piece. It is a very musically diverse album, woven together in a way that makes it feel very cohesive. The production and mixing is fantastic throughout and I could have almost certainly picked any of its 20 tracks and found something fascinating to observe. 
 
But, as it happens, ‘Virile’ is the track that I find myself returning to again and again. This song is somewhat of an outlier on the album, it’s far denser and seemingly chaotic than most of the tracks and it just sounds huge. I love the swirling and dreamlike feel it produces with a real pulse of energy. 
 
Often a busy mix can end up feeling small or cramped, especially if a lot of elements are fighting for your attention, but this track totally succeeds in generating a sense of a size and undulating power. There are a number of ways Virile does this, but before considering any mix decisions, it’s important to acknowledge that the arrangement is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here.
 
Virile contains a large number of instruments and parts, most of which you will recognise as pretty standard in western music; Piano, Harp, Strings, Flute, Electric Guitar, Electric Bass and a Drum kit. This is supplemented with some programmed drum parts, a low bass synth sound and some heavily affected versions of different string, flute and guitar parts that act as synth pads, filling out the range of sounds even further. All of this builds a vast soundscape around a dynamic vocal performance from Moses. These instruments are used to create a really thick and heavy sound, lurching forward around a dark and booming piano stab and tight grungy drumbeat.
​
The variety of sounds gives the song a slightly overwhelming feeling on first listen, with the mix ostensibly adding to the madness as things move around the stereo field and rise and fall in volume all around you. Overall this is a very organic mix, even with the programmed drums and synths, everything has a certain ‘liveness’ to it. Despite all the moving parts, Virile still feels driving and focussed in its delivery. 
 
 
Within the apparent chaos, each instrument is confined to a fairly narrow register, and rarely do sounds in the same musical space fight for melodic attention. For example, harp, flute and violin all feature heavily throughout the song with a strong Hi-Midrange focused sound, but they rarely interact, other than to transition from section to section. This gives the mixer a big head start, as it’s reasonably clear from the arrangement which sound is important at any one time, especially in that key hi-mid area. 
 
The mix itself uses a few different tricks to push this arrangement into feeling larger than life. The most exciting for me is the treatment of the Piano part, entering at 00:09 and announces the start of the song properly. Immediately there is something unusual, as the sound is impossibly wide, feeling as if it’s outside the width of your speakers or headphones. 
 
This has been achieved with some sort of stereo widening technique, whether through mid/side manipulation or a dedicated processor. (Recently I’ve been relying on Waves S1 Imager for this task, but a quick Google of stereo widening plugins will give you plenty of options.) This sort of processing changes the phase relationship between the pianos Left and Right channels and this comes with a down side. When listening to the track in mono (through a phone or a Bluetooth speaker perhaps) this results in some cancellation of the sound, dropping its' perceived level quite a bit.
 
In this case that’s a worthwhile trade-off for the impact it produces. Letting the low end of the track feel wide adds to the expansiveness of the sound and overall ‘size’ of the mix. Clearly aware of the potential issues with this decision, the producers have cleverly added a booming drum sample (from 00:27, can be heard in isolation at 00:49) that mimics the rhythm of the piano. This nicely fills in any missing low frequency content in mono and further emphasises its impact in stereo. 

​As the song progresses more and more elements are introduced. I really like how the Piano (and it’s accompanying boom) get to keep hold of their place as the lowest part of the mix. Once the drums and bass guitar arrive you might expect them to muscle in on the low end, but instead they are quite restrained at the sub end of the spectrum. This gives the track that rhythmic pulse, as the low end fills up at the start of each bar and relaxes as the piano decays. These impacts also cause the mix to hit its bus compression harder, tightening the mix as it compresses and relaxing as it releases. 
 
When I imagine what a live drum kit and bass amp sound like in the real world, they are powerful instruments. (Having been stood very close to both adjusting microphone positions during sound checks, this doesn’t take much imagination for me.) Here, the mix uses that expectation against us. Knowing that heavy drums and bass are kind of a psychological reference point for something big and loud, pushing the level of typically more delicate instruments like the strings and harp above the rhythm section tricks us into thinking that they are even bigger and louder. 
 
 
I love the way this song and its mix immerses me in its own strange and dreamlike world. The song takes us deep into a place where a piano can be all around us, string instruments can zip around as they are played and a harp is twice the size of a drum kit. 
 
The track opens with just Moses’ voice, in what feels like a fairly realistic room sound, central in the mix. This quickly resets our ears from whatever we have heard previously, whether that’s the previous track on the album or whatever was on our iTunes shuffle before hand. 
 
As the harp comes in, we are transported to the world of ‘Virile’, as Moses’ voice interrupts his previous vocalisation with a fuller sound that is pushed forward in the mix. A distinct slap-back delay on this new vocal (from 00:09, ‘hike through’) and the aforementioned Piano announce that we have arrived somewhere else. 
 
From here the mixer has free reign to introduce effects and movement. The song doesn’t easily fit into an established genre, so there’s no real expectation of things that should or shouldn’t be present, so long as nothing breaks the world that’s been established. In practical mix terms, this means that no one thing suddenly upsets the established tonal balance of the mix. Instead, interest and excitement is primarily kept up by automated volume and pan changes or one-off effects moments. Brief exceptions to this do make new elements exciting though. For example at 02:25 a scratchy guitar part on the left hand side momentarily takes midrange focus away from the vocal, and a subby bass synth replaces the piano part from 01:56 to 02:17. 
 
We are also fully pulled out from the established mix at 03:32. As the synths and reverbs die out, Moses’ voice is left exposed and without effects, giving us a breather from the more intense aspects of the production, before they slam back in at 03:39, exciting your ears all over again. This, along with the intro section, provide your ears with a reference point for just how interesting the soundscape gets. It ensures that you don’t totally stop paying attention once the song goes past the three minutes thirty that we typically expect a modern song to be.  
 
 
This mix does two of the things that I really love when listening to music. It provides a cohesive world and space for the song to live in and it has a unique sound within it that I had to know more about. For me this song really embodies the idea that mixing is a verb. Things are being done to the mix all the time as the production shifts around Moses’ vocal performance to demand attention and maintain interest.

Stray observations
 

• The Harp in the intro perfectly captures the stereotypical ‘dream sequence’ music from a TV show. Not sure where this originates from but here it really sells the feeling of being transported to somewhere otherworldly.
• The drums do get their moment to shine, being pushed forward at 01:46 and 03:03 while that Piano takes a break.
• There’s a great sound in the left channel at 01:50, some sort of tape effect that builds up and slows down to a crawl, setting up the synth part that bounces in at 01:56 nicely.
•  At 02:39 a menacing laugh seems to step out of the mix, I think this is a tape delay effect looping Moses saying ‘much’ in the previous line, but it feels pretty demonic. 
•  At 03:03 a vocal reverb blooms out for maybe the only time in the song?
• There’s something slightly Nirvana about the drums and bass on this song, and with tracks on the album named In Bloom and Polly, maybe that was a point of reference in the production?

​Further Listening
 
If a 20 track long double album sounds a bit daunting, try ‘Two Dogs’ from Part 2 of Græ to get a sense of the very different places Sumney goes to. 
 
If the stereo widening featured on the piano here intrigued you, check out ‘Ultralight Beam' by Kanye West. The Gospel Choir in the choruses sound amazingly wide in stereo, but if you listen in mono they get sent to the very back of the room. 

​Thanks for joining me for another Listen Close. I’d love to know what you think of this mix in comments below!

For my first post I am exploring the song ‘Simmer’ by Hayley Williams. The track was first released in January this year (2020) and it’s been in constant rotation for me since then. Simmer is the opening track to her album ‘Petals For Armor’, released on the 8th of May. You might recognise Hayley as the lead singer of the band Paramore, who have been putting out some sonically impressive records since 2005. Their latest release ‘After Laughter’ (2017) has a satisfying crisp pop-rock aesthetic with a fun 80's throwback vibe. After Laughter was Mixed by Carlos de Garza and he returns to the board for ‘Petals For Armor,’ with production being handled by fellow Paramore guitarist Taylor York. Simmer, and the rest of the album was Mastered by Dave Cooley.
 
You can listen to the song on all the major streaming services, but here’s a quick link for Spotify or Apple Music.
 
Now you know what we’re listening to. So why has this track stuck with me?
 
The first thing is, it’s a great song and production. It’s got a really dynamic structure and an engaging, evolving vocal performance that will be stylistically a little unfamiliar to Paramore fans. There are also a lot of unique sounds dotted throughout the song that demand repeat listens and deeper inspection. 
 
 
This track is a blend of fairly traditional ‘rock’ instrumentation and some modern electronic production. Bass guitar, a drum kit and electric guitar all feature prominently, combined with synthetic ‘keyboardy’ sounds and electronic percussion. But one of my favourite features is the non-traditional use of Hayley’s voice outside of the lead vocal, from percussive ‘tsks’,’uh’ and ‘ah’ sounds to more sustained ‘mmms’, ‘ooos’ and ‘aaaah’ noises. Choosing to create this soundscape with Hayley’s voice rather than using samples or other instrumentation, gives the song a unique, intimate quality. The song has an extended intro section, and by deploying these vocal noises before the lead comes in, it connects you to the ‘character’ of the singer before she’s even said a word. Very cool! 
 
The track also gets a lot mileage out of using these vocal sounds to function in places where a conventional instrument might have been. For example, when the full instrumentation arrives (from 0:16) it could conceivably have been led into with a drum fill. The kit is very present in the song, but instead of using Toms and a Cymbal crash we’re treated to a pattern of short inhalations followed by a washed out, reverb-soaked exhale, smoothing the transition nicely. The sustained ‘mmm’ in the intro makes for a more interesting choice than just another synth sound might. All of these sounds really add to the vibe of the song, and imprints it’s identity into my brain so it stands out, even amongst the rest of the album.
 

So now the song has truly piqued my interest with all these unique noises. What else is making this track sound so good to me? 
 
It does some really cool things with its placement of elements in the stereo field, which let the track feel both focussed and driving, but also spacious and wide. The first thing I notice is that the majority of the musical information, by which I mean the sounds that form the song itself, exists either exactly in the centre of the stereo mix, or close enough that they feel central to the track. In fact, if we think of the stereo track in terms of Mid/Side processing, and isolate the Mid portion of the signal, the mix doesn’t change a whole lot. The Kick, Snare, Hats, Bass, Lead Vocal, Main Guitar and Keys are all audible, clear and balanced well with each other. This choice is a distinct contrast to a lot of rock music. In fact it helps further distinguish this song from Paramores’ output, which often use the more traditional rock style of having wide hard panned guitars and a drum kit that spans the whole stereo image.  Just simple panning decisions within the mix have reinforced that this song belongs to Hayley Williams, not the band she is most known for performing with.

With such a focussed centre of the mix, you might imagine that the whole track would end up feeling like it was in mono. But instead it opens up a lot of space in the sides of the mix for what I think of as the ‘toys’ of the production. These are the parts that add interest, variety and sparkle, but aren’t as critical to getting across the intentions of the song. So the majority of the vocal sample sounds, that I previously mentioned, are nicely panned out. The vocal effects like reverb and delay have plenty of room to play, and some extra snare drum sounds add some variety to the main kit. This gives the impression that the drums are big and wide even though the majority of their content is central. There’s also an electronic drum loop that contributes some rhythmic information and movement in the choruses. 
 
There are couple of exceptions to that ‘important parts in the middle’ philosophy. The most obvious are the wide vocal double tracks in the chorus, ‘con-trol’, ‘eyes closed’ etc (from 01:14), that provide a call and response feel with the central lead vocal. Subverting that expectation makes the track feel even wider, and gives it a great lift as it transitions to the chorus. The first half of the second verse also uses panning to switch things up. The main drum kit slides off to the right (from 1:51) and is mirrored by a strummed electric guitar part. I love this as it gives the second verse a totally different feel than the first. As the vocal energy comes down and becomes more intimate, it’s given more of the central spotlight, emphasising the vulnerability of the performance. The guitar part on the left feels crucial to this effect. It begins on the lyric ‘something more precious’ which provides some nice synchronicity as more happens as the word ‘more’ is said. The shimmery guitar sound is also pushed forward slightly in the mix, suggesting that it is the ‘my reflection’ that she considers ‘more precious.’ 
 
Those two aspects of this production really got my brain going while listening. This is a real ‘greater than the sum of its parts’ mix. That’s not to say that the individual elements don’t sound nice, as there are some gorgeous sounds throughout. But no single part steals the show. They all work together in a cohesive way, with little flourishes and subversions making things sparkle and keeping the mix interesting beginning to end. 
 
I feel like there’s a lot I can take away from this track and apply to my own mixes and productions. I’ve definitely been guilty of excessive panning to try and make things sound super wide. But here, the restraint of using the centre so much has taught me that it can be a great way to let a track feel big and open. It’s also shown how some truly unique sounds, like the singers own breaths, can help give a song its own identity. 

​Further Listening
 
Check out the rest of the album Petals For Armor, there’s lovely sounds and mix techniques throughout. Or if you’re looking for something a little more upbeat, musically at least, try Hard Times by Paramore. It starts with bongos and marimba and features a vocoder solo. Fun!

​So that was the mix that’s been bubbling around my mind this week. Did you hear anything I missed? Got any fun ideas for stereo width or unique sounds of your own? Let me know in the comments below!