BUILDING DARK RHYTHMIC STRUCTURES

Production notes from the Obsidian Path sessions.

Start from the floor

Everything on this EP started with the kick and the room. Not a kick sample — the relationship between the kick and the space around it. Sidechain isn't a pumping effect; it's architecture.

Metal, not melody

The lead textures are resampled scrap: a gate hinge, a flight case latch, a broken ride cymbal bowed with a violin bow. Pitch them down two octaves, granulate, and suddenly you have something that sounds like the inside of a machine thinking.

Arrangement by subtraction

Build the full eight-bar loop with everything playing, then arrange by removing. The track is done when there's nothing left to take away without the groove collapsing.

More fragments soon. Equipment breakdown from the Subsurface sessions is next.