New Monday #126
Happy Monday!
Before we listen, let's look at the thinking behind the song.
Little Love
I did a little research on the singer, an English woman who doesn't sound like Amy Winehouse or Adele—what a relief! Pearl comes more out of a folk tradition, perhaps influenced by Kate Bush. That she's singing synth pop is an interesting choice.
She worked on this song, Little Love, with drummer/producer Matt Ingram, in his studio, Urchin, in London. Urchin has a Trident 65 console. Don't know that they mixed on it, but an old Trident is a cool thing to have lying about the control room.
Pearl's "schtick" on social media is that her music is too good for her to be stuck in an office in a day job. To me, it came across a bit entitled, and off-putting, but it was a marketing angle for the song. Let's look at the lyrics for the verse:
Don't want to feel like I'm giving up
Sometimes I feel like I'm giving up
Don't want to feel like I'm not enough
Sometimes I feel like I'm not enough
I had similar thoughts repeating in my head when I was in my early 20s rotting away behind a desk and a phone. The music here is repetitive and monophonic, somewhat robotic. I'm thinking they had the music first and then put the lyrics on it. It's neither melodic nor interesting... feels like an office to me. It changes drastically on the chorus:
How does it feel to be on your own?
That line is sung by a solo voice, followed by a grouping of voices singing:
A little love inside says you're never on your own
It's a question and answer, a lone person listening to the voices in her own head. There's a bit of wonderful production here: the lone voice is panned center with some big, albeit low and blended reverb, but the group vox is panned hard right and left, drenched in a small, quirky, very obvious space. I think there's also some spatial processing going on, something like what our WOW Thing does but very, very subtly.
The voices in your head are IN YOUR HEAD, in that small quirky space. Pearl is talking to herself, and we hear what's in her head.
It also helps that the chorus is as melodic and interesting as the verse isn't. It was the chorus I originally heard. It's a great hook and sticks in your head like a tumor.
When I finally heard Little Love in its entirety, I thought the verses didn't come anywhere near the quality of the chorus or the bridge. But the production and playing were too good, too smart, for such blah verse. Now I get it: the verse is all about setting up that fabulous chorus.
Other things to listen to:
Resonant filter sweep at the top.
Great bass sound and part. I’m almost positive this is a person playing a bass—probably Matt Ingram. Killer good. Tasty and right on the money, groove-wise.
Unified in its diversity, diverse in its unity: Listen to the first chorus and it is a solo voice and the group vox. Squint listen to the second and there's vocal movement behind that solo voice—other voices or something swirling around back there, building up the song, perhaps indicative of optimism on the part of the singer? Less of a sense of loneliness? Am I projecting?
Isn't that the point of art? To entice you to project?
Listen for big tom fills that are back there and small.
There's a nice bridge; coming out of it, there's a break. The resonant filter comes back on the drums and a bit on the group vocals, which are now center mono for a brief break. Big drum fill—audible for a change—and the song kicks back in, the group vocals snap wide, the solo lead vocal harmonized and floating in the back (more of that diverse in unity stuff). I love how they worked all this out. It's like watching a movie.
Last thing to listen for—I call it the rabbit trick. If a magician pulls a rabbit out of the hat, he can only do that once. The next time it has to be a goat. After that, it better be a whale or a blonde.
The rabbit is the solo voice singing "How does it feel to be on your own?" On the vamp out, she pulls out a goat and then... I dunno, perhaps a llama, but the point is that she's not pulling out rabbits again and again.
Set up an expectation through repetition, then break it, that's the rabbit trick.
SO FINALLY... listen to Little Love here.
There's also a video featuring Pearl awkwardly dancing. It's charming. The video tracks almost exactly how Little Love unwrapped itself for me—evidently, there was a discussion with the director.
Interesting and original singer, a strong song, excellent production. What's not to love?
KA1776 in M/S
Our KA1776 is still for sale. It has a lot of routing options, my favorite being unlinked Mid/Side or M/S.
M/S is a stereo system, but instead of left and right, there's the MID, which is all the information that is on both channels, and the SIDE, which is all the information that's either on the left or the right channels. With Mid and Side mixed together, through the magic of phase cancellation, you get stereo that sounds like normal left and right stereo. However, if you mess with the balance of the Mid to the Side, you can either move the signal toward mono or towards extra wide stereo.
Screwing around with the Mid/Side balance is a common trick with spatial processors like our WOW Thing.
If you set the KA1776 to Mid/Side and Unlinked, you get two different units with completely independent controls, one working mainly on stuff going down the center, the other doing things to the edges on the left and right.
Some examples of fun things to do:
Throw a full drum mix through the KA1776 in Mid/Side UNLINKED. Turn down the OUTPUT of the SIDE channel—the lower unit. You'll hear the drums pull into mono. Drums too wide? Turn down the Side. In the case of Pearl's Little Love, throw those backing vocals through Mid/Side, turn down the Side on the break, then turn up the Side a little too much for the chorus.
Compress the Mid for punch—slow attack, fast release at 12:1 and suddenly the drums pop out of the mix. Compress the Side for smoothness—4:1, fast attack and a long release, and those cymbals get more under control.
It's always worth an experiment to turn up the Side Way too much and see what you get. I ran a single guitar part that I copy and pasted to doubled it, through two different amp simulators, through the KA1776, cranked up the Side and got this: https://on.soundcloud.com/A8YMTJvgoQBdoW7Lhs
Good lord! This is like having vertigo. Move your head from side to side... unhealthy.
Feeling sick? If I listen for even a few seconds I start getting seasick from it. I wouldn't do a whole song this way, but perhaps there's an uncomfortable lyrical moment that would benefit from inflicting a moment of nausea on the listener? But not too much, because the idea is to get the listener to project, not to projectile vomit.
Some ideas for a Monday, friends.
Love that Pearl tune.
Warm regards,
Luke