I Don't Know Why - Downtempo Electronic

It's been a while since I've visited any of the regular forums, so I thought I would stop in and see what's new. I am working on a new album and with it I am trying to get back to my roots.

I have a song I would love some feedback on if you have time, it's called "I Don't Know Why" and the album is Behind the Shades.

listen

I am still working on finishing up Aphotic Transmissions, but I can never resist the urge to start working on something new.

I have a different concept of what a songwriting forum is than many people here do. I think of it as a place to discuss; the song. Not so much production. Production is what you do when the song is done, in my book.

Now I will say your production is very good. I liked the listen. Not my cup of tea, but I liked it just the same. Though the reverbie voice-in-a-can was hard to understand. So hard, in fact, that I don't have a clue what the song is about on the first listen, because I couldn't make out enough words. I would like to hear the voice more up close; maybe in a whisper voice, along with the reverbie echo stuff, so I'd feel like the protagonist is talking to me instead of into a drain pipe () . . . , I'm trying to be funny here, not critical. I really did like the sound of it a lot.

Thanks Marshal, all very good comments. I still have some work to do on it so I'll see if I can pull the words up and out some.

It's been a while since I've visited any of the regular forums, so I thought I would stop in and see what's new. I am working on a new album and with it I am trying to get back to my roots. I have a song I would love some feedback on if you have time, it's called " I Don't Know Why " and the album is Behind the Shades . listen I am still working on finishing up Aphotic Transmissions , but I can never resist the urge to start working on something new.

I'm about 85% of the way there, with this. I like the way it disguises conventional pop forms beneath its multi-mash layers of jangling percussion, evoking the feel of one of those free-flowing street celebrations you see breaking out on festival days in parts of the world still more than vaguely in touch with themselves.

That said, some of the jangliness fought the vocal pretty hard, and I couldn't help but feel like that LFO-filtered flangey/chorusy wash on it didn't help sell the vocal that much.

Certainly, one of the biggest challenges of making post modern music is how to approach something like the human voice...

A big plus: I find myself, minutes after the song ended, with that same disembodied, flangey voice singing/fading/singing "I don't know why..."

Leave em' walking away humming is good. Walking away singing the title? Golden.

Thanks for the words Blue, I am not one to write what most would call "normal" songs. That sense of disembodiment you speak of is how I approach most of the ambiguous ideas that spawn these little tunes. I am a very reactive kind of writer and sometimes the meanings behind the songs seem very extremist after listening a few months later.

My natural voice interferes with a lot of the lower frequencies in my songs and I find myself doing hi-pass filters out the yang only to have an empty high pitched vocal. My voice is actually rather low, but I sing higher to compensate.

I am glad you liked the song. I should have posted the lyrics. I didn't know the vocals sounded so tube-ridden. On my system it sounds clear, but then again it should sound clear and steady across a multitude of speakers.

Thanks for the listen!