CREATING SOUNDS OF TOKYO-TO FUTURE PART 16: FUTURE UNWRITTEN AND OUTRO

Album art by Ethan Redd

“FUTURE UNWRITTEN”

Audio Track Count: 40

Favorite Sound: The clap/beatbox percussion loop that hits on the 2 and makes the groove feel unique

Cutting-Room Floor: more of the sourced vocal samples from the breakdown

Inspirations: House music, the Japan street walk videos of the YouTuber Rambalac, Ross From Friends (the musician)

I’ve been writing this blog series over such a long period of time, and I can’t believe we’re finally here at the last track. “Future Unwritten” is a wind-down track, and this remains one of my favorite ways to end albums. It’s kind of the music version of a premium cable TV show having season finale episodes that are quiet denouements after an explosive penultimate week where all the action is. This song coming after the one-two punch of “Chainsaw Funk” and “PULL UP” is certainly that, an invitation to relax and breathe as we exit the experience of the album. My tired writer brain, trying as hard as I can to maintain consistency and always have something valuable to say about these songs, is also glad for a break.

Something I do when I’m really stuck in music is put one of Rambalac’s Japan walk videos on my second monitor. He is an excellent YouTuber who uploads amazing walking videos constantly and for free in high quality. The channel was a mid-pandemic discovery, and watching the older videos of bustling crowds and active streets really helped me to get into the pleasantly un-alone vibe I wanted to hit for several moments in this album but couldn’t access in real life.

I find that it’s easier to get into a flow of generating ideas for songs and picking sounds when I’m half-distracted by the small adventure going on in these videos. I also find myself actually scoring the experience of the walks at times, and that was definitely the case for how “Future Unwritten” came about. To me, this song would be best played either when you are heading out to the bars or when you’re coming home by yourself with your headphones on for that last few blocks after you’ve parted ways with friends, savoring the experience of the night out. That’s what I imagined for this walk Rambalac was taking me on. The light crowd sounds and ambience throughout the song are a way to build this imagined setting, too.

During the production of the album, I was also listening to a lot of hazy dance music mixes on YouTube based around the catchphrase “lo-fi house” (which might just be deep house with another genre label slapped on, I’m still not sure) and I came upon the artist Ross From Friends. I think that his sound design is one of a kind and the particular way he makes things “lo-fi” is incredibly pleasing, not just an effect but a philosophy of how musical elements should feel in a song. For a specific example, check out the synth lead at 1:17 in this song. What the hell is that? Fuzzy, vaguely familiar and nostalgic, but you also know you haven’t heard anything else quite like it.

Now listen to the synth leads at 1:15, 1:26 and 2:50 in “Future Unwritten”. For this song, I wanted to try to play around with some of the unique sounds I was hearing in modern electronic music rather than referencing and updating things from the late 90s-early 00s. I had these experimental sounds poke in over the solid base of soulful guitar samples and the steady beat throughout, like people briefly introducing themselves before going to join the party. I tried to make each of the lead elements in this song as lively as possible, from giving them wah-y filters to adding character with distortion to editing them heavily. I got as much as I could out of the famous flute sample that debuts at 1:49, which might be most familiar to people reading this as appearing in Ibuki’s theme from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.

The drum groove of this song is one of my favorites on the album. The clap and snap sounds hitting hard on the 2s and 4s really call attention to themselves, though the song is still driven by the bass drum hitting (like most dance tracks) on 1 and 3. I don’t think that percussion elements fighting the kicks on the 2s and 4s would always work, but something about the hi-hats and beatbox makes it gel in this song. Drum grooves are all vibes for me–I cannot claim to know any music theory about why my beats work, I just add whatever sounds right until it’s almost too much–but there’s something about the push-pull nature of this beat that makes it stand out and gets you wanting to move your shoulders. If I could explain that effect, I would absolutely be doing so here.

To the breakdown. If you know me, you know I get a kick out of ideal vocal samples, so you can imagine how happy I was when I found a whole conversation to sample where they keep saying “sample”. At one point I wanted to build an entire track out of the line “need samples immediately” for this album. “It’d be even better if I could use more than just __” is also a commonly uttered phrase when dealing with the limitations of using samples. Ahh, I wish I could have x part soloed out, I’d do so much with it!

This song really clicks for me at the 2:11 climax, where the new upbeat guitar samples bring all the previously established lead melody sounds together to do their own thing harmoniously. Sometimes you move into a new section and you find that all you really need to do to spark something is to repeat some previous melodies in the new context, and then everything follows naturally from there. I’m really happy with the way this section wraps up, too–being left with nothing but a dry vintage string drone and the percussion at 2:37 before a gentle drop back into the guitars from the intro.

2020 and 2021 were such hard years for keeping your eye on the ball with art. It was like making music was simultaneously the most and least important thing I felt I could do. I tried my hardest to imbue this song with a positive feeling and leave the listener feeling comfortable and cautiously hopeful. I say as much in the album liner notes, but when I saw that phrase “the future is unwritten” on The Clash’s “Know Your Rights” single cover, it shot through me like a bullet. I have struggled throughout my life with feeling that any of this is really worth it, and those struggles were rougher than ever during this time, but there has always been something around the corner to look forward to. Something that enters a state of flux where I want to see how it turns out, even try to push it a certain way. A new piece of music or art that sets my heart and brain ablaze, makes me feel: I have to be there for this. I have to carry this torch. That’s how I deal with things as an artist. I can only hope this album finds someone out there who needs to be lit up like that.

Thanks for reading this blog series, and I hope you enjoyed this explanation of how “Future Unwritten” came to be.

OUTRO

We’re finally here, at the end. For my most ambitious work, I’ve squeezed out a handful of paragraphs about every piece on the album. I’m writing this in 2023, and I’ve had a year and a half to look back on this project and see what it means to me, hear what it’s meant to others. I’ve had the time to distance myself from the pain and stress that came with creating this, the need for impossible precision at every step and the lack of solace in the world for when I was tired of creating. I took on this blog writing almost as therapy for that experience (but I also have actual therapy).

When I put an album out into the world, I hope it exists perpetually for others, but I also don’t have that much interest in revisiting it myself. I spent several months going over every song on Sounds Of Tokyo-To Future in the production and mixing processes, and have easily listened to them each hundreds of times in a dozen different states of completion. I don’t think there is any way for me to communicate this experience to someone who hasn’t done it. Songs do not emerge fully-formed from a few magical studio moments, as is shown in documentary material or fiction. Even if the artist gets to experience it this way, someone has to listen to it way more. A lot of you probably have experienced the sensation of finding a new song you’re excited about and quickly wearing it out over too many listens in one or two weeks. Imagine that feeling, but it’s your own work and you’re going to have to promote it and tell people how interesting you think it is for years. But there’s a lot of love in that creation process too, and I’ve begun to view it as my most precious time with my songs–loving them and caring for them before they are owned by everyone.

This is the only time I’ve really tried to take a deep look back at previous work, and it was somewhat more exhausting and irritating than I expected when I started (just like most albums are to make). I want to be detailed, but how am I supposed to write a few sentences examining a musical element I completely pulled out by accident with zero conscious thought? Lie, probably. Oh yeah, I remember everything about the vibe in the studio that night, when those drums came on… no, it’s just some random drums I found and threw in there. But there’s also been the chance to share some of my specific inspirations with you and hope that you love them as much as I do, and to explain some particular ideas I had that weren’t at all apparent in the music. For example, I really liked explaining the story I imagined being told by the miscellaneous vocal samples of “Noize The Invasion”. I also find it helpful to demystify the process of music making, showing how many of each type of sound I use and talking about specific tools.

I think I’ve made this pretty clear with my newer album this year I lose my mind and the promotional material around it, but I’ve moved on from wanting to make music tributes to video games and other media since doing this project. It’s a choice I didn’t even know I was going to make this soon when I started this blog series, but there it is. I greatly value both of the Tokyo-to albums for allowing me to polish my style and skill, and keep climbing towards that mountain where the peak is not having a conscious style at all but just making. I want to try my best to create new emotional and memorable textures, and I don’t really want people to have any preconceived notions about what they’re going to find and what it’s meant to represent. 

I enjoyed my time and had a lot of fun playing in the Jet Set Radio sandbox with the world and story bits those games provided for me, imagining myself creating a soundtrack for a third game that doesn’t exist and of course taking the time to explore some of the strongest game music ever written on a deep level. But plainly, I won’t be happy at the end of my career if I look back and see it filled with tributes to the work of other people. It’s past time to show more love to my own music thing. I’ve been carrying it with me in different jars that make it take different shapes over the years, but it’s time to pour it straight onto the canvas and see what we have.

Thank you for listening to my music, and taking the time to read this far. I could not have made this album and others without the listeners eagerly awaiting what I finish next and showing up to buy and share it when it arrives. Thinking about the moment I can unveil new work to all of you helps propel me forward through the hardest parts of creation and the music business. As always, your time and support is greatly appreciated.

Above: Full view of the “Future Unwritten” mixdown in Ableton Live. Most DAW programs arrange music from left to right on the timeline, so the left end is my intro and the right end is my ending, with every sound placed in a linear fashion. The rows of color are audio tracks, and the tighter multicolored bands of audio tracks are collapsed Groups.