Features Blur, Bryan Ferry, Kylie Minogue, Duran Duran, and more
I’ve done loads of shows about a certain word in the title, or album sequencing, or arrangement-related things (Dizzy Heights #84: Count Me In), but this is the first time I’ve focused on a production technique. And not just any production technique, but my favorite thing ever: the wave, flange, phase, whatever you want to call it. For most of these songs, the entire track will do the wave, as it were, but sometimes it’s just the guitar, or a keyboard line. In one instance, it’s just the snare drum, quietly phasing away in the background until it’s the last sound left to make, at which point it comes front and center.
The funny part was how many songs I added after just listening to my giant playlist on shuffle around the house (“Ack, I forgot about that one!”). It’s not an easy idea to research, and really, I didn’t want to. My biggest source in putting this together was, well, me. I wrote a Mix Disc Monday piece about this very thing for Bullz-Eye back in 2008. Two-thirds of those songs also appear here.
It’s weird, I often speak of time being nonlinear, and how vacations we took with the kids 10 years ago feel like they just happened yesterday, but it works both ways. Writing that Mix Disc Monday piece? That feels like it happened three lifetimes ago.
Thank you, as always, for listening.
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