Something Fun
marc encabo something fun (nov ep 2017) [013/xxx] compiled 11/12/17
Bandcamp: https://marcencabo.bandcamp.com/album/something-fun YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMGH0vAJZE
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music is fun
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[liner notes]
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ep no. 11 is here! it was a nice change up to be able to have both the tracks from last month’s EP and this one all ready to work on in advance (as opposed to having to scramble to write, record, and mix everything in a couple days like the last couple other EP’s hah). i felt like i could really take my time on this one in terms of the mixing and it’s always a nice little challenge mixing a bunch of multi-tracked stuff and trying to make it sound the way that i like while still trying to keep the essence of the live performance. i wanted to get this one out before i head out of town for a gig for the rest of this year so this one is coming out way earlier than i’ve put out any of the other EP’s this year (and probably for the better haha) as of right now i don’t have anything for the 12th EP so i’ll definitely be brainstorming that’ll be doable away from home haha. for those of you that actually read these lol, hope you enjoy!
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“something fun” is a collection of cuts from a live reading session that lawrence and i put together at the pi shop. the first two tunes on this EP i wrote for this session exclusively, and the third one is a track that i’ve had for a year or so sitting in the “tunes i’ve never gotten to hear” folder on my laptop lol. there’s definitely a lot of little compositional things that i’m trying to work out that are pretty prominent in these tunes, but for the most part i tried to keep everything pretty simple from the conception to the final versions of these demos. for these sessions we wanted to be able to create an environment where we had to force ourselves to write, workshop, and put together songs in a controlled amount of time. for these takes personally i wanted to capture the initial moments of a tune without doing too much prep or rehearsing to kind of let both the music speak for itself and let the players instinctual interpretations come through. i’ve never been much of a rehearser anyway haha. there are a couple flubs here and there but i don’t think they take away from the tunes at all. thanks for listening!! special thanks to the cats on these tracks y’all are bomb
cats: harry ostrander - trumpet lawrence pi - sax chris halo - guitar andy yoon (dude my autocorrect keeps wanting to change your name to “andy goon” lol) - guitar jay hemphill - bass flint lidar - drums marc encabo - keys
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[cream puffs]
straight d’angelo sexy 6/8 groove kinda thing. i started with the initial chord progression and melody on keys and let the groove kind of write the song as i worked on arranging it for the group. the “b” section of the tune changed a bunch for me in terms of where i wanted it to go and which pivot modulation i wanted to work with (lol) cause i didn’t want it to stray too much and i wanted a way to get back to the original progression without it sounding too out of place. the ending was just an idea i had walking around the house while i was trying to figure out a better “b” section and i ended up just throwing that onto the end as kind of a bridge play out kind of thing. can’t go wrong with a iv jam lol.
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[something fun]
this one started with the chord progression idea in the rubato piano intro, i kinda made that the “chorus” and the horns play it a couple times in the tune as that and then in the outro i just used it as a way to transition into the pivoting chords at the end. i would say that’s one of my go-to types of “endings” that i’m trying to sort of write out of my compositions (or more like not try to end up there every time lol). this one i definitely felt more of a vulf vibe as i was writing it and it’s at that very happy stroll tempo lol.
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[brannigan’s crossing]
this was an older one that i wrote on the TH2 piano with flint and lawrence a couple years ago. the whole song is in 5 really and i started with the original four bar idea in the beginning. the change up in the middle is just me trying to put a backbeat in while keeping the quarter note the same (so you could really count 5 all the way through there and it would add up, but i split it so it’s two bars of 4 and then a bar of 2 to add up to 10, then it gets kinda weird after that but i simplified the sections for this particular read down) it’s one of those tunes that you have to hear to get and looking at it probably is way more confusing than it has to be lol.