Nur Ein XVIII Round Three "Co-Pilot"

[Niveous]

It's time for the infamous guest round

Submit an original song by June 18th at 11:59 PM (EDT) that fits the following criteria

Title: Co-Pilot

Challenge: Guest Lead Vocals

Send your MP3 to nurein.sidefight@gmail.com

Good luck!

[sailingmagpie]

Just to check, does this mean the guest has to do all the lead vocals or can they be shared in a duet?

[vowlvom]

Guest should sing lead, main contestant is welcome to sing BVs / harmonies etc.

Anything else, you take the usual risks with five judges ranking as they see fit.

edit: feel free to recruit more than one guest, if you feel ambitious!

[BoffoYux]

Listening Party for Round 3 'Co-Pilot'
I should be able to start this at 9pm EST for a change, since it's a holiday and no municipal meetings!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnUmd1zju4A

[ken]

I'm curious how the judges might feel about swapping lead vocalists for this round.

[Niveous]

I'm curious how the judges might feel about swapping lead vocalists for this round.

It's not against the rules.

[thirdcatmusic]

I doubt I'm going to finish a song for this one, I'm unable to get out of bed at the moment with a back injury. Don't have anyone lined up to be my guest vocalist either so even if I manage to get better in time, don't see it happening.

Oh well, it's been fun through the first few rounds !

[mo]

Sorry to hear it, Third Cat! If it works out that you are able to make something, I volunteer to guest if you want

Anyway hope you get better soon!

[BoffoYux]

I doubt I'm going to finish a song for this one, I'm unable to get out of bed at the moment with a back injury. Don't have anyone lined up to be my guest vocalist either so even if I manage to get better in time, don't see it happening.

Sorry to hear this - hope you feel better soon.

[Niveous]

Ouch. Sorry to hear that Third Cat. Feel better!

[Caravan Ray]

So - with me out - happy to sub in as a lead vocal if anyone needs one

[noma]

Just sent in a song. This is a weird one for me. I never would've imagined I'd be doing a calypso sorta track with a shuffle beat, featuring the dreaded I-V-vi-IV progression in the verses, and including the words "easy peasy." But, here I am. So, grab yourself a piña colada and enjoy the smooth tropical beat.

Also, I got Ringo Starr to sing on it!... Well, a guy who kind of sounds like Ringo. To me, at least. I'm doing harmonies; my only "lead" vocal is the short scat part before the guitar solo.

[glennny]

Co-Pilot Reviews

Berkeley Social Scene- JB is awesome. What vocals! Great hand-claps, though personally almost never think hand-claps are a good idea. If I was producing hand-claps would be on the cutting room floor. Geech’s guitars sound amazing! The trio is tight! Ken of course is on drums, he’s so good and in the pocket. Bryan Ward is locking in on bass, this thing rocks. This is impressive! Well done boys! Thanks for keeping us alive! (and then some)

Cavedwellers- Thanks for the Frisbee!!! I love this guy. I love his voice so much. Obviously through the years of collaboration with him, and the band that was once Faster Jackalope TFTF was an easy choice.

Over share TMI, pretty gross, I don’t mind if you know:

Spoiler

So, I have diabetes. My wounds take forever to heal. I had a wound on my toe (little piggy that stayed home on my right foot). This toe became infected and things went sideways rapidly. Sunday I went to the emergency room. Monday I had surgery, and I lost my toe: amputated.. When we were coming up with the lyrical concept, I think Truth originally floated the idea of making in about my toe. Zombie Co-Pilot is a thinly veiled metaphor for that little piggy that stayed home.

I was in hospital all week. I got home Saturday night to work on the songs. Truth was also away on vacation, he got home Saturday night as well. Sunday was a mad scramble to add all of my tracks, add all of Truth’s tracks and mix the thing. I love how this turned out. I think I could improve the mix with a few more passes, but I’m mostly pleased with it. I love the song. Working with these guys never disappoints.

Chew Me Up, Spit Me Out- Crown Shy sounds great! It’s like Ben Gibbard is taking a break and it’s the DNTEL guy and Jenny Lewis doing a song. Nice dynamics in this song. Why did this title lend itself to being so start/stop loud/quiet? We were that way too with Cavedwellers. The main line “ you called me your Co-Pilot, but I felt like your passenger” is a very good one! Perfect to build a song around. Good stuff!

Dutch Widows- The Ear Goggle sounds great! This is indie rock, twee gold! There’s something Lou Reed/VU about the backing vocals in the chorus, like “she’s a Femme Fatal”. It’s my main role in music to do a solo, so my very biased opinion is this is missing a solo, or musical interlude. It’s a sweet catchy pop tune. I enjoyed this much!

Ellipsis- What is the guitar? What is the effects chain? The guitar tone is bad ass! You have a trunk full of amps Mutha Fucka! This feels very Jack White. The riff is heavy and carries the song. This is my favorite Ellipsis thus far. Owl and Evermind! They are both awesome in this one! Bravo! Super cool song! Good job!

Eric Novak- Isobelle is great! I feel like I’m watching 120 minutes. Something Yo Le Tango about this. Mellow new wave. Please don’t do the silence thing again. Annoying! I’ve done it too, I know how it happens. Did someone mention Funky Town? When that rhythm guitar hits Dum dee Dum, I want to ask “won’t you take me to….”. Fun song!

glennny- I get by with a lot of help from my friends. ADD offered to help out BSS, but JB responded first. I’ve been a big ADD fan for decades. When I needed a guest vocalist I worked up the courage to ask him. I had only my 2016 iphone with me in the hospital (3 hours from home) , I made a crude demo with it. Ken generously helped me work on the lyrics. Then ADD edited them to work for him. I love the end result. I can’t thank ADD enough. I’ve wanted to work with him for years, I hope we do it again sooner than later.

The Lowest Bitter- I like how this flirts with Trip Hop. I wish it dove full into Portishead/ Lovage. Sultry vocals, remind me of such I guess. I don’t enjoy the arpeggiator in the chorus as much as I enjoy the verses. Ashley Brewer is great! Super cool song.

Max Bombast- I’m a Sci-Fy nut. This reminds me of Seven Eves (Neal Stephenson). I remember the moment I turned the page to Part 3 and it said

Spoiler

“5000 years later.”

This is great. My first listen I loved it. Unfortunately, once one knows the story, it’s not as interesting. I’m curious how the judges will score this. Will it be the tops? Bottoms? All over the place? It’s a damn shame we don’t get any of your vocals. I would have recommended a call and response: robot vs. awakened crew in 3 part harmony. Whatever happens, I love that this exists. Big swing!

Moss Palace- Frankie Big Face!!!! This song is recorded and mixed perfectly. The melodies and subtleties are nuanced and gentle. This song didn’t grab me on first listen (well, the production did). I like this song more with each listen. It feels like later Bowie, something on Reality or later. Feels like a lot of studio cats, not so much some Spiders from Mars. I really enjoy the piano solo into the guitar solo. Tasty licks! Solid entry!

Nick Soma- This is bananas. How did you end up here? I guess you crashed on a tropical island and the island took over. What a strange left turn for you. Is Silvian Austrian as well? I hear the Ringo thing, he sounds different than you, but he sounds a lot like you. I wonder if it’s the Austrian to English accent. This is cute, but it feels like a novelty song. So repeated listens have diminishing returns. Solo is laid back, nice but maybe too laid back? I was hoping for a steel drum solo.

Stacking Theory- Gizo! It’s blowing my mind that A Single Pint of Failure and Stacking Theory are both you. I mean it makes sense in that I love the vocals for both bands, but I wouldn’t have pieced it together. Five minute Forty-Six Seconds is quite long. I think it needs some editing. It’s very pretty, but it drags for me in places. Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (Spiritualized) is only 3:41. I feel like that’s what you’re going for here. I’m glad Kym is okay. She does an awesome job! It’s weird to me how the energy comes down for the chorus, it's interesting. Beautiful song, definitely an album closer, I’m glad that worked out alphabetically. Great song!

[gizo]

Oh jeez Glennny! What a week you’ve had too!!

Hopefully you’re feeling all better and cared for and oh my just wow.

Thanks for the great reviews, and thanks for making such a great song in the midst of your own trials. You’re a star!

Take care buddy!!

[Geech]

Co-Pilot Reviews

Berkeley Social Scene- JB is awesome. What vocals! Great hand-claps, though personally almost never think hand-claps are a good idea. If I was producing hand-claps would be on the cutting room floor. Geech’s guitars sound amazing! The trio is tight! Ken of course is on drums, he’s so good and in the pocket. Bryan Ward is locking in on bass, this thing rocks. This is impressive! Well done boys! Thanks for keeping us alive! (and then some)

On BSS - That's a combination of Ken and me on the bass. Bryan never showed up. And for those further scoring at home, JB wrote the lyrics, melodies, sang all parts and did the handclaps, which I thought were a rad addition.

[mo]

Hey Glen hope you’re better and that sounds mildly harrowing but glad you were still able to submit songs of such high quality! I mean goddamn.

tw: guitar nerdery


The guitar was my ‘68 RI Les Paul Custom (1997, I rewired it to 50s spec with OX4 pickups, I love them, and he’s a really nice guy to talk to also), into a Mesa/Boogie Fillmore 25, through a resistive load box with cab and mic sim. The main rhythm was done with a Death by Audio Apocalypse on Fuzz War setting. The solo was a no name Burns Buzzaround clone, Silica Sounds glass slide. The reverbs and echoplex were in the DAW, just plug-in stuff. Bass also through the DbA but on the FET setting for little more grind. It’s a very versatile fuzz but I don’t use it for anything subtle hahahaha

[noma]

Nick Soma- This is bananas. How did you end up here? I guess you crashed on a tropical island and the island took over. What a strange left turn for you. Is Silvian Austrian as well? I hear the Ringo thing, he sounds different than you, but he sounds a lot like you. I wonder if it’s the Austrian to English accent. This is cute, but it feels like a novelty song. So repeated listens have diminishing returns. Solo is laid back, nice but maybe too laid back? I was hoping for a steel drum solo.

Thanks for the review! I can see how it feels like a novelty song. It was not originally planned like that, but somehow just evolved this way. Silvan's over-the-top delivery, especially in the chorus, probably increases the novelty factor even further; but, we did have a lot of fun recording it. He's South Tyrolean, so technically Italian but speaking an Austro-Bavarian dialect. The South Tyrolean accent is a bit different from mine - to Austrian ears, it sounds very charming.

I wrote the basic tune and recorded a demo version on nylon string guitar last Monday. I was going for a funny-but-sad feeling. It didn't sound nearly as tropical then, but I noticed it had a bit of a reggae sound to it; it reminded me of "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. I first recorded the bass and guitar parts, and when I added percussion, it suddenly became super tropical, so I decided to just go along with it and off I went to Margaritaville. With a little more time on my hands, I would almost certainly have added steel drum and lap steel guitar. I fully expect to be eliminated for this, but hey, at least I had fun

[vowlvom]

Getting really hard to rank now! There were things I liked about all of these, some very tough decisions.

Berkeley Social Scene - why does this remind me of Boffo Yux Dudes? Something about the energy and nerdy lyrics sends my brain immediately in that direction. The energy is great and the chorus is really fun with those shouty backing vocals. The lyrics are my least favourite part of this one, the programming references packed into them bugged me a bit (partly they feel clunky, partly they remind me of my day job that I'd rather forget) but otherwise this is really fun.


Cavedwellers - love this one, the vocal is so immediately appealing and there are so many nice touches in the melody and rhythm of the lyrics. The music is very good too, the layers of shimmery guitars and harmony solo all sound great, and all of the various sections are packed with hooks. Nothing to critique, excellent stuff.


chewmeupspitmeout - the thick synth bass sounds so good. This is a pretty bold arrangement, good use of dynamics in the electronic stuff and the shimmery guitar filling out the mix nicely before going BIG. The co-pilot / passenger chorus line / hook is really effective and the drop-out at the end sounds great. Vocals are great of course, the slow burn nature of the song possibly made it not quite as immediate as some of these songs but I enjoyed it on every revisit.


The Dutch Widows - I have a couple of issues with this one mix / production-wise, particularly in terms of the vocals which have a kind of phasy / metallic reverb quality that doesn't blend terribly well with the rest of the song to me (and particularly stands out against the backing vocals). The song itself is really good though, such a strong melody and the chiming guitars and xylophone (or whatever that is) are so nice. I found myself forgetting the issues and enjoying the song more each time that I listened.


Ellipsis - excellent fuzz-rock, I love that you got two guests in and had them trade verses / layer up on the chorus, it adds a ton of extra interest to the song. The energy hit me immediately, the arrangement details kept me engaged across multiple listens. I wouldn't have minded a shorter / punchier solo, this level of fuzz / energy feels like it might be even better croppsed down to under 3 minutes, but definitely one of my favourites either way.


Eric Novak - this is extremely charming, I love the mix of the funky guitars and the kinda lo-fi indie-rock sound and the guest vocal does a great job. The bits where you layer in your own voice are really effective and that chorus stuck in my head. There are some sloppy bits performance-wise, especially the guitar on the bridge, but this is the right kind of song to get away with it, they ended up making me smile instead of bugging me. I even quite enjoyed the couple of minutes of silence at the end, it makes for a nice intermission when listening to these songs on repeat, haha.


Glennny - this feels like a good song that needed a little more work (obviously you have a good excuse! hope you're feeling better!). I think the key thing is that it needs more of a lift in the chorus, I'd have liked the backing vocals to be more of a stacked powerpop kinda thing rather than the tentative-feeling ones that we did get - the last chorus is a step in the right direction but the early ones just feel a bit anticlimactic. Still plenty of good stuff going on though, I particularly like the "co-pilot / same diet / laugh riot" section which has a really nice vibe and melody to it, and the little ascending bass runs are a nice touch.


The Lowest Bitter - something about the vocals / mix doesn't quite click for me here, it feels a bit too clean for the smoky trip-hop atmosphere maybe? I can't quite put my finger on it but I feel like it stops me fully falling for this one. It does feel kinda magical when your two voices combine on the chorus, and the arrangement is generally nice and spacious, it just doesn't feel like as much of a satisfyingly complete package of a song compared to some of the entries this round.


Max Bombast - I don't think the use of a synth voice is an inherently bad idea, if you'd made your virtual guest sing and gone full "Still Alive" then I think this could have been great. But the all-spoken style feels a bit like a skit / album interlude and after listening to these songs many times I found that I was discovering new things to like in most of them, whereas this one peaked on listen #1 and really grated after three or four plays. Technically well done, I'm not sure how much effort was required to get the vocals in time and find the right intonation for the story you're telling but I'm assuming it was Not Easy. Unfortunately for me, it didn't really pay off.


Moss Palace - once this hits the chorus and that extremely satisfying shift to a higher register, it's pretty great. On each listen I found the first verse felt a little sluggish and flat (sonically, not in terms of tuning) though, I kept thinking "why did I rank this so high?" and then it hits the chorus and I go "oh yeah". I wonder if starting with a sparser arrangement might have helped, start acoustic and vocals before letting the arrangment build, or cut out a little more room for the verse vocal with EQ. The chorus is really nice though, and I like the solo.


Nick Soma - I am Perplexed by the vocals on this one, I feel like the main voice I can hear throughout is your familiar, distinctive one. I'm not sure whether you have a guest who sounds like you or the "lead" is mixed quietly and the "harmonies" mixed high but it struck me as odd. I was wondering whether it bugged me enough to drop this song in my rankings but to be honest, as I listened more, this one ended up being towards the bottom of my list anyway. It's not without its charms, the tropical vibes are good fun and the melody is catchy, but in a strong round I felt like this one was not one of your best.


Stacking Theory - ambitious scope and length but you made it pay off, this is wonderfully dynamic, melodic, emotional. Really satisfying how the layers of vocals build up and drop out for maximum power / vulnerability as the song needs it. Your voices sound great together, and the arrangement is beautiful.

[DutchWidows]

the vocals which have a kind of phasy / metallic reverb quality that doesn't blend terribly well with the rest of the song to me

Fair comment. The EarGoggle had sent me both an un-effected raw vocal and a version with a phase effect for an early draft of the lyric, but for the final version he accidentally only sent me the version with the phaser on it. Unfortunately at that point he couldn't get back into his studio to send the raw file until after the deadline, so I had to either work with what he'd sent me or revert to an earlier version of the lyric, which I'd reworked to quite a large degree. I decided to go with the first option and do what I could to reduce the prominence of the phaser, but keep the lyrics I preferred. The phaser was less noticeable by the end, but still fairly prominent to my ear too. He was gutted about it, but it happens, and I was just so grateful he helped me out! At some point once I'm out I'll get the raw vocal from him and remix the song, as his raw vocal on the first draft had a lovely tone to it.

Dutch Widows this is missing a solo, or musical interlude.

Sorry to hear about your week - it sounds awful. I hope you're doing ok and on the mend...

On a instrumental section - yes, you're probably right, but I wanted to keep the song to a tight sub-3 minutes if I could and didn't want to include something for the sake of it. Plus despite having played the guitar for longer than I care to put in writing, I don't really like guitar solos and will often go to great lengths to avoid them..! Is that weird for a guitar player? Probably!

[vowlvom]

I don't really like guitar solos and will often go to great lengths to avoid them..! Is that weird for a guitar player? Probably!

Massive high five!

I really think guitar solos should be deployed extremely sparingly and the fact that many SF / NE entrants include them in every song is a continued point of bafflement for me, as is quite possibly obvious from my reviews. Thank you for keeping things tight!

[Niveous]

Scores will be a bit later than usual as Lucky Witch is playing at an Omnichord showcase tonight.

(Unless I can pull them together in the next hour)

[gizo]

Scores will be a bit later than usual as Lucky Witch is playing at an Omnichord showcase tonight.

(Unless I can pull them together in the next hour)

Rock on!!