Cruftworld #2: Far Far Away

The cruftworld project, my attempt to create an entirely fictional music scene, is well under way. Here's another musical installment for your sampling pleasure.

As with our previous release, there's two versions of the same song: the original one from 1994, and my new version from this year.

I really like the old version. It begins with a weird effect which is Public House's violist, Geoff Deere, playing sliding harmonics on his instrument, which is being processed by a combination of delay and phasing. Eventually the band crashes into the song, which is a simple verse-chorus-wash-rinse-repeat structure. If you listen closely during the chorus, you can actually hear [710w3]'s first recorded appearance: I forced the rest of the guys in the band to let him sing backup on this track, and I think it worked out pretty well. My favorite part of the old version is Chris Bekkers' guitar augmentation which appears around the beginning of the third verse. My least favorite part is the lyrics, which I wrote, which seem to be my tangled recollection of creepy kids' book "Bridge to Terabithia" mixed with a healthy dose of teenaged sexual frustration.

The new version here is quite similar. Of course I'm lacking the viola, so I just started off with the bassline, and put a bit of phaser on my rhythm guitar track. And as usual, I multitracked the vocals heavily, and laid some breaks in the background since I haven't got a drum kit. It's surprising how well our old Public House songs work with a classic break instead of a live drummer --- I don't think the loops sound as 'fake' or 'computery' as they could. And rather than trying to compete with Bekks in the lead guitar department, I just added some noodling for flavor. Enjoy.


Listen to the original Public House Recording of Far Far Away- 5.1 MB

Listen to the 2007 version of Far Far Away - 6.3 MB