Set it Free

I was going to wait until the 15th anniversary of American Analog Set’s final album, “Set Free”, to write this essay. Then life.

So then I was going to wait until the 20th anniversary, but then I got impatient. So here you are and you’re welcome.

I discovered the album 12 years after its release. American Analog Set wasn’t on my listening radar, but the band itself was. I’m certain it was simply in the immediate background of all the other “post rock” “content” I was listening to at the time of its release, in 2005.

Like many people in the streaming era, I found one of their songs from some sort of algorithm. A quick aside, I don’t harbor the same animosities about the word ‘algorithm’ like other people seem to. It’s a crude approach, yes. So is randomly buying LPs hoping that at least one of them will become your new favorite album, only to be functionally broke throughout the entire duration of your 20’s.

Set Free is one of my favorite albums. But unlike the rest of my favorite albums, even those which are relatively new additions (past few years), Set Free can only be my favorite album when it’s listened to in a different song order than how it was released.

In the original song ordering, I don’t understand the album. Kind of sentence a normal which uses like words but they’re order out of all. It’s a bit jarring but with a little work everything ends up making sense. Even Pitchfork failed to see the magic eye painting embedded in this album.

I have always wanted to write this short essay, but I had an irrational fear that when like this:

  • As a recording artist myself, I should never appear to question someone else’s original vision.

  • If the band ever sees this essay (which I doubt would ever occur), they will be offended.

I still harbor both of those fears. But I’m here to tell you that advertising my reordering of this album is worth the trouble, should it ever come. And I also think it’s worth it in terms of the album itself. I want more people to listen to it, I want more people to love it.

Here’s the new, suggested ordering:

  1. She’s Half

  2. First of Four

  3. Immaculate Heart 1

  4. Immaculate Heart 2

  5. Born On the Cusp

  6. The Green Green Grass

  7. Sharp Briar

  8. Cool Kids Keep

  9. (Theme From) Everything Ends

  10. Jr

  11. Play Hurt

  12. Fuck This… I’m Leaving

Let’s get poetic…

1. She’s Half

Starting with She’s Half is the key that unlocks this album. It’s the only track on the album which is in 6/4 time, which doesn’t mean anything in a vacuum, but for this album, it’s the perfect amuse bouche. It’s also one of the few tracks which has very minimal drumming with drums-proper (the guitar strumming otherwise serves as the main rhythmic element).

Additionally, it’s the warmup, the sound check, the one where the band members arrive and start playing their instruments at different stages of the tune.

The quiet, plaintive tone galvanizes the ear for more grit and a welcome comeback of some sort of beat with a kick drum and a snare. It perhaps demands it.

The lighting guy arrives, the curtain draws, the lights dim, the audience saunters inward.

2. First of Four

And the band walks in from off stage and we’re off.

The oft-mentioned motorik, krautrock beat that crops up in AAS’s catalog drives us into the daylight, and juices the nerves simultaneously with both calm and contentment. A simmering excitement with a pinch of anxiety.

The continual give and take of the guitar lines, licks, and affectations ornaments the ear as the brushed snare grounds the listener a few inches above the floor, almost there.

3. Immaculate Heart 1

We now become grounded by the beat. The groove is in control, worn-through and cut deep like the etched channel of ‘Billie Jean’ on my used copy of Thriller found at a garage sale 20 years ago (I think it *must* have been on one of those fancy, linear tracking turntables from the 80’s that could repeat a single track, and did it so for perhaps several years on repeat).

The raw materials of the album shine in Immaculate Heart 1. The acoustic guitar and brushed snare, the electric piano and slippery bass. Everything works in accordance with everything else, except for the floor, still hovering within a hair’s breadth.

4. Immaculate Heart 2

Now we’ve landed. The groove here is so tight, marked by the snap of the cracking snare. Milky vibes coat the arrangement while the guitar bites back.

I’m a sucker for instruments playing the same melodic lines together, especially when a bass element is involved. Immaculate Heart 2’s lyrics are hallucinated by the arrangement. There’s definitely a conversation occurring, we’re just not privy to its content, as if it’s happening deep in the collective subconscious.

5. Born on the Cusp

Waking from the introspection, fresh sunlight hits our eyes, and we float again. The biting guitar bites back, both referencing the past and foreshadowing our “Set it Free” future.

This song was written and played with albatross feathers. The vibes struck with the large, hollow quills, continually drift back into view as the song moves on.

6. The Green Green Grass

Like a family of snakes searching for food, the ostinato melodies and accompanying micro-riffs weave an anxious and unforgiving pattern in the green grass.

The tension and release here is manicured and taut, making it a perfect song for the middle of the album.

7. The Sharp Briar

These drums are immaculate. This album is sonically immaculate. And the sense of timing in the performances on this album almost appear to reveal the personalities belying AAS.

So cool and efficient this tune. So much happens with so little on Set Free, so incredibly spare and full at the same time. The Sharp Briar is the halfway-point reminder of how AAS has mastered their craft.

8. Cool Kids Keep

Adding some width, but keeping the humidity low, Cool Kids Keep starts with fuzz, adding the first new sonic element, now well into the record.

Drums fumble through off kilter and diagonal to the arrangement, splitting the ground like a subduction fault. The listener skates off on the glistening strumming which leads to nowhere.

9. (Theme From) Everything Ends

A break. The clouds lift, and were held together only by four solitary instruments. We hover again, ever so briefly.

The respite ends on time.

10. Jr

Like drinking cough syrup for fun, the incandescent fuzz sets back in. We’re in for some sort of a ride with Jr.

The lights dim, the sky shifts hues. The dirge of day’s end captured on tape.

11. Play Hurt

And as we trudge into the night with the wrong variety of beer, more and more things begin to resemble beds.

We’re barely even trying to change chords now. The light from the fridge pierces the frontal lobe while we look in earnest for something impossible to find at this hour.

Why am I thinking?

12. Fuck This… I’m Leaving

Eyes are closed, the mind begins to unravel. An LED across the room is enough light to fill the blackened room.

At any moment we’ll be gone. Is Fuck This a lullaby? I think so. How did he record his vocal? It’s perfectly isolated and then shrink-wrapped.

AAS knew all along this was a perfect album-ending tune, because that’s a thing. I don’t know if anyone else says it, but it’s definitely a thing.

So, why did AAS land on the original ordering? That question isn’t meant to suggest that it’s necessarily a bad ordering, it just tells a different story. The thing which seems of material discussion here is that 2005 was the beginning of the popular resurgence of vinyl. That’s both good and bad. Good because despite what the techno-purists say, and despite that they have a point about the pristine sound quality of digital and they are largely right, they also miss the point of physical media and what the brain hears and what it chooses not to. With vinyl, the body experiences a multidimensional event: the sound of the record, the kinesthetics involved with the physical engagement of the LP, the artwork in detail, the feel of the physical media. It’s an experience.

I have a bunch of shit-sounding records from 2005–2010. The albums are sadly some of my favorite, but the medium had problems with sound quality and reliability. It’s a well known limitation of vinyl that the inner part of the record has different frequency reproduction than the outer ring. I think that dictates a lot of song orderings in my listening experience, and I wonder if that’s the case here, with Set Free. I have some records that seem to hold up much better within the inner ring. Maybe that’s good mastering trickery, or perhaps manufacturing has improved along with technology.

Placing Jr at the end of side one makes good sense (see above), in both an artistic sensibility and a vinyl mastering sense. Similarly, First of Four can survive intact toward the inner ring of side two since there’s so much space in the mix. If anyone is wondering if I know what I’m talking about at this point, it’s not a bad question. I believe I’ve got this right, but please note that the name of this part of my website is “Bullshit”. I’m not trying to bullshit anyone, but sometimes bullshit happens.

I love this record. I will still love it in the original ordering, but I will probably only listen to it with the updated order. Sadly, while vinyl manufacturing has gotten better with technology, I still can’t order a custom pressing of an album from a chatbot. Someday, someday.

Listen to the alternate ordering of Set Free…

Back to the Breath #34

Mike Kavanagh was gracious enough to invite me onto his wonderful podcast to discuss my new album, “Spirit Joules”. We toured through some personal backstory, and what led up to this album, but true to the nature of the Back to the Breath podcast, we chatted about what it means to be an artist and how to overcome obstacles in life (spoiler: my advice was to do something ridiculous and potentially fatal).

Check it out at Back to the Breath.

The Sinkhole

Here is a guest vocals track from yours truly on Starschreck's new EP.

Listen to The Sinkhole

Listen to me
How can we sleep
When there's a hole outside swallowing streets

Big black dot
Letting love in
When there's a world outside ready for him

You can't handle it
You're just another sun
Blowing up

You can't seem to get
I am just opening up
Looking for love

I am the only one
Ready to turn inside
Out for you

You are not ready love
My love is deeper than
The darkest sun

Song Breakdown: What a Fool Believes

The most important objective of any pop song is to deliver the same high with each listen. The quality of that high is what defines the artist. Quality is subjective, of course, but it's ruthlessly so. You may or may not enjoy songs written by Smokey Robinson, Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, or Linda Perry, but it's at least possible to understand how their songs have managed to earn repeated listens by millions of people.

You may not like The Doobie Brothers, or Michael McDonald for that matter (or Kenny Loggins, for that matter), but I'm here to tell you that What a Fool Believes is one of the greatest pop songs of all time.

The song is amazing on so many levels, but I'm limiting this discussion to the scope of songwriting. Let's consider the final product: track 2 from The Doobie Brother's 1978 LP, “Minute by Minute”. The track itself was co-written by Loggins and McDonald, and in fact Loggins released an earlier version of the song that same year. We'll stick to the Doobie Brothers version. It's considerably better (sorry Kenny), and I believe it fully realizes the potential of the song.

First, a quick primer on how I'll be notating chords. To keep things simple, I'll be using this notation style:

I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi◦, vii

Uppercase roman numerals signify a major chord; lower case, a minor chord. The above example is for a major key (the first chord is therefore major), and those seven chords are just the usual set — other chords are possible. More info on Roman Numeral Analysis, here. When I refer to roman numeral I, I'm referring to the key that we're in (in this case, C♯ major; oh, and the “♯” symbol means “sharp“, or one slight step in pitch higher). It's also called the “Tonic”. Thus, if I mention a V chord, I'm referring to what's called the “Dominant” chord, which in the context of pop music, usually acts as a signal that we're about to return to the I chord. Your brain understands this. It hears a G♯ major while in the key of C♯ major and it begins to need that C♯ chord once again (it's almost a form of cruel and unusual punishment to deny the listener of this kind of resolution). There are other chords, of course, and I will explain more as we go. Just understand that your brain expects certain chords to come after certain other chords.

0':01"–0':04"

Now, in terms of harmony, the verse section of Fool moves very fluidly. The first four changes are:

IV -> I/iii -> ii -> I

So, you can see what's happening here: we're stepping down like “4-3-2-1”. This kind of passage is found in a majority of pop songs, but the second chord change is a nice choice. A lot of songwriters may use an actual iii chord, but it's a bit more harmonious to use a I chord with the root key of the iii chord at the bottom (as is happening here). The brain doesn't get the V to I resolution it loves, but instead it's gently walked down from the IV chord, or “Subdominant”. You should feel a little bit at peace now. You've gained some peace for a brief moment.

0':05"–0':08"

But then it's over, because the song walks you right back up:

ii -> I/iii -> vi -> ♯v+

First, the walk back up is quicker than the stepping down in the previous passage, by half. That's so cool! It's so playful and whimsical. The passage starts walking back up in familiar territory (II and I/iii chords) but then jumps up to the vi chord, where we have not yet been before. In the context of western pop music, the six chord has a magical property in any key: it's the serious version of the “happy” key, harmonically speaking. It's the same person, but it's their pessimistic self. The song briefly lands here but then quickly descends down a half step into an augmented chord, which is the equivalent of saying, “I'm serious! Just kidding!”. Because then we start the walk-down all over again, as in, “see, I'm silly again”.

0':16"–0':48"

Each verse, harmonically, contains two walk-down, walk-back-up blocks. Since harmony dominates the verse structure, the melody just follows along, as you'd want it to. The highest note he sings is an A♯5, of which A♯ is the root of the sixth chord we previously learned about. It's that pessimistic tone we briefly visited. So once Michael McDonald starts up, we've got four verse-lines before we move onto what I'll call Bridge 1.

0':49"–1':03"

There's nothing fancy about Bridge 1 as a standalone part of the song, but it's a perfect bridge in that it breaks the pacing of the preceding verses. Harmonically, it's pretty simple:

vi -> vi -> V -> V

But we left off in the melody of the last verse on the A♯, sounding all serious. And so the beginning of Bridge 1 melody just starts here and reaches higher. Love that. It's a hopelessly optimistic, whimsical move while oscillating back and forth between the confident, pessimistic vi chord and the dominant V. Remember that the V wants to resolve to the I, but we don't let it. We keep coming back to the vii chord while the melody repeats its struggling climb for hope, which we find in Bridge 2…

1':04"–1':10"

Bridge 2 returns harmonic changes back to the dominant structure, but yet it adds a new and yet differently-syncopated pacing. This bridge only half-repeats itself:

ii -> V -> I - > ♯vi -> ii -> V

The harmonic framework underneath finally gives the brain what it's been wanting: classic resolution. ii / V / I is songwriting 101, but then it's nicely altered by dropping a ♯vi chord at the end before it returns to ii / V/ I.

The transition between the ♯vi chord and the ii chord is a major third jump. The transition from the ii chord to the V is a fourth. And the transition from the V to the I chord is, well, a fifth. So, here the harmony has two different geometries occurring simultaneously: the outlining of two-five-one, and the underlining of three-four-five. Lines are converging; tension is building.

Over this, McDonald sings “As he rises to her apology” on a melody that itself rises and falls. That's clever. But it's more clever than it looks: he's reaching, climbing upwards to the very top, a high C♯ (C♯6), the root note. This is now the highest we've been. [insert Doobie Brothers joke here]. Will we ever get that high again?

1':10"–1':17"

So now we land on yet another segue, the brief but necessary Bridge 3. Here, we return to the pacing of the first bridge, and almost the same harmony. However, you'd be expecting that, so let's not do that. Instead we'll just duck under the the V chord like this:

vi -> vi -> ♯IVø7 - ♯IVø7

A diminished chord is a freak chord. It's a perfect molecular structure made out of minor thirds that can endlessly repeat. If the flatted V chord here were a real diminished chord, it would have less in common with the vi chord, and that wouldn't make sense. Keeping an F note on top allows the chord change to occur while keeping the right amount tension. So instead we use a “diminished 7” chord. That's two minor-third intervals plus a major third jump up top. We're really building towards something big now.

Bridge 1 was perfect. Bridge 2 was necessary. Bridge 3 is genius, and here's why.

Remember when I wrote earlier that the brain needs the V chord to resolve to the I? Well, the brain will take any kind of resolution, and if you're close enough to a V chord (like our friend, the ♯IVø7 chord), the brain still wants the I chord next. It'll make do with a flatted V chord or even a ♯vii chord (which was the harmonic point of the climax of the Barbara Streisand / Neil Diamond song “You Don't Bring Me Flowers”, so there you go). And in fact, the more tension the better. And now we most certainly have tension.

1':17"–1':22"

Finally, we reach the Chorus and thus resolve to the I chord right? Nope. We change keys from C♯ to A (stick with me, music theory nerds). There's a new I chord in town, and the brain technically gets what it was asking for. But the song cheated by switching keys on us. We now have about two seconds to appreciate our new harmonic landscape before we realize we've been tricked, yet again.

1':22"–1':26"

After we finish hanging out in A major, we move to a B major chord. This would technically be a II chord, not a ii chord. It's major when our brain is expecting minor.

It's here where the song hooks you, and delivers the high.

1':26"–1':33"

See, they never went to the key of A major. They switched from C♯ major to E major but used the A major chord as as a harmonic pivot point. We actually get our V -> I change, but we have to jump through a harmonic portal to get there. Essentially, for two whole chord changes our brains don't know what's going to happen next. That's pretty awesome. That's why this song works so well.

While our ears are busy figuring out which way the earth is moving under our feet, the melody achieves its original goal of sticking the landing on that high C♯(6). But we're not in the original, key of C♯ major anymore, we're in E major. The melody couldn't get what it needed in C♯ major, so it took what it needed in E major.

1':34"–1':48"

It gets better, because the chorus melody repeats itself, and the harmony just subtly changes, yet again (not the key signature though, just the chords in the key of E major). The first harmonic movement is as follows:

IV -> IV -> V -> V -> I -> I -> vi -> vi

…while the second harmonic movement of the chorus is (with the same melody over the top):

ii -> ii -> V -> V -> I -> I -> vi -> vi

I never, ever realized that until I studied it closely. It's subtle but it's necessary. Moving to that A chord earlier was so awesome that you don't want to remind the listeners how we got here in the first place. It's the object of misdirection in the card trick. Don't give it away, because we're about to repeat everything all over again…

Now, I highly doubt Loggins and McDonald thought the song through like this as it was being written. But to some extent, they must have. Any good songwriting session includes some amount of critical thinking, or else you end up with fragments of pieces of songs laying around in your head. That's one of the reasons songwriting is so much fun. It's a game of logic that must require emotion.

Hopefully, this overly-thorough analysis I've provided shows only what skilled songwriters they are. They did much of this on feeling, but were well-trained enough to actually channel those feelings into a very complicated, yet unbelievably catchy pop song.

Listen to the entirety of What a Fool Believes here.

These Albums… These Are Some of my Favorites…

Why? Well, each one satisfies at least two out of three criteria: 1). Has personal significance — like a tattoo on my mind, these albums always bring back warm feelings; 2). It's a perfect album in my mind — from beginning to end, and from songwriting/performance to recording execution; and 3). Has significantly affected my own songwriting and/or recording projects.

I'm most certainly forgetting some.

In alphabetical order:

  • Alva Noto, “Xerrox Vol. 2”

  • Bang On a Can, “Music for Airports"

  • The Beta Band, “Hot Shots II”

  • Bobby Womack, “Communication”

  • Brian Eno, “Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks”

  • Biosphere, “Dropsonde”

  • Bjork, “Vespertine”

  • Blonde Redhead, “Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons”

  • Blonde Redhead, “Misery is a Butterfly”

  • Cocteau Twins, “Heaven or Las Vegas”

  • Daniel Lanois, “Belladonna”

  • David Bowie, “Low”

  • David Daniell and Douglas McCombs, “Versions”

  • Do Make Say Think, “& Yet & Yet”

  • Fennesz, “Endless Summer”

  • Fennesz, “Venice”

  • Gastr del Sol, “Upgrade & Afterlife”

  • Gordon Lightfoot, “Sundown”

  • James, “Laid”

  • Japan, “Gentlemen Take Polaroids”

  • Japan, “Tin Drum”

  • Jeff Parker, “The Relatives”

  • Jim O'Rourke, “Halfway to a Threeway”

  • Jo Jena, “Rhythm ‘n’ Drones”

  • John Cale, “Paris 1919”

  • Joni Mitchell, “Court & Spark”

  • Joni Mitchell, “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”

  • Joni Mitchell, “Hejira”

  • Loose Fur, “Born Again in the USA”

  • Low, “Things We Lost in the Fire”

  • Marvin Gaye, “What's Going On”

  • Marvin Gaye, “I Want You”

  • Marvin Gaye, “Here, My Dear”

  • Michael Jackson, “Off the Wall”

  • Michael Jackson, “Thriller”

  • Monolake, “Cinemascope”

  • Morgan Packard, “Moment Again Elsewhere”

  • Mouse on Mars, “Radical Connector”

  • Paul Simon, “Rhythm of the Saints”

  • Pita, “Get Out”

  • Prince, “Prince”

  • Prince, “Purple Rain”

  • Prince, “Around the World in a Day”

  • Q-Tip, “The Renaissance”

  • R.E.M., “Up”

  • Radiohead, “Kid A”

  • Rhymefest & Mark Ronson, “Man in the Mirror”

  • Roxy Music, “Siren”

  • Sam Prekop, “Sam Prekop”

  • Savvas Ysatis + Taylor Deupree, “Origin”

  • The Sea and Cake, “The Fawn”

  • The Sea and Cake, “Oui”

  • The Sea and Cake, “The Moonlight Butterfly”

  • Thin Lizzy, “Night Life”

  • Sparks, “Kimono My House”

  • Stereolab, “Dots & Loops”

  • Stevie Wonder, “Songs in the Key of Life”

  • Studio Pankow, “Linienbusse”

  • Talk Talk, “Laughing Stock”

  • Talking Heads, “Remain in Light”

  • Talking Heads, “Speaking in Tongues”

  • To Rococo Rot, “The Amateur View”

  • To Rococo Rot & I-Sound, “Music is a Hungry Ghost”

  • To Rococo Rot, “Speculation”

  • Tortoise, “Millions Now Living Will Never Die”

  • Tortoise, “TNT”

  • Trans Am, “The Surveillance”

  • Trans Am, “Futureworld”

  • Wilco, “A Ghost is Born”

  • Willie Nelson, “Red Headed Stranger”

  • Yo La Tengo, “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out”

  • Yo La Tengo, “Summer Sun”

  • The Zombies, “Odyssey and Oracle”

Additions added on:

  • Aug 31, 2022

  • Oct 6, 2020

  • Aug 30, 2016

Unique Interchanges of the South Bay

San Jose likes to think it’s a big city, and I suppose it is. But it’s got one big problem: driving through downtown will take just as long as driving through the downtown of any major US city, and this is by design. You’ll find yourself sitting at lights just as long as any other city, but there’s no traffic coming in the other direction, and there’s no pedestrians crossing the street.

There’s no one there. The traffic was engineered as if 50% of the population lived downtown, and they were out all day and up all night. But I don’t think even 10% of the population lives downtown.

It’s a strange phenomenon of civil engineering, and if you zoom out a bit, you’ll find many strange engineering choices. Some of these are brilliant, and some are head-scratching, but all are well-executed (a polar-opposite to our urban neighbors to the north, where spaghetti interchanges are de rigueur).

So, here’s a set of unique feats of engineering, all of which are interchanges in the South Bay:

Here’s a “Modified Cloverstack”. Not a big surprise, but see if you can find the outlier ramp.

Next, another semi-conventional but well-executed interchange, a “Directional T”.

For those of you who are easily-perplexed, here’s an epic “Three Level Turbine”.

Here’s a modern interchange, the “Single-Point Urban Interchange” (or “SPUI”).

Now we’re getting to my favorite, South Bay exclusive interchanges. There are no official names for these types of interchanges, so I’ve gone ahead and named them myself.

Here’s a “Holy Trinity” just northwest of the airport.

And last and maybe least, the oh-so special “No-verpass”, where in the immortal words of Sim City, ‘you can’t get there from here’. Yep, I bet there are few if any other places in the country where two major highways cross each other without an interchange.

I realize that there is some crazy stuff up in Oakland and San Francisco, and perhaps I’ll document that in the future.