Track x Track - Music Breakdown

Every few weeks we will be sharing insights into our tracks.

Taken from Juniper, recorded in 2018

Dave Stapleton - Keyboards / Composer
Elliot Bennett - Drums
Deri Roberts - Electronics
Stuart McCallum - Guitar
Aidan Thorne - Double Bass
Nicolas Kummert - Saxophone

Juniper

Juniper has always been a track that, as a band, we felt defined our sound, so it felt right to start here.

It was the first track we recorded as a purely instrumental group, and set the tone for what was to come.

The track started with Dave taking a piece of music he had written years earlier called The House Always Wins, before Slowly Rolling Camera existed.

It was this passage in 10ths that evolved into, with an additional melody, what became the main theme.

The track is 4/4 yet has a 5 + 3 feel to it.

That became the loop to build the track from, with drums entering half way through that cycle. This is something we like to do, as it surprises the ear.

From that point we wrote the opening section which took the pulse of the crotchet of the main section and turned into the quaver triplet of a 6/8 feel.

The final section (C) starts on the dominant (Bb) so would lead easily back to the tonic of the main section, and help with the build of tension.

The track starts with the B Section as we wanted to evolve the track from a different space rather than starting with the obvious.

The form is built around 3 main themes and for this, we started with the B Section.