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MeCallMaybe - Remixing the Earwurms

by The Earwurms, Luka Schuurman

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1.
MeCallMaybe - Movement I - Long Time 05:11
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2.
MeCallMaybe - Movement II - Talk To Me 03:19
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3.
MeCallMaybe - Movement III - Communication 04:38
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about

For a year now, culture and art all over the world are suffering from the consequences of COVID-19. Concerts and festivals have been made illegal and even when venues - like Volta in Amsterdam, where I work - do their best to film and record sessions for bands, most practice spaces remain closed so musicians can't rehearse. This also affected my friends of the Earwurms and forced them to come up with new ideas.

This is one of those ideas and it’s really cool!

MeCallMaybe? is a song written and recorded by the Earwurms during lockdown, in a great effort to take the concept of seperation and turn it 180 degrees into a collaborative EP. They recorded all the parts seperately at distance, with the purpose of having it remixed by friends. They were very mysterious about the project so I didn't get to hear the other remixes or even the original complete song until release day! Only the seperate tracks.

For my entry I bypassed the instrumentals and put the focus on the vocal material, which is for the most part deadpan sprechsgesang and really hits the nail on the head of the cold digital ways of communication we have to resort to right now. I composed it as a three-movement piece starting out quite calmly and getting increasingly chaotic and schizofrenic as it builds up in intensity. I took the lyrics and voices out of their context and manipulated them with a mix of digital effects and glitches, analog tape effects, my mixing board and live looping, playing around with the idea and meaning of communication.

The most notable effect is that of the fragmented voices, which is a computer glitch I found by stretching out the recordings in Cubase. For some reason - possibly the bitrate of the original recordings - this does not make the tones longer but instead chops up the sound in small and very rhythmic fragments of syllables, making the original words almost unintelligible. It is very funny to me that slowing words down in this way doesn't make them easier to understand, but rather scatters the meaning and even gives rise to new words that can be heard in the small fragments. It points out an interesting difference between digital and real life communication. Some of these new words are a bit vulgar as well, it's like reading between the lines.

So thank you, Earwurms, for this great initiative and a chance for me to work on something excitingly new! CHECK OUT THEIR FULL EP HERE:
open.spotify.com/album/7odTZfigLN9jexi8e1CdSR?si=aeZUk71JQLS3wIwnHOjEIw
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n6pq_RJ_MTKIxzsI3e7NEC3Z1sBSq502U

Below are some links to other initiatives to enjoy music & stimulate and support musicians in their valuable work. Please check them out:

Volta Lockdown Sessies:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCh1XwG7nb52kNgfQUHbso7w

Ø Sessions:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCNMaVXrYnFRziK8bB7Cu9bQ

OCCII live stream concerts:
www.facebook.com/occii

AT5 Quarantaine Sessies:
www.at5.nl/sessies

De Hoge Noot:
www.dehogenoot.com#

Patapoe Quarantaineradio:
www.mixcloud.com/QuarantaineRadio/

credits

released March 27, 2021

The Earwurms:
Carmen Mellema, Paloma Plantenga, Inez Reintjes:
Voices

Luka Schuurman:
Digital glitches, tape effects, mixing board, live looping

Original artwork: The Earwurms
Sampled artwork: Luka Schuurman Ontwerp

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Luka Schuurman image

Luka Schuurman Amsterdam, Netherlands

Guitarist, composer of experimental music, improviser and graphic designer from Amsterdam. Guitarist in Halli Crigi:
keroxenlabel.bandcamp.com/album/shinedown

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