And now for something completely different:
Much Has Been Done… (1990)
Walter Becker
© 1990/2019 Zeon LLC
Much Has Been Done …
Much Remains To Be Done
He played around with this for a while, tweaking and fiddling it into several variations.
Tempted to loop them together into one good trance track
This is fun...and interesting. What do you think he is playing at/with here?
Reminds me of Laurie Anderson's work.
I saw your comment on Facebook, and I really hadn't considered that. But I do think it is an apt comparison. My initial thought was that this is largely Walter working with some new equipment or piece of software, checking out what it could do. I think the idea of a mantra repeated until the point of absurdity and then beyond is interesting. I wonder if Walter was familiar with that genre or artist. I assume so, as his taste was so broad and eclectic, and his knowledge of various musical movements astoundingly deep. Of course, what he's doing predates this appearance by some twenty years...
I also want to point out Bill Laswell on bass there, who I'm sure Walter was familiar with.
I think this is interesting as a historical artifact, something that shows what he was thinking during this time period. I look at it as kind of a signpost pointing the way to 11ToW, especially as I think about the backing track to Hat Too Flat being robotic in a similar way. Do we know for sure that is Walter's voice?
yes that's Walter
When ( years) was Max Headroom on TV?
Ah, yes...Max Headroom. Popular mid-to-late 80's; 84-88?
Mu..Mu..Mu..Much has been done...
Ca..Ca..Ca..Catch the wave!
Well. That was... unexpected. I don't dislike it as much as I expected to at first.
I let my guard down and trusted some good people and what happens...one of them implants something in my head, been there all day long.
I think it's a very important foundational thing that went on as a springboard to many future compositions that didn't come to fruition completely until even CM.
It's funny Ithink about it as boiling down from all my fav ear worms ro where it might have came from...in reality it may have spawned them all.
That’s pretty funny, yeah. Please note, Matt posted it!
I'm relieved to find I’m not the only one who thinks this is more cool than embarrassing. I actually like it quite a lot. I also think it’s pretty funny; the progression of those keyboard stabs, for instance…I don’t what’s wrong with me, but his and SD’s wordless instrumentals sometimes make me laugh out loud.
I imagine that ’90 might be about when he got his hands on a multi-track deck, or effects plugins, or something that otherwise expanded the possibilities for the at-home songwriter, perhaps by orders of magnitude. I could see this track sort of like a needlepoint sampler, something on which he could try out all the new stitches: the multi-tracking; effects on voice and instrumentation; synching capacity; probably new editing or mixing routines…
But whatever it was, I like how it turned out. Ear-worm or not; sometimes you gotta pay for your bliss.
Your idea of this or any track possibly being an archetypal entity…now that’s pretty wild and wooly, as folks used to say. Possibly wiggy, even. Seriously you’ve got a mind for fever-dreaming, you're always just this close [pinching thumb and forefinger] to busting a big move into that turbid sphere. Let us know when and where you hear its bell ring.
How is it that it didn't occur to me until just a short time ago that this is very much like a Yello song? The low voice, the repetition, the instrumentation...
Matt upon making this connection: "Oh yeah... bow bow... chick chicka-chicka"