3 Aspects of Our Debut Album That Fill Me with Pride - Part 2: Sound design, Mixing & Mastering

When we started writing the album, the only aims for the music were "To do stuff that's unlike anything we've done before" and "Don't try to sound like another band". So, did we successfully achieve both of those aims with 'Looking Forward to the End'? We were painfully aware that releasing an album without being able to put "For Fans Of......" in any social media posts would mean that, in the words of Ian Faith, "their appeal is becoming more selective." But we had to make this album for us; other people liking it is a bonus.

To achieve some level of originality, certain elements of the songwriting help. However, I think most of the heavy lifting is done by the arrangements and the instruments/sounds used. After all, there are only so many notes and chords available; every song released has loads of other songs sharing its chord sequence. But the sound design, mixing and mastering, altering the way those chords and melodies are dressed up, is vital.

I have to admit that I spent more time choosing the right sounds for each part than we spent on writing the song or recording the performances. I listened to sections on loop for hours at a time to create the right blend of synth sounds. I put guitar tracks through multiple cab & speaker set-ups and tried all kinds of effect treatments until something grabbed me. A casual listener might mistake certain sounds for a synth, but sometimes they're actually my guitar.

There are also several places where subtle sonic flourishes add to the overall effect. I did quite a lot of playing about with existing sections, cutting them up or reversing them. For instance, the opening to 'Looking Forward' is a load of parts from that song put together completely differently. And the ending part features cut-up and manipulated guitars from earlier in the song. This is a trick I used in a few places in the album, and it creates a pleasing, seamless effect transitioning into other parts of the song. A few leftover sounds, noises and FX were used by Slump when remixing 'Sunrise' and 'Pastpresentfuture', so it was good to see so little experimentation go to waste.

It was difficult to balance creating diverse tracks without losing the feeling of a cohesive album. I'll let you judge whether I managed that, as I've lost all objectivity after being immersed in the details for so many hours. We hoped to maintain an overall “Bilge-ness” despite different genres appearing on different tracks (in many cases, even within a single track).

This was my first time mixing and mastering an album in its entirety. Getting feedback from GT (Glasstear) was great, particularly to ensure ear fatigue wasn’t a problem. It’s surprising how easily that can happen, especially after listening to a section repeatedly. My biggest fear would be someone thinking, "The song sounds alright, but the production is terrible". Weirdly, I hope that anybody who hears the album doesn't really notice the production, at least on the first few listens. Hopefully, the subtle little touches will make themselves apparent with multiple listenings.

I really think we successfully met our aims of "To do stuff that's unlike anything we've done before" and "Don't try to sound like another band". If it's just the two of us who enjoy it, then that's fine. We’ve created something we love, and that’s the real purpose of art.