by Camilo Palma a.k.a. Ap Ducal
Over the past year, I’ve been developing my new album, “U,” by my moniker Ap Ducal, which continues in the sonic sequence of previous records, but this time from a more personal perspective. The sound, the process, and the timing of this album are imbued with the idea of collecting and enjoying the sonic elements and influences that have had the most impact on me.
Perhaps it is a form of nostalgia or simply a tribute to music styles like post-punk, new wave, and even some compositional elements of jazz in a long-play format. I tried to incorporate these elements into the four tracks of the album. An example is the theme “UUUU,” based on The Cure’s song “A Forest.”
These four themes were recorded entirely in my home studio, using only four elements per song in a band-like format, essentially the format I’ve been most familiar with in my career. The challenge was doing this as a solo artist with unconventional instruments in my context.
Listen to the album while reading the text.
The instrument setup included a drum machine, the Arturia DrumBrute, handling the rhythm section with separate layers for each element, snare, kick, tom, and hi-hat, allowing me to work on the unique characteristics of each element individually. Punchy bass lines were played on a Moog Sub 37 synthesizer, while synthesizer textures, LFO, oscillators, cutoff filters, and arpeggios came from a Behringer Monopoly synthesizer. Finally, the Fender Jaguar guitar added warmer, more organic, and aggressive moments to the album. Most of the tracks were recorded in a single take, maintaining an improvisational character and evolving as the development of the themes progressed.
These recordings were made between November 2022 and February 2023 in a continuous workflow with Sebastián Román (Persona RS), a Chilean musician and producer closely related to electronic music but with a musical repertoire around folk, pop, rock, jazz, and electronic music for almost two decades. It was essential to consider this when working with him, in addition to our previous musical connections. We worked with a dynamic method in which I sent him the pre-mixed tracks as I finished them. In this way, each theme drew inspiration from Sebastián’s production and mixing work, resulting in continuous feedback between each theme and between Sebastián’s work and mine. He added elegant and unique details to the limited tracks we worked with, allowing us to define the album’s sound very directly without overcomplicating the musical delivery.
Nes, the man behind the Chilean label BYM Records, handled the mastering. Nes worked on adding warmth and analog texture to the machine’s sound, initially playing as cleanly and raw as possible, creating a consistent result in line with this intention. This was the intention of making a homemade album without using a computer for musical tasks but limiting it exclusively to sound recording.
The album cover was created by my wife and artist, Trinidad Davanzo, and it also follows the theme mentioned at the beginning. This time, it pays homage to a life process marked by collecting and, this time, as a tribute to our home and the things that surround it. Trinidad put together a collage of objects from our apartment that reflect the passage of time, complement, and unity present during that stage of our lives.
Ultimately, this is part of a new life we build from a previous story, a life we have chosen to create from a new place, Berlin.
Bandcamp Weisskalt Records
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