Although my intentions for the majority of the percussion were to be created through the act of destruction, this has shifted. I found trying to assemble tribal/ritual like percussion in this manner to be particularly challenging. Also considering my intentions in terms of ‘music for dance floors’, I felt that a bongo rhythm and metal pan would be sufficient in juxtaposing the gnarly destructive sounds.

To capture the percussion I simply recorded my friend who is a drummer, play to standard 4/4 beat at 140bpm. I decided for a much faster beat because I liked the intensity of the bongos and pan. In order to get across the hypnotic aspect speed and technical prowess is key in rituals. An interesting section of Eisenberg’s book describes the detail in some ritual music;

‘Repetition is essential to ritual, and exact repetition is what it has always striven to attain. According to Hindu scripture, the inaccurate singing of a scared raga could be fatal to the singer…In Polynesia the careless performer might be executed…”old men used to stand by with bows and arrows and shoot at every dancer who made a mistake”.’

In a way this can be translated to the art of being a Disc Jokey. In most cases a DJ is required to keep the constant beat going, flowing between song after song effortlessly. If a DJ mixes completely out of beat and key and continuous to do so, the result could be disastrous, messing the natural rhythm of the party.

Below are photos of Charlie the drummer and the album I played him, he used the album as inspiration for his part.