allies
This song follows ‘Resumption’ as being the second that was culled from that initial writing push long before the EP was planned or the reality of A Quiet End as a musical project seemed like something that would happen. Like its partner from that time, ‘Allies’ started as a fairly simple acoustic tune, though one more understated and slightly darker than ‘Resumption’. Its development for the EP was interesting as well. It was originally intended to have a sort swampy country-like stomp hovering beneath the surface, and maintain a fairly sparse arrangement otherwise, but instead it became a vessel for a more beat-oriented atmospheric affair. This happened somewhat accidentally, and did far more for the slightly-haunted sound of it than any stripped down more folk-style arrangement could have. ‘Resumption’ had a similar trajectory in this regard, its bright-yet-slightly-ragged initial feel gave way to one that was atmospheric in places, and far more broad overall; and like ‘Allies’, the song ended up being that much better for it. The relationship between the two songs, also adds another dimension to the various sets of relatedness generally, and like with the instrumentals, they work in a sort of tandem with each other, as well as enhance the overall context of the EP as a unified work.
It seemed that there were periods during recording where each song would at some point take over the mantle of being the problem one. ‘Allies’ held that position at least twice, once requiring a rerecording of the acoustic guitar part due to too much room noise that was unfortunately discovered too late. The second time came when despite having an arrangement I was relatively satisfied with, I added some late overdubs to the end third. It was nothing tremendous, just the feedback laden swelling guitar and some echoing guitar textures, but for whatever reason it seemed overwhelm everything that was in the mix. It may be that I kind of went overboard in piling on more parts to something that was fine without them, as it it ended up requiring a complete rejigging of all the pre-existing parts all the way back to the beginning of the song in order to balance it out. The most obvious remnant of having to do this is that the piano part, which I always enjoyed, ended up having to be more buried than I would have liked.
There was also a decision to be made in terms of whether or not to maintain the overall dynamic range of the song, and to what degree. In this way, it was similar to ‘…’, as bringing up the much quieter earlier section would either sit awkwardly against the much thicker and louder ending, lacking the ‘rise’ up to that peak in the song, or having compression push the end section too far actually causing it to crunch unpleasantly in places. Admittedly, having the access of a proper mastering studio would have made this easier, but I enjoy that the overly quiet start of the song has a kind of patience in reaching its more thick-sounding final third.
The subject matter in most of those early songs was similar, all reflecting the mechanics of what seemed like a perpetual uncertainty machine. Understandable in their coming from the same short writing period, but while ‘Allies’ alludes to the same circularity that much of what ‘Resumption’ is about, it tends to more of a weariness in the immediate smaller picture events that make up a portion of the colure.
A Quiet End - Allies by aquietend
