Barnyard Story [Brooker, Reid]

Sam Cameron  [UK]

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Sam Cameron – sound collage and voice

SC: this was variously inspired subliminally by rap, Steve Reich, a so-so Mel Gibson movie (Payback) and contemplation of the differences between Suzanne Vega and Procol Harum.

It began from the basis of rapping the most unlikely Procol Harum song. At the time I was unaware of the well-known rap record incorporating The Wall by Pink Floyd. Unlike that, this is not strictly rap as I decided to forego extemporising on the properties of the chickens or the graveyard or the smell of ironing in the back room of the house where I first heard the original. So, the only deviation from the original words is the repetition of five words in the build up to the delivery of the text.

Having finished this, it did suggest an interpretation along these lines: a man in trouble wakes up for his appointment in a clinic (or somewhere else like a hotel) on a day of potentially unpleasant life-changing content. He is dismayed by modern urban / youth music constantly blaring through his daily life and yearns for the prog rock days of his youth. This version of Barnyard Story represents what takes place inside his just-awakening mind as the walls collapse between these two opposed musical formats.

There is only one piece of literal real-time instrument-playing on this: the bass line which was added at the end as something seemed to be needed to bind the whole thing together. This was a Moog bass setting played on an external midi controller keyboard plugged into the USB of the computer. The bass line on the record is the live recording of the part I played in accompaniment to the rest of the piece as heard here. I sat down with the intention of adding something dance-music oriented but it just came out as this quiet simulation of a stand-up bass part which you may need to listen closely to hear. There are two separate live vocal parts, the intro and the main text delivery.

All the other parts were sampled or sequenced using Making Waves v2.43 and various wave editors, and the sound effects are as follows:
Non-vocal: owl, redhawk, shattering glass, car horn, ship's bell, 40s' radio hour static.
Vocal: hotel telephone alarm message, goodbye message, appointment message.

The drum / drum and bass parts:
Sample of Mack the Knife by the Psychedelic Furs from a BBC Radio 1 session (intro): a treated version and a slowed-down and reversed version
Samples of several public-domain hip hop/drum and bass loops including one described as 'nu skool'
Sequence of some ethnic drum and percussion parts from note samples.

Other parts:
Sequence programmed from three note samples of an MC-303 organ sound.
Unspecified orchestra

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