With our INSIDE Trailer Project almost coming to a close, it is time to think about what I would like to work on next. The best way to center my goals was to do another track teardown on a song that relates to what I want my influences to be for this next creation. Seeing as I am trying to spend the next few months focusing on learning more about electronic music production, I have chosen a song that has a strong electronic element for my track teardown - Closer by Lemaitre (2015).
Lemaitre is an indie electronic duo from Oslo, Norway and has been creating music since 2010. 'Closer' is a track that was originally released on Soundcloud in 2015, but has since been released as the leading track on their first album Chapter One in June of last year. The track features a structure of introduction, verse, chorus, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, outro. You can see my map of the song written out below.
the song has a 92 BPM, and a time signature of 4/4.
It begins with a continuous piano chord, which strikes on each beat for 4 bars. On the first beat of bar 5, a female vocal is introduced and sings the first verse which lasts for 6 bars, during which there is a build up of bass synthesisers preparing for the trademark 'bass drop' that has become a familiar arrangement of electronic dance music. This can also be seen in the waveform of the song as well, as it is in these sections that sound signal is the most present, with 16 bars of heavy bass synthesisers and pulsing beats. An element that is also present in the chorus - which is what ultimately drew me to this track in the first place - is a strong trumpet melody which replaces the vocals. Using what I assume would be a sampling-based synthesiser, a trumpet arrangement has been created that sits over the bass line, which has a strong and powerful timbre. The stereo field of the chorus and particularly the trumpet is strong as well, creating a booming atmosphere with sound coming from seemingly all sides.
I find this combination of a traditional orchestral instrument and electronic music characteristics very interesting and enjoyable to listen to.
The music that I enjoy the most is always ones where I can recognise sounds that have come from instruments existing for many, many years. For this reason, I can find that some tracks from the EDM genre sound foreign to me, because it is full of sounds that are mostly unrecognisable. But as my knowledge in this genre grows I am becoming more exposed to ways to integrate classical music into this modern style.
After the third chorus, there is an outro section, that is very similar to the chorus is arrangement but offers a bit of intrigue at the end of the song.
The song seems to hold its main energies between 1-4kHz, as you can see by use of a spectral analyser app on the left.
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