I composed 6 different choruses for Go, in my mid-teens.
The song has been performed a lot through the years and in different versions.
It was first highlighted in a medleyish kind of live piece that was performed extensively with my band Woo in the 90s.
Later, in the 2000s, I rearranged it into an electronic-agressive-disco-rock thing which became a standard on live shows with my next band Ninth.
The intro-rythm was made for marching drums (that was supposed to be heavily filtered and distorted over the course of the song), but after recording several snares, I changed my mind and recorded it with a digitally distorted guitar instead.
So many recordings have been done of this song. The most known one is from the Ninth: Evolver EP which was released in limited numbers in 2004, and sung by Stein Hevrøy.
When releasing this version however, I wanted to show something else. Not only has it a different chorus, but also real acoustic drums and percussion, (which has been distorted and mangled electronically after the fact), earlier versions had only programmed beats.
A big part of the programmed material in this project have been replaced with the real deal. Something I’ve generally trended towards over the past decade. After 25+ years of programming drum-machines and samplers, I eventually got tired of the predictability of it. I find the nuances and unlimited sound possibilities of capturing raw sound (but still mangling it digitally after the fact), much more creative and rewarding
It’s a bit like the difference between making your own pizza or buying a frozen one.
This is also (obviously) true with melodic instruments, especially classical instruments (like cellos and violins) It’s been a gamechanger to be able to record these live. Songs that’s impossible to figure out it, can become easy to manage, with the real world nuances of a real instrument. Since you can distort, reprogram and mangle the sound as much as you want anyway, it’s a win win!
Actually, I find it a bit interesting to see, which productions from this decade will hold up in say 20 years, with so much premanufactured sounds out there. I have a feeling that many of them will be quite embarrassing at some point in time.
Theres still a big place for the insisting nature of samples though, it’s just that it’s been overdone so often.
Visual art by Boaz Aharonovitch