Given the recent surge of interest in microtonal music, I thought some of you might enjoy a look into our own explorations in that realm.
Our first venture into microtonality came with the track “Where All of These Towns and Choices End” from the album Attend. The piece was composed in Naples, Italy using the Bohlen–Pierce scale, primarily with XEN-ARTS synthesizers.
Listen / Watch:
“Where All of These Towns and Choices End” (music video by Tom Brown):
https://youtu.be/pZwx37u6fsY?si=_kRyHeK5QlEp4VXU
Attend (Spotify):
https://open.spotify.com/intl-de/album/3eyd9R6vAaLjb9z5FeNMI8?si=B2AAJZpxTfWx5YE1t-pX0w
Attend (Physical):
https://feedingfingers.bandcamp.com/album/attend-2016-triple-album
A beautiful music video was later created for the track by video artist (and dear friend) Tom Brown:
https://www.tombrownvisual.com/
From there, the idea expanded into a full microtonal album: Do Owe Harm.
Listen / Explore:
Do Owe Harm (Spotify):
https://open.spotify.com/intl-de/album/3tvnlkwOAjmpaw1BJb4ohn?si=V-etKqjLSyKBvpOEhn-qow
Do Owe Harm (Physical):
https://feedingfingers.bandcamp.com/album/do-owe-harm-2018-album
In retrospect, that record may have been somewhat overlooked — perhaps because there wasn’t a shared vocabulary at the time to describe what we were doing. Terms like “microtonal” or “xenharmonic” didn’t exactly invite widespread enthusiasm from critics or publications. It all felt a bit too abstract, or too far outside familiar musical language.
Our close friend and creative collaborator Steven Lapcevic also created a stunning video for the track “Fontanelle”:
https://youtu.be/_Itdb2JxWWI?si=WWlSgNLQ46H3YQ0X
As for the instrumentation: we again used XEN-ARTS synths, alongside a range of analog synthesizers tuned to various microtonal intervals — many of which I admittedly can’t recall in detail now. If you’re curious, some of the specific tunings may still be documented somewhere online.
We also commissioned a custom quarter-tone fretboard for the guitars, built by Ron Sword at Metatonal Music (https://www.instagram.com/ronsword/), allowing us to quite literally play “between the notes.” Most of the bass on the album was recorded fretless as well, to further explore that fluid pitch space.
Enjoy,
Justin
FF
