The Deepest of Black Waters

Though it was not the point of origin for the album, The Deepest of Black Waters was Smear Campaign's first completed track. The name for the track came from an old demo I had of an Opeth-esque metal track, which was never going to be finished and was much less fitting for the title.

Like it's successor, Ghost in the Machine, this track was inspired heavily by my discovery of PaulStretch, a utility created by Nasca Paul that essentially stretched audio to extreme lengths, without changing the pitch. I had this ability before, but Paul's utility allowed for realtime experimentation and a unique smearing ability.

The make up of this track is rather simple, consisting of only three parts, which I like to refer to as the drone, the ambiance and the melody. The drone was originally a percussive synth line that I created a few years back with the discovery of "Details" by Frou Frou. Blurring these percussive hits produced a rather peaceful drone reminiscent of crashing waves.

The ambiance and the melody were both created using tracks from a collection of guitar experiments I compiled while Ryan Boland and I were working to compose instrumental horror stories. We did succeed in creating one piece, a 9 minute journey set in a ghost town, but the parts used in The Deepest of Black Waters were not a part of that. They were outtakes.

Before anyone begins to think this piece was just three random bits stretched and thrown together, I should add that these source files took a lot of trial and error time to find. Beyond this the mixing, triming, effect layering and arranging processes were all quite involved. This piece is much more than just three audio files stacked atop one another, it is an intimate arrangement of sound design.