The Match Went Out

Note: This post was written in 2025 and backdated to appear on the day I wrote and published the track.

Grimecake got posted pretty early in the day, so I had the luxury of noodling time before any sort of panic set in. I didn’t need to worry, though, because I was still in that quirky mood and had the basic bit of this track, consisting of the electric piano ostinato and weird random notes done pretty quickly. I don’t think I ever thought that would be the main focus of the piece, but I knew I was probably heading into Boards of Canada / Orb¹In retrospect, it’s pretty clearly inspired by The Land of Green Ginger and a few tracks on U.F.Orb territory pretty early on. While it’s not accurate to say that the random piano bit was just me blindly hitting the keys, the truth isn’t too far away from it. I also intentionally played the ostinato with a little timing slop, hoping it would sound more like a sample loop that way.

With the pianos rolling, I started looking for something that would sit on top. I wasn’t sure what this would be. I think I flirted with the idea of a melodic line, but decided the track would be better as a bed for spoken word or a movie sample or something similar. At this point, I remembered a track I did in 2018, Lupus Interruptus. In that piece, I had taken a public domain recording of Little Red Riding Hood, pitch shifted everything down and then put a beat behind it.

Ok, that’s probably a decent direction in which to head, so I just had to figure out what resource I’d used. After a bit of searching and browsing, I remembered which site it was: Librivox – a site full of public domain audiobooks. This is a really cool resource and one of the things that made the early Internet awesome and full of promise.

Mood Matching

In Lupus Interruptus, I started with the narration track and wrote music to it. Since I already had the general direction of the music this time, I had to find a book that fit the same general mood and sound. I knew I wanted to stick with fairy tales, but beyond that, had no real idea what to look for. When I found this recording of The Little Match Girl, I fell in love with the narrator’s voice and accent. The subject matter was appropriately moody without being overly dark²Well, other than being a tale about a child without shoes hallucinating in the snow while trying to sell a match so her dad won’t beat her for not making any money… so we’re off to the races.

I didn’t do a lot of time editing to the narration. I mostly just fit the beats and drops around the needs of the story. Once it was generally flowing correctly, I then went in and chopped out certain words, moving them to new tracks that had varying effects chains. In the old days, this would have required a ton of automation, multiple passes, tape splicing, and overdubbing, but it was a quick process in the DAW.

One thing I did that I now wish I hadn’t was ending the track early instead of letting the story run to its conclusion. I was worried that even in its abridged form, it’s still over five minutes. Repeat listens over the last year have not only made it one of my favorite tracks from 2024, but I’ve also found that you don’t really notice the time because the story gets you engaged. I attribute most of this to Alan Weyman’s dramatic reading. I’ve really come to enjoy it. I suspect that at some point, I’ll want to put this on an album and will go back and make the full-length track.

Looking at the project for the first time in over a year, I’m struck by how simple it actually is: drums, piano, a pad, a noise wash, and a lead synth… the effects and the narration are the real stars of the thing. This is a lesson I keep having to learn. Less is (usually) more.

Colophon

Instruments & Samples

Pigments, Falcon, Omnisphere, S+A Spectres

Effects, Mixing, & Mastering

FabFilter, Gullfoss, PanMan, Valhalla VintageVerb, Delay, and Supermassive, Things Textures, Movement, Timeless 3

Image Credit: Ramunas G (CC-BY 2.0)

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Notes

• 1
  In retrospect, it’s pretty clearly inspired by The Land of Green Ginger and a few tracks on U.F.Orb
• 2
  Well, other than being a tale about a child without shoes hallucinating in the snow while trying to sell a match so her dad won’t beat her for not making any money…