a mainly drum and bass album by Sevish

with front cover artwork by Kirk Moore (hyakugojuuichi.deviantart.com)

We all know what rhythm is. tedious if we always used the same 12 Every track on Rhythm and Xen presents
BUT WHAT’S XEN? colours? Or do you think we wouldn’t the xen sound but matched with upbeat
It’s the most unexplored sound of our day. know what we were missing? Either way, electronic music: drum & bass, breaks,
Gloriously bent, out of tune melodies. imagine if some artist had melted and hip hop, future whatever & whatever bass,
Xen music follows a different “grid.” blended the crayons, creating new blended together then sprinkled with
When I say grid, think of the grid you see colours in between the old ones. They atmospherics and 1990s influences.
on a guitar. The familiar grid features 12 would surely have access to new shades
individual “notes” in a predictable pattern. of meaning that everybody else wouldn’t.
Playing music on this grid is like colouring
Xen makes this idea a musical reality.
with 12 crayons. Do you think it would be
 the internet downloaded it, listened to it changed and of course, I wrote Rhythm
and let me know they enjoyed it. I found and Xen when I had time to spare.
this pretty encouraging.
I always tried to listen to lots of different
music and push my ears into
uncomfortable places. Eventually I heard
microtonal music, which blew my mind.
In 2010 I went to university to study Work on this album began in early 2013,
audio & recording technology for my or was it 2012? I can’t remember as it’s
Bachelors. During that time I tried to been so long. You can’t understand the
open my ears up to all kinds of sound. I relief that I feel to have finished this, so
My name is Sean Archibald and I have tried to absorb all the knowledge my just listen and enjoy! I tried to add many
been writing music under the name teachers were sharing with us, and at the layers of details so that you could enjoy it
Sevish for more than a decade. same time keep making this weird many ways, many times.
electronic dance music that I make. In my current day job I’m working in the
It started in school. I had to pick either art
or music as an optional class. I hadn’t Following my graduation, I moved to video game industry, something that my
played an instrument before, but I went Beijing China in 2013. And that’s where 8 year old self always wanted. But what I
with music anyway. And that began my I’ve been since. It’s been a tough ride want now more than anything is to make
romance with sound and music. here, adapting to the culture, working noises. I’ll be looking for opportunities
and staying sane all at the same time. For keep writing... You know what, I’d really
At the age of 17 I released an EP love to write a score for a short indie film,
the first few months I was too drained to
containing some of my best early tunes. or game, or something like that.
do anything creative but eventually that all
It was called Sevish EP and listening back
on it, it kinda sucked. But strangers on
 Arts FMTS 2, Endless Series by Oli 8. Earthling
Larkin, field recordings from a skate park
Boom (Max4Live patch), Xen-Arts IVOR,
(London)
GPO 4, Endless Series by Oli Larkin,
3. Sleep Deprived Cooked Alive sampled parts from Movement on
Human Astronomy EP
Xen-Arts FMTS 2, Xen-Arts IVOR, Xen-
Arts XenFont, u-he ACE, GPO (Garritan 9. IT IS
Personal Orchestra) 4, Paulstretch
Xen-Arts XenFont, Xen-Arts IVOR, Xen-
4. Spellbound Arts FMTS 2
GPO 4, Xen-Arts FMTS2, Xen-Arts 10. Make a Dream
XenFont, Xen-Arts IVOR
Microsampler (Max4Live patch), kalimba,
Here’s a list of VST instruments, FX,
5. Moonopolis u-he ACE, field recordings from my back
or Max patches used on each track.
garden (London)
Not everything got included Xen-Arts IVOR, Xen-Arts FMTS2, field
otherwise we’ll be here all day. recordings from my back garden 11. Droplet
(London)
1. What Year Is This Xen-Arts IVOR, Xen-Arts FMTS 2, GPO 4
6. Chattering Circuits
Boom (Max4Live patch), Xen-Arts IVOR, 12. Neon Tetra Elemental
Xen-Arts XenFont, Endless Series by Oli Xen-Arts XenFont, Xen-Arts IVOR
Larkin Microsampler (Max4Live patch), Xen-Arts
7. Longwayaway People FMTS 1, Xen-Arts IVOR, Xen-Arts
2. Guano Sequence XenFont, GPO 4
Xen-Arts FMTS 2, Xen-Arts IVOR, field
Boom (Max4Live patch), Xen-Arts recordings from my apartment balcony in
XenFont, u-he ACE, Xen-Arts IVOR, Xen- Beijing
13. Desert Island Rain 1/1 unison
21/20 minor semitone
Xen-Arts FMTS 2, Xen-Arts IVOR, Xen-
9/8 major whole tone
Arts XenFont, Endless Series by Oli
6/5 minor third
Larkin
5/4 major third
Also 21/16 narrow fourth
7/5 septimal or Huygens' tritone
There’s a bit of Freeverb and Variety of
3/2 perfect fifth
Sound’s NastyDLA in every track <3
8/5 minor sixth
5/3 major sixth, BP sixth
7/4 harmonic seventh
15/8 classic major seventh
Friends, don’t spoil the surprise. 2/1 octave
Listen to the album before reading
this page. Play guess the tuning!
This piece is a throwback to an older
1. What Year Is This piece of mine written in 12-EDO. Can
you guess which it is? That piece had a
19-EDO & just intonation.
repeating 4 bar chord progression which
Everything is tuned to 19-EDO until the ended a tritone lower than it started. 19-
point where the beat drops away, leaving EDO, being an odd-numbered EDO, has
a single chiptune style synth. Then not one but two tritones. So I had to
instruments are retuned to the following choose which tritone sounded best with
JI scale: the material. It just goes to show that it’s
impossible to pick a piece of music in
one tuning and make it work the same in 2. Guano Sequence intervals in 14-EDO. I harmonised this
any other tuning. But it’s interesting to try. with an assortment of subminor, neutral
22-EDO.
and supermajor triads on strings.
On to the JI...
This equal temperament is fertile soil for
Tritone substitution of chords works well
There is a challenge with just intonation new musical ideas containing both
in 14-EDO. You can hear that at
and ‘virtual analogue’ style electronic familiar and alien elements. It sounds very
2:36-2:39 and 3:55-3:58.
timbres, in that chords sound ‘phasey’ 21st Century.
when heard from stereo speakers. As I was looking for an interesting final
The booming bass drum, like all the other
you move your head through the sound, cadence, since most of this piece uses
instruments, is tuned to 22-EDO. I even
overtones are being reinforced or the same chord progression throughout.
play basslines on it. Jacky Ligon, Tony
cancelled at the point of your ears. This It all comes to an end on the first chord
Dubshot and I explored this drums-as-
can become physically uncomfortable for of the progression, except I shifted it up
bass approach a lot in the album ‘23’.
the listener. by 3 degrees of 14-EDO.
Bass drum melodies seem to be a match
During the 2nd half of the piece, the for xenharmonic bass music. After writing this piece, I’m convinced that
chiptune synth plays tetradic harmony in 14-EDO betrays all expectations yet
3. Sleep Deprived Cooked Alive
JI. I panned all the notes apart from each sounds musical at the same time.
other, which helps to smooth out the 14-EDO.
I have included an alternative version of
phasiness across the stereo field.
This tuning can be thought as 2 separate Sleep Deprived Cooked Alive, and it’s the
With just intonation, you really fight chains of fifths that don’t meet, each second half that is changed. My original
against sound at its most raw and producing a scale with neither major nor vision was to drop to half-tempo and then
fundamental level. minor sound. But that wasn’t my gradually accelerate back up to full-
approach here. It all started with the tempo. During the build-up, there were
melody. The first melody chromatically many modulations and meanderings.
descends, showing off many of the Although I was happy with the finished
piece, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I telegram them to your friends on the size of the 11-EDO semitone is very
had sucked the hyper energy away from Neptune Colony 8? similar to the 12-EDO semitone. But 11-
the first half. So it now exists as a bonus EDO could not be further from 12-EDO in
6. Chattering Circuits
version for those of you who like to hear terms of how those notes connect to
oddities and mishaps. A pentatonic scale in 23-EDO. 5 5 4 5 4 each other, and how they add up to
create harmonies.
4. Spellbound This pentatonic scale has 2 different
kinds of fifths, a wide one and a narrow When I was a little boy, my mum would
22-EDO Orwell[9].
one. say that if I was naughty then the long
I started this piece while over-caffeinated way away people would take me away.
23-EDO is considered a bad-accuracy
at a hotel in Hong Kong. That’s where the title of the piece comes
tuning for the kinds of intervals that we
from. Now that I’m an Englishman living
Orwell is a temperament that is very good commonly hear in music like fourths,
in China, I am the long way away people.
in the 7- and 11-limit. I’m not sure if my fifths and major thirds. But when you only
use of the Orwell scale is very have 5 pitches in an octave, it becomes 8. Earthling
xenharmonic here, as it all sounds very desirably shimmery and accessible.
This piece samples Movement from
normal to me now.
7. Longwayaway People Human Astronomy EP.
5. Moonopolis
11-EDO. The original piece used Carlos Beta, 22-
15-EDO EDO, 12-EDO, and an MOS generated
4:7:9:11 chords all over the place.
by 11/8 and 3/1.
Music for levi-biking around the Sea of When you find a great chord that doesn’t
Tranquillity, while checking out the exist in everyday music, abuse it all you It's not tuned to 432Hz; otherwise I
magenta lights of the lunar cityscape. can. would be kicked out of the Illuminati. And
Why not take some pictures and I don't want to give back my collection of
At times, the melodies in this piece
lost maps from 12,000 BC.
sound very natural, perhaps because the
9. IT IS 5/4 major third the pitches of 4 tetrads.” What that
21/16 narrow fourth means is quite a mystery to me now!
Just intonation.
35/24 septimal semi-diminished fifth
The phrase ‘it is’ is something I like to
First scale (11-limit JI): 3/2 perfect fifth
meditate upon. It sounds trivial but I like
105/64 septimal neutral sixth
1/1 unison the tautology within it. It’s the idea that
7/4 harmonic seventh
11/10 4/5-tone, Ptolemy's second something ‘is’ because we’ve labelled it
15/8 classic major seventh
7/6 septimal minor third as an ‘it.’
63/32 octave - septimal comma
9/7 septimal major third
2/1 octave 10. Make a Dream
11/8 undecimal semi-augmented
fourth 11-EDO.
3/2 perfect fifth There is a definite shift in mood between
11-EDO has this ability to create an as-
22/15 undecimal diminished fifth these two scales. On the other hand they
yet nameless mood that sounds smooth
14/9 septimal minor sixth both maintain that distinctive JI timbral
but doesn’t scream happy.
12/7 septimal major sixth fusion. In the first half I used a very pure
11/6 21/4-tone, undecimal neutral timbre to maximise the fusion effect, but My dream is that these harmonies will
seventh in the second half I used detuned, one day be everybody's shared heritage.
2/1 octave morphing timbres to prevent that same Today they sound spooky, but one day
effect. we as cultural beings may assign them a
different emotion.
Second scale (7-limit JI): The intervals in the first scale were
decided upon at whim, but I found that I I recorded a single note on my kalimba
1/1 unison
liked the sound. As for the second scale, and then sampled it to play chords. Then
35/32 septimal neutral second
I can’t remember the process by which it I recorded and sampled a single pluck of
7/6 septimal minor third
was generated, but the description in my a guitar string, also for chords. But the
315/256 359.049622 cents
Scala file says “septimal scale based on guitar chords have different voicings to
the kalimba chords. Voicing changes the way through. I’ll leave it up to the listener 313 notes in a single tuning may sound
character of the chords more than one to decide if it worked or not. overkill, but it’s not impressive really. I
would expect. only use 9 of those 313 notes. 313-
12. Neon Tetra Elemental
EDO is supposedly a very accurate tuning
With the exception of that one synth line
23-EDO. for Barbados temperament. This tuning is
that comes in, everything was recorded
a lot of fun to play while sounding so
and then sampled by me. This is the Neon Tetra Elemental uses mostly the 3-
pleasing and bright. Barbados
most electro-acoustic spot on the album 3-4-3-3-3-4 MOS throughout, but the
temperament allows you to play triadic
for sure, and I’d like to do more work in final section uses the 4-1-4-1-4-4-1-4
harmony that uses 13-limit ultramajor
this style. octatonic and 3-3-4-3-3-3-4 anti-
and ultraminor thirds. The ultramajor third
diatonic MOSs simultaneously. Because
11. Droplet is roughly a quartertone sharper than a
of that, there are many moments that
major third, and an ultraminor third is
53-EDO Orwell[9]. really bend your ear; though that was the
roughly a quartertone flatter than a minor
effect I wanted. 23-EDO is there for you
While Spellbound used the 22-EDO third.
when you need a fiery sound.
version of Orwell[9], Droplet tunes to 53-
One day I came across a description of
EDO which is supposedly more accurate. The cinematic ambience is actually a
Barbados temperament on the internet
The piece uses a lot of pure sounding recording of an orchestra tuning up, but
and on that same day I wrote almost the
electronic timbres so the intonation had loaded into my own microtonal sampler
whole first half of Desert Island Rain right
to be very clean. and played in reverse. The reverse
there and then. This just goes to show
sounding noises that layer in with that are
Often when I compose, the piece will that new pitch material can be deeply
actually singers clearing their throats.
meander and end up at a place far from inspiring. Free from the confines of the
where it begun. I think this piece is a 13. Desert Island Rain tyranny of standard Western tuning,
similar case, where it changes genre half songs can still write themselves from time
313-EDO Barbados[9]. 53-12-53-12- to time.
53-12-53-12-53
 My Max 4 Live plugins are available on a I’m actively listening and posting on
page on my website. There you’ll also Soundcloud these days, so go ahead and
find bumper packs of tuning/scale files. add me.
Check them out.
The Xenharmonic Alliance II group on
Facebook is currently where most xen
conversation happens.
The Xenharmonic Wiki is a place where
you can go to find information about
microtonal and xenharmonic music.
That’s if you can decipher the language
I started writing about music topics on my (anything is possible).
blog.
I’ve released a few tracks on the
There’s my record label split-notes, Dubbhism label in the Netherlands. Tony
where you can find much more music Dubshot who runs it is a really cool synth
like this. If you want to release some head and has one of the most interesting
music with us, get in touch via the music blogs I know of.
website.
Xen-Arts (Jacky Ligon) is a big part of
The Sonic Sky is a documentary and why this record sounded the way it did.
collection of short clips which serve as a I’ve been using the free VST synths from
great introduction to the world of Xen-Arts for a few years, because I just
xenharmonic aka microtonal music. love them.