UPDATE: Maria has a Kickstarter project going to create a whole album based around Cain. Help her out if you’re inspired!

Maria Isabel Ruff-Berganza gathered together her band of self-described “wanderers” to record the first in a series of songs she has written about Cain.

Maria Isabel Ruff-Berganza – Vocals, Lyrics
George Murphy – Bass
Micah Scott – Mandolin, Acoustic Guitar
Daniel Ruff Smith – Djembe, Percussion
Ross Charmoli – Congas
Charlie McCarron – Violin, Electric Guitar

Canto di Caino, Canto de moribundo
I sing of Cain, walks the whole mundo,
Wanderlust aching, corazon breaking,
He looks free but won’t see what he is forsaking

His brother, Abelito, lies in the dust
For work of Cain’s hands made a jealous thrust
And we have passed on to another age now
But all of Cain’s children still wondering…

How do we till the soil, how will we be free?
Who will deliver the fruit from our tree?
Sordo with anger
Bitter with pain
Pinchada con pride and human disdain

We march in production, we dance in our flight
We wake to the light for a self-imposed night
Walk and we don’t know which way we will turn
How best to distract from how we still yearn

How do we till the soil, how will we be free?
And who will deliver the fruit from the tree
Sordo with anger, amarga con pain
Swollen with pride, do we toil in vain?

How will I by solita become what I should
My spine, a serpent that soon strays from good
My hands, two birds, that disown their own kin
My belly bare soil depraved from within
I bend down like spider and reach everywhere
Electric, world shrinking web of despair

How can I till the soil, how be freed?
Which Cain can deliver the fruit from my tree?
So swollen with anger, so swollen with pain
Pinchada with pride, labor of the vain

Canto di Caino, Canto de moribundo
I sing of Cain, walks the whole mundo,
Wanderlust aching, Corazon breaking,
He looks free but won’t see what he is forsaking

Behind the Song

I edited together a little behind the scenes for this one. Maria explains her interest in Cain and why the song’s title is Italian, while the rest is Spanish and English.

It was a treat producing this song. The musical base of the song originated with Micah and George, and Maria came up with the vocal melody and rhythm. So the first step was recording Micah on mandolin and George on electric bass, to get a solid rhythm track. Although I usually have people play to a metronome, this song seemed like it needed to be free from a click. And luckily these guys were spot on with their rhythms.

Once we got the rhythm track down, we recorded Maria’s lovely vocals. Each take had super expressive and interesting parts, so I ended up using the best pieces of each take. We were both on the same page when we heard something that stood out above the rest.

Micah Scott, master of the mandolin

The next step was letting Micah go nuts and record a bunch of mandolin and guitar parts. I would have kept him recording all day, since his solos were getting more and more interesting, but he stopped and said that’s probably enough for one day. And I did have more than enough to work with at that point. I think the guitar/mandolin double solo at the 2:10 mark is a testament to what this guy can do.

Next up was the percussion section. McNally Smith student Ross Charmoli came over with a pair of congas. I ended up placing one mic over each conga to get the crisp hand hits, and one mic underneath each conga to get a bassy tone.

Maria had an ace in the hole with her cousin, Daniel Ruff Smith, who came over with his djembe to lay down the base percussion track. He also recorded shaker and cowbell (muted, because it was too ring-y). I felt like it needed one more counter-rhythm, and I thought wooden claves would sound perfect. But since we only had one wooden stick with the cowbell, we had to improvise. We tried hitting it against all sorts of wooden surfaces, but it just sounded dead. Finally my roommate Jeff handed us a Mag-Lite flashlight, which worked surprisingly well as our second clave.

I’m excited to hear Maria’s other songs for her Cain project, especially since “Canto Di Caino” is the very first song she wrote for it. I’ll spread the word when Maria de las Nieves has some more recordings to share with the world.

Once again, Brandon Dvorak and Jake Anderson joined me in the studio. This time, we recorded a song by Brandon, which goes from mellow to rocking in no time flat. Fun one to produce!

But who could tell?
Memories haven’t served us well
And who could know
Exactly where we are to go?
From here
Skies are clear
And from here
Skies are clear

This kingdom’s falling down and I’m okay, I’m okay
Our king is crawling out of his cave, of his cave
Our home is burning down, we can’t escape
I’m not afraid
I’m not afraid

Brandon Dvorak – Vocals, Guitar, Bass
Jake Anderson – Drums
Charlie McCarron – Synths

Behind the Scenes

I recorded a quick interview with the guys to document this moment in history.

When Brandon played his song for me on just guitar, it struck me as instantly different than anything I’ve produced yet. Even though the song is really only three or four repeating chords on guitar, I didn’t get sick of them. It was very mesmerizing, thanks in part to his unique vocal lines.

So from a production standpoint, I wanted to get this ethereal sound across. I recorded some synth parts to give it a kind of creepy psychological feel at the beginning. For you Ableton Live junkies, my secret ingredient is a special Max for Live plugin called “Squirrel Parade” that you can tweak to create strange animal-like sounds. I was messing with it once before and made a pretty convincing synthesized songbird call. But for “Kingdom” I just tried crafting some spacey humming.

This is one synth I customized for the song. Yes, I am a nerd if you hadn't noticed.

Another trick I used was to distort the guitar in a way that sounds like controlled feedback. I used an effect that pinpoints a certain pitch and cranks it up, as if you were holding an electric guitar next to a really loud amp. The cool thing is, you can change that pitch over time, so you can almost create a melody out of the guitar feedback. Kind of like auto-tuning a guitar. I created two feedback tracks and panned them left and right. Have a listen to this feedback by itself:

And in context:

Here's the feedback effect I used on the guitar. The green line above is the pitch being distorted, which varies wildly during the choruses.

It was great to work with these guys again. If you missed Jake Anderson’s song from Week 14, check it out. You can also hear more music from Brandon and Jake in their band, With A Gun For A Face.

Jake Anderson, back on drums.