Greetings dearest gentle readers and music lovers, let’s welcome the musical group GLEET. Decades of friendship, jam sessions, and a mutual passion for pushing limits gave rise to the experimental music project GLEET. Sam Neal and Gregor Former, the band’s two main members, began working together in an off-license in London in the mid-1990s and began writing songs about their eccentric patrons. As time went on, their sessions—which frequently included long-time friends Michael Chilokoa and later Kevin Mertens—became enormous multi-day jams in which guitars, bass, synths, and drum loops clashed to create chaotic, genre-defying soundscapes. On 1st November, the group released a 24-song album called “24”. Let’s get into the breakdown of the album
The group planned to create a 24-song record in June of last year that represented a 24-hour day on Earth. The 24-hour period was originally supposed to occur at some point in the future, but as the lyrics developed, it started to sound more like “someday, any day now.” The circle of fifths, a visual arrangement of the 12 major keys and their corresponding minor keys in what resembles a clock face with each move in a clockwise direction moving from a key to its fifth note, was chosen to add to the idea of a passage of time by mapping the hours that the songs represented to it.
It was then just a matter of choosing whether, for example, 12 noon was more of a C major (a notably sunny key) or A minor feeling, thus C major would be hour 12 and A minor would be hour 00 (midnight). This meant that twelve major and twelve minor keys corresponded to the 24 hours in a day. Until every hour of the day matched a particular key, the process continued gloriously
Using the already mentioned framework, they started by writing the synth and drum parts for every hour. After these were finished and recorded by the middle of August, Kevin in North Carolina started recording guitar parts and sent them along with other homemade stringed instrument parts. Following the completion of those, the bass parts were recorded in November of last year, and the vocals recording process was initiated. A portion of this included voicemails that friends from all across the world sent in. A lovely little touch. However, because the entire procedure was taking place in a flat in Thessaloniki and many other building tenants had decided it was time to do substantial repairs, the main vocal recording took far longer than it should have. So, when things were quiet enough to try recording, songs would be worked on extremely infrequently. In the end, the majority of the voices were recorded during the warmest period of the previous summer, when it was too hot for any construction work to be done. Michael’s portion of hour 08, recorded in his London home in mid-September, was the final item to be recorded.
The sites for each hour rotate around the globe, and the 24-hour cycle is based on GMT time. The songs themselves provide a chance to depict a range of viewpoints on the modern environment. The sites for each hour rotate around the globe, and the 24-hour cycle is based on GMT time. Everywhere in the world
The songs themselves provide a chance to depict a range of viewpoints on the modern environment. From the arrogant, well-heeled narrator of the first song to a jaguar in the Amazon who is alarmed by the road’s relentless crawl. From sweatshop workers and child labor to an irate AI in an autonomous car. A human being bombed, a refugee drowning, and ultimately, bacteria. Capital gains through it all. These songs touch on every single atom everywhere because time is a very vital part of the fabric of life
This album was nothing short of exceptional. Seeing the painstaking way the group put these songs together, working with the very best in the business to bring to listeners the very best songs. There was no song I skipped because the whole album was very cohesive and amazing. GLEET has made a spectacular album and I can’t wait to hear more music from them
Stream the “24” album on a Spotify
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