I recall that Atmospheric was the first track I started to write and the first I finished. This was sometime back in 2017. It’s one of those tracks that kind of surprised me. I was doodling around in Logic and what I was putting together was kind of nice, sort of ok, but not spectacular. But then a bit of magic happened and then another bit of magic, until I realised that I had something special IMO … or at least something that could be up to standards of the album I wanted to put out.
Clearly, it’s an instrumental, although that wasn’t the intention. It’s just that I couldn’t find a melody that worked well. Eventually, I concluded that an instrumental is a strong feature of an album and that the track was good enough without vocals.
I would call this kind of ambient electronic chill out music. When I listen to it, I feel like I’m in the wide outdoors somewhere magical and in a bit of a day dream. But that’s me lol.
For the musos amongst you, the whole track was put together in Logic, with entirely native plug ins and everything. The main beat is sequenced in Ultrabeat and I put it through a phaser. The bass line comes from the classic ES1 synthesiser (going since 2000ish, I think). Other keyboards/synths used are Sculpture, ES2, EVB3 (electric organ) and the trusty EX24 sampler for strings and piano. Confession time: the acoustic guitar is a loop. I used loops quite a lot in the early sessions for the album and moved to guitar-playing from me for later tracks – a balance of approaches.
The track was mixed and mastered by Chris ‘pendenc565’ at his studio in Winchester. Another great job!
Some people may be thinking the name is mis-spelt. Surely it should be ‘Atmospheric’? Well, yes, but then I mistyped it. I could have “corrected” it, but I am a believer that “mistakes” can be creative and shouldn’t always be discarded. I thought that ‘psp’ is kind of cool, so I stuck with it.
Although Atmopspheric is not a single, I wanted Dalton (New York artist and musician) to come up with some cover art. His message to me was: “Listened to the song and instantly something like this popped up in my mind. I saw a lot of green and nature but mixed in with some futuristic abstractness.” Given the synergy with my description of what I feel when I listen to Atmopspheric, needless to say I love what Dalton has come up with.