Sequencing Ever So Slightly

The process of giving my latest album its breath.

I have never started the creative process with the intention of making an album. I almost always end up making albums after compiling a bunch of ideas and then building them out into songs that, then, build off of each other. Ever So Slightly, my latest album, started as one song with three sections. It then became an EP. Finally, as it always does for me, it became an album.

I started Ever So Slightly in 2022, before I released EDGE OF THE W*RLD. The first finished product was the intro track, Round the Corner. Initially, Round the Corner was a four-minute song with three beat switches. The first section was the song as it is now, the second section became Pedestal (Running Colors), and the third section became No More to Give (RTC2). I played the song—very disjointed in its early stage—for Chris Carmen. He gave me the idea to space the sections out as anchor songs in an EP: Round the Corner as the intro, Pedestal (Running Colors) as a midpoint, and No More to Give (RTC2) as an outro. I committed to this general idea with the sequencing of Ever So Slightly. The only change was that it evolved from an EP to a full-length album.

Shifting from Linear to Cyclical

Before detailing the sequencing process of what eventually became an album, it is important to compare it to EDGE OF THE W*RLD. That album has a very linear structure, both in the narrative and the sequencing. The songs are meant to all feel like they are pointing towards a common endpoint. This common endpoint informed the sequencing of the songs but also the creation of them, as there are no repeated sections on the entire album. The choruses, sparing as they are already, have either a twist in the lyrics, a change in the vocal delivery, or a different instrumental.

The linear structure worked perfectly for the narrative of EDGE OF THE W*RLD, but Ever So Slightly is different. Repetition is all over Ever So Slightly. The repetition was needed, as the lyrics reflect a lot on habit and routine, things that are often cyclical. When I was writing about conflicting feelings of comfort and constraint in routine, I could not possibly make another linear album. The music itself had to feel somewhat cyclical to create a listening experience that emulated the themes of habit and routine. The intro and outro sharing the same main sample, for example, originally happened because they were part of the same song, of course, but their placements as the beginning and endpoint of the album ultimately reinforced that cyclical feeling.

Creating the “Line” an Album Lives on

Everything between the beginning and end of Ever So Slightly was sequenced like an energy curve. I tend to visualize the journey of a project as a line. Ever So Slightly’s line—while beginning and ending in a similar place—was meant to have ups and downs that connect fluidly. A song like GH*ST, for example, is an obvious up, or peak, on the energy curve. It begins a three-song stretch where the peak in energy continues through Lapdogs and Hardwired / Taken to the Grave.

The following four-song pocket represents, in energy, a relative downswing. The instrumentals are more stripped back, the lyrics, often, more introspective, and the vocal deliveries more understated. The instrumental contrast makes the listening experience more enjoyable, but the fluctuations in mood help the album “breathe,” expanding and contracting the way lungs do when inhaling and exhaling. This section of the album (certainly an exhale), is anchored by NO BARK, one of the most skeletal instrumentals I’ve made. The energy curve image that guided the sequencing here made it possible for the loud, booming, industrial sounds of GH*ST and Hardwired / Taken to the Grave to cohabitate the same album as the gentle, jazz rap approach on NO BARK.

Sequencing is where Ever So Slightly finds its breath. I had so many different sounds, ideas, and techniques to put on one project. They were like puzzle pieces that I had to shape and then fit together myself. The process was exhausting and meticulous but fulfilling. I hope the sequence makes the listening experience of Ever So Slightly a breath of fresh air.