Artist Introduction
Duster is an indie, slowcore 3-piece band from California (Lorusso, 2019). Formed over 2 decades ago, their first album was released in 1998 and is still a considerable influence to this day. Some of their most popular songs have come from that album. Previous to this band, the members were in another group called Valium Aggelein, in which they released two albums. Duster’s music is slow, minimal, lo-fi, simple and melancholy, using droning basslines, quiet and monotone vocals, synthesisers and simple guitar parts to make them so unique and anti-mainstream. The band started during the spike of grunge artists, which were almost the exact opposite of slowcore and dream-pop. It was almost like a rebellion against the volume and angst of the likes of Nirvana and Soundgarden.
If you ask the right people, Duster are revered as legends and pioneers—not just by fans of the genre but by important contemporary artists
(Weddle, 2019)
Duster has similar sounds to ‘Slowdive’, ‘LSD And The Search For God’ and ‘Alex G’. Their recording studio, self-named ‘Low Earth Orbit’ is where they make their records and have done since they started. Using 4 track recorders and cassette tapes captures that crackly sound they achieve in many of their records. As the vocals are not the main forefront of the music, their lyrics are often strange and hard to decipher. They are also very short, sometimes even using one-word lines such as in their song ‘Constellations’.
Song Analysis
Overall, I find this song very intriguing to listen to. It is very different to what music I usually listen to, which is generally heavier, such as post-punk and modern rock. However, this song is calming and makes me feel peaceful. It sounds nostalgic, spaced out and takes you to a whole new dimension. The deliberate usage of tape hiss and glitchy effects on the whole song makes it feel retro and like you’ve just stumbled across an old band’s cassette box of unreleased songs and demos from the 90s that haven’t been touched in years. This unedited feel again inspires me for my own music in this project, and I will research how to achieve this without having to use actual tape recorders as I most likely won’t have access to one during recording.
The instrumentation of the song couldn’t be more simple; vocals, two guitar tracks, bass and drums. This means that the texture is very thin and minimal, which resonates hugely with other slowcore artists. This is the standard setup for most rock and indie songs, but because of the way they are played and recorded, it doesn’t sound like rock. The song’s dynamics are strange, especially for the time. The general dynamic of the whole track doesn’t change much and is around mp and mf. Because of the lack of change in structure, the song feels monotone, but not in a way that is boring for the listener.
There is only ever one vocal line in the song, meaning there are no harmonies on the vocals. However, there is harmony through the use of the two guitar tracks that are playing separate chords but work very well with each other. One is playing a slightly higher harmony over the root chords that the other guitar is focused on. The bass plays a, b, f#, c#, f#, e. This harmonises with some of the chords being played in the song.
The rhythm in this song is extremely simple, with the guitars only strumming quaver notes throughout the entire song, the bass doing the same. The drums are playing a very simple standard rock beat with two quaver note kicks at the start of beats 1 and 3, and the snare on the 2 and 4 of every bar. The drummer never plays any fills at all, keeping the beat steady and focused.
This song’s structure is hard to define because there are no dynamic changes, which makes it hard to indicate where a specific verse or chorus would be. The lyrics don’t indicate this either as the vocalist is just speaking lines of words that don’t specify where a chorus part would be, which is often represented by repeating lyrics, a change in melody or tone of voice. However, I think the structure is somewhat like: intro, verse 1 (‘Would I…’), verse 2 (Slow and…’), chorus (‘Those eyes…’), outro.
The tempo of the song is around 79bpm or ‘Andante’, meaning a walking pace. This is fairly unhurried, hence the association with the genre slowcore. The timing of some instruments and parts are slightly out, especially at the start with the out of time stick clicks. This gives a lazy and relaxed feel, which goes well with the song’s general energy. The time signature is 4/4, or common time. This again adds to the simplicity and minimalism of the song and makes sure it doesn’t sound too confusing or contrast with the genre they want to fit into.
The song’s key is A major. There are not too many melodies in this song as it is very chordal based. The main melody is the vocal line, which stays diatonic throughout the song, with not many drastic interval jumps. One of the guitarists sometimes plays very simple melodies to embellish the track. The chords of this song are interesting as they tend to change at strange times. The chords stay diatonic to the song’s key. It includes variations like major 7th’s and minor 9th’s which are popular in indie and dream-pop genres. Even though the guitar is in standard tuning, each string is tuned up by about a quarter tone, making this song quite confusing to learn when I didn’t know this information. Below is a video of me playing the song; I learned this by ear and using this online tab: https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/duster/inside-out-tabs-2177985. (Duster – Inside Out (Tab), 2021)
Here are the chords used in the song, in order.
- A with melody over top (A5, A6, Amaj7)
- Dmaj7
- F#m
- F#m (add9)
- Dmaj7
- E major
The mixing on this song is extremely simple, if there even was a mix in the first place. The song, and entire album, were recorded on a cassette tape, hence the crackles, scratches, and glitchy inconsistencies. In terms of the volume balancing, the vocals are very quiet compared to mainstream music, and the guitars are quite loud. There aren’t many high frequencies in the mix, mostly just mids and lows, making for a dark and murky sound. The guitar has a clean sound, with not many obvious effects such as distortion or reverb. The drums are quite quiet, and the kick is very low in the mix.