This one was difficult to finish--I didn't want to fall into a retread, and some aspects are similar to a lot of other this-tempo guitar/bass/keys/drums things I've done. So...what to do? I started editing stuff out, and this start/stop approach seemed to pull it into having an identity.

64-pad jazz drum rack, 64-pad special kit (both with M4L Humanizer and Drum Buss, two Puremagnetik Rhodes instruments, Epi P-J bass through the Balls KWB (still pulled down bass with EQ-8), two tracks of Res-O-Glas (KWB and not, one with Auto-Filter drive and not), Sends: two Echo and one convolution reverb. Full-chain master on the master.

Title from the difficulty of extracting this week's element lutetium, but also kind of a difficult track to extract, so it fit.

This started with a little drum pattern I was hearing in my head, and which I thought I'd (once again) have in a drum rack of Analog instruments. (I tweaked the kick from last week, and it's sounding a little closer to what I want.) I added another channel of Analog ("Canadian Boards" preset) for a warbly little melody fragment, and put down some Simpler with a Mellotron single-note sample to accompany it. This seemed to suggest a kind of 80s-technology aesthetic, so I also put in a Simpler instrument with a Fairlight sample (the "Swanee" airy pipe), and for extra percussion, a Drum Rack of PAiA drum machine single-hit samples.

Saturday night, I tracked bass (Epi P-J straight into the board, Cabinet plugin and reverb send to give it air, some EQ-8 to roll off sub-100Hz), some guitar (Epi Moderne through Reuss Repeater Fuzz and Vox Wah straight to the board). While I tracked some melodic lines, I ended up relying more on dissonant harmonics and fragments than full lines. For a final x-factor, I tracked some noisy Bastl Kastle.

With the bass, I'd thought to keep up the 80s theme and flange it, and then took that out...but brought it back as an automation that I bring in every so many bars. Sends were just a room-sized Convolution reverb (Auto-filter in front to roll off bass and reduce boominess) and a simple delay.

Title comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations