“Positive Babinski Reflex” is a jazzy, synth-driven tune resurrected from limbo by turning it from a quite typical 4/4 house track into something much more organic and funky.
Behind The Title
Babinski’s reflex occurs when the big toe moves toward the top surface of the foot and the other toes fan out after the sole of the foot has been firmly stroked.
Sometimes I ask my wife for possible song titles. This was one of hers. (She’s a nurse!)
Behind The Track
This is probably the fourth evolution of this tune. It started out as a simple house tune. 4/4 drums and that wurlitzer piano riff with the panning delay effect.
I played it live for many a solo Acid42 gig back in Manila. This was when I was starting out with my electronic production and was composing tracks using Reason nonstop. The problem with hearing it so much is that it gets boring.
So I tried mixing it up a bit in 2009 by giving it more human-sounding drums and a bass guitar riff that was hyperactive and had that disco feel with the octaves.
It sat like that for years on my Soundcloud account. Till I finally had the time and inclination to fix what I knew was wrong with it: the drums were so buried in the mix, that they couldn’t be distinguished.
Cue to: 2019. Latest version of Reason installed. A lot more mixing experience under the belt. I finally decide to remedy the situation and record a totally new drum track for it, using the very expressive Akai LPD8 as my MIDI controller for the drums. I also added the vocal aahs at the last minute. I often improvise a melodic line using voice before committing it to an instrument. This time, I figured keeping it as a vocal part was fine.
Behind the Video
I edited the video from a Creative Commons-licensed video on the Internet Archive entitled: “A Day Called X” – a dramatized Civil Defense documentary about what to do in case of a nuclear attack. It was filmed in 1957 in Portland, Oregon.