Don't worry, I wasn't doing anything stupid. The recording was unattended. I had a digital recorder with me, running on and off for much of the drive, from which I drew a lot of found sound as well as most of the percussion (mainly treated door-slams). I also have an interesting graphical synth app for the iPod (Jasuto Pro) which I used to set up a patch with some parameters driven by the iPod's accelerometer. (See photo.) So with the recorder running, and the synth app playing through the car stereo, I just drove.
The iPod app created the weird whooshy swirly thing that runs through the entire song, just by responding to the motion of the car.
I programmed the basic riff in the same Droid synthesizer appliation I used on my first song this year, again assigning the X, Y and Z variables from the Droid's accelerometer to various parameters of the patch. I let it play and do its own bouncing around.
Best of all, the harmonica on this track is ... an iPod application. Yes, that's right: Benjamin McDowell's Harmonica app for the iPhone, which a musician friend of mine showed me at a bluegrass jam.
This song contains a brief sample: Yo La Tengo's version of John Cale's "Andalucia," playing through the car stereo at one point during the drive.
