Exercises is the fifth extended play in the discography of Canadian musician Michael Silver, known by his stage name as CFCF. The extended play was inspired by brutalist architecture and several synthesizer-heavy modern classical and piano-only works that Silver listened to during the fall and winter of 2010–11, which were the "soundtrack" to how he felt "kind of uncertain” in those seasons. Its cover art by Ken Schwarz, Josh Clancy, and Travis Stearns shows one of the buildings the extended play was inspired by.
Exercises was produced with very limited resources; the piano was not an actual live piano but rather a replication from a software instrument plug-in. Each cut on Exercises is a minimal track that involves a piano that slowly builds around other sounds like quiet drums and synthesizers. It follows a more classical and less dance music-based style with more "simple" compositions than his past releases. The EP features a "semi-cover" of "September," a track by English singer-songwriter David Sylvian.
Promoted with two pre-EP track releases and a music video, Exercises was in released in 2012 by the labels Paper Bag Records and Dummy Records. It garnered generally very favorable reviews upon its distribution, ranking number 14 on a list of the best dance and electronic releases of 2012 by Exclaim!. Some reviewers highlighted the expansion of Silver's musical scope with the EP, while critics with more mixed opinions on the record felt it sounded too nice and lacked in having surprising or exciting moments.
Inspiration
In the fall and winter of 2010 and 2011, Michael Silver listened to several synthesizer-heavy modern classical and piano-only works by composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Glenn Gould, Philip Glass, and David Borden.Burg, Erik (April 20, 2012). "CFCF Producer / Musician Interview: Exercises, A Classical Experiment (w/ Full Album Stream)". Redefine. Retrieved June 30, 2017. He described them as the "soundtrack" to how he felt "kind of uncertain” in that time period."CFCF interview: “It was winter, everything was uncertain.”". Dummy. August 2, 2012. Retrieved June 30, 2017. Listening to these works influenced him to record a piano-and-vocal-only version of a track from his previous extended play The River (2010) titled "It Was Never Meant to Be This Way."
The piano version was included as one of four bonus tracks on digital download releases of The River"The River – CFCF" . RVNG Intl. Official Website Retrieved July 1, 2017. and also received an official music video that paired the track with "icebox glamor" sequences from the David Cronenberg film Stereo (1969)."Video: CFCF, “It Was Never Meant To Be This Way (Piano Version)”". The Fader. Retrieved July 2, 2017. Stereo was filmed in a brutalist building at the University of Toronto.Cemm, Ro (July 4, 2012). "“Otherworldly and kind of sad”: How the brutalist buildings of Montreal inspired CFCF". The Line of Best Fit. Retrieved July 2, 2017. This combination of the recording of a piano piece and visuals of brutalist architecture created the feeling of an "otherworldly and kind of sad" world that Silver wanted to explore. After creating around five piano-and-synthesizer pieces, Silver decided to produce and release a set of these types of tracks as a record.Sherburne, Philip (May 14, 2012). "CFCF’s Synth-and-Piano Miniatures: Chillwave After the Thaw". Spin. SpinMedia. Retrieved July 7, 2017. Architectural elements were noted in a review of the EP for SoundBlab by Daryl Worthington: "The first few tracks exhibit a distinctly urban feel, sounding like soundtracks to a film about architecture."
Ryuichi Sakamoto’s album Playing the Piano (2009) as well as improvisational recordings by composers such as Alva Noto and Fennesz were the most influential works for Silver creating Exercises. The EP also garnered influence from the soundtracks of the National Film Board of Canada and tonal elements from Canadian animator Norman McLaren's sound work.
Production and composition Work on Exercises began in December 2010, when Michael Silver was packing up to move to Paris. For the EP, he went for a more "structured," classical, and less dance music-based approach with more "simple" compositional structures than his past releases. Exercises was categorized by reviewer Puja Patel as a "dreamy indie flick scored by fuzzy synths and gorgeous piano recitals," while Worthington labeled it as a "pop perspective" of the synthesizer works of Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds. Elements of kosmische are also present on the EP.
In producing Exercises, Silver tried to represent warm feel of a concert hall with the limited tools he had to work with. Given that most of the equipment he usually used was packaged in Montreal and he was mostly in a Paris apartment while making the EP, Silver was left with only a laptop. Despite being an instrumental piano EP, Exercises was not recorded on an actual acoustic piano, but rather a software instrument plug-in replicating a piano. While Silver spent hours on a piano experimenting to find which melodies would work for each track, he didn't want them to sound too perfect. An example would be when he was making "Exercise #4 (Spirit)," an improvisational track where he played on a "synth bed" not thinking about the melodies he was coming up with.
In a similar fashion to the LP Ravedeath, 1972 (2011) by Tim Hecker, tracks on Exercises involve piano parts that slowly build, with other sounds such as unnoticeable drums and synthesizers also in the background of the mix on occasion. Making more simple tracks meant Silver had to start writing each of them on a piano instead of on drums or synthesizers as songs from most of his other records were made. As Silver explained, "since I was going for something stripped down I was kind of working with melodic patterns, building melodies on melodies in ways that weren’t necessarily grandiose." Each track on Exercises contains only around three to five instruments and involves "just a lot of different melodies working off each other, bouncing off each other," Silver explained. The simplicity gives each song multi-dynamic emotional aspects. Patel compared the EP's minimal structure to the works of Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Hence the title of the EP, Exercises is a series of tracks that "express" a certain theme rather than "explore" it, Worthington analyzed.. SoundBlab. Retrieved June 29, 2017. Worthington also called the title of the EP appropriate because in each song, the listener can feel a "sense of movement" like the works of German band Neu!. Dummy magazine called Exercises a "deeply affecting record, one that draws you close and comforts." They categorized it as a modern classical record having "the sensitivity" of the works of Sakamoto, "the weightlessness" of Glass' pieces, and the "emotional" tone of the works of Borden. Steve Shaw of Fact magazine described Exercises as a study of internet-released beat tapes and unfinished material from the 2010s. His reason for this categorization was the length of each song on the EP: "any track on Exercises could be developed to far greater length, but Silver’s decision to reign these in is deftly handled."
Concept Exercises is an album of eight movements that document parts of life; "Exercise #1 (Entry)" is the birth of someone, "Exercise #3 (Buildings)" deals with the growth of a person, "Exercise #5 (September)" is about aging, "Exercise #7 (Loss)" regards the end of someone's life, and "Exercise #8 (Change)" is about what happens after the death of a person. According to Dummy, the EP's intention is to find "a way to articulate the soul, to transcend the pettiness of our existence, to find the poetry in the most base elements of life." The primary message of Exercises, according to Dummy, is that "there is no finish-line in the real world outside of death, no happy ever after," and "we’re never going to have it all figured out."
Track titles The title of each track is composed of only a number and a word describing it, which, according to writer Erik Burg, suggests all of the recordings on Exercises are "experiments." The song names were originally numbered titles without descriptions. However, after six tracks for the EP were completed, he struggled to remember "which [track]s were which" and found a "visual element" in each song. Thus, he added an adjective to each title to give the listener an idea of what they were hearing.
Songs
The opener of Exercises, "'Exercise #1 (Entry)," centers around a piano played in a time signatureGrawe, Sam (April 25, 2012). "Beat Construction: CFCF". The Fader. Retrieved July 7, 2017. that has a sad tone throughout the track's entire length. Around the piano are a set of Vangelis-styleNElliott (April 25, 2012). "CFCF – Exercises Album Review". Prefix. Retrieved June 29, 2017. synthesized drones and arpeggios that change their vibe from sad to bright as the track progresses. Made by Silver very quickly and influenced by Gould's Variations 1–7, "Exercise #2 (School)" is the brightest track on Exercises in terms of tone. Set in a time signature and using dub rhythms, it consists of what Shaw described as a Telefon Tel Aviv-style "clicking beat" and what Silver labeled as "sprouting synth leads that come from either channel." It starts with what PopMatters reviewer Steven Spoerl labeled as "an almost lullaby-like melody." An echo-filtered piano then enters the song, before electronically made drums and bass sounds are added to give the track a calm yet threatening tone. The song was categorized by Marc Hogan of Pitchfork as a "post-Jamie xx bedroom-disco" cut, while Tom Williams of FasterLouder compared it to the works of Aphex Twin.Williams, Tom (June 27, 2012). "CFCF – Exercises EP". FasterLouder. Junkie Media. Retrieved July 7, 2017.
Silver called "Exercise #3 (Buildings)" the most "pattern-based" track on Exercises, "mainly a set of cycles that build on one another, with some pads and melodies that offer an emotional core." Compared by Worthington to Glass' piece Glassworks, it involves a progressive rock-style synthesized brass performing a fanfare over piano arpeggios and a harsh synth bass a la the Emeralds LP Does It Look Like I'm Here? (2010). "Exercise #4 (Spirit)" was the last recording completed for Exercises. It was inspired by British rock band Talk Talk's song “Wealth,” and its title derived from where "Wealth" came from, Talk Talk's fourth studio LP Spirit of Eden (1988). "Exercise #4 (Spirit)" was performed in improvisation and has a different palette of instruments in comparison to the EP's other tracks, including Yamaha DX7 sounds and pan flute samples. The track is constructed around an electronically produced pump organ sound. Steve Shaw of Fact magazine wrote about the track, "as clicky mid-range keys amble daintily beneath, a butterflies-in-the-stomach sense of quiet excitement is drawn out by increasing vibrato and breathy shakuhachi/vox chord gestures." A rework of "Exercise #4 (Spirit)" was included on CFCF's collaboration album with Jean-Michel Blais titled Cascades (2017)."Dust Volume 3, Number 4". Dusted. March 10, 2017. Retrieved July 7, 2017.