DJ Jim Q's Playlist: Layers

Welcome, listeners, to February’s playlist! This month’s theme is Layers, brought to us by our Swiss friends from the Lausanne Chapter. I’ll admit, I had a little difficulty programming against this theme. There doesn’t seem to be a wealth of songs related to “Layers"—or maybe my selector skills are fading. But fear not! Despite the challenge, I’ve assembled a multi-layered playlist of dynamic depth and top-tier talent for your listening enjoyment.

Layering is foundational to creation. Art of almost any medium involves layers, conceptually or physically. Combining elements by layering them on top of one another is how we build and compose. Even our sonic creations are multi-layered, consisting of individually recorded audio tracks. These layers of sound are played in combination to form what we hear as a cohesive song. Let’s dig a little deeper.

All audio exists within a frequency space. Frequency refers to the speed at which air vibrates. Fast vibrations produce high-pitched sounds, while slow vibrations create low-pitched ones. Humans can hear frequencies between roughly 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, which translates to between 20 and 20,000 vibrations per second. Like the gradient of colors in a rainbow, you can think of frequency bands as layers where certain sounds reside.

Lower frequencies correspond to bass sounds—things like thunder, a large dog’s bark, the rumble of a truck’s muffler, or an 808 kick drum… boom. As you move up the frequency spectrum, sounds become higher-pitched, brighter, and clearer: a whistle, a chime, a bird’s chirp. Most voices fall somewhere between 100 and 200 Hz.

In music production, recording and engineering involve carefully capturing and layering sounds of varying pitches, then sculpting these layers with audio filters and dynamic adjustments to create a cohesive composition. As tracks containing instruments and sounds of different frequencies stack up—with a little luck and a lot of tweaking—a full song begins to emerge.

Most modern music is recorded using this stacked method, known as multitrack recording. Digital technology has made it easy and affordable, so today, most recording happens with digital audio software on computers. In the early days of multitrack recording, individual tracks were recorded on large reels of magnetic tape, with each recording having its own "layer” or track on the 8-inch-wide tape. While this technology had its limitations and was notoriously finicky, some still prefer the warmth and character of analog tape recording for the unique auditory artifacts and distortion it adds to recordings.

It’s this layering of individual tracks that—if done well—produces the music we recognize as a fully realized song. If your curiosity is piqued and you want to learn more, there are some great song deconstruction videos out there. Here are a few:

For something contemporary, here’s a breakdown of Charli XCX’s “Club Classics” with Charli and her producers A.G. Cook and George Daniel: Watch here

Next up, a track-by-track dissection of the Bee Gees’ disco groove “Night Fever.” This recording also happens to be the source of one of the most famous drum loops—the infectious and driving “Stayin’ Alive” drum loop: Watch here

And for those who prefer to listen rather than watch, the Song Exploder series is a fantastic source for peeling back the mysteries behind song composition. Here’s an episode on MGMT’s “Time to Pretend”: Listen here

So let’s dig below the surface and lay it on thick—this month’s theme is “Layers.” This playlist will swaddle you in comforting sounds of substance and depth. From Joy Division’s “Shadowplay” to The Isley Brothers’ “Between the Sheets” to Sleater-Kinney’s “Dig Me Out,” this month’s soundtrack is stacked with bangers.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoy these playlists I would love to hear from you—Give a hollar on X and be sure to follow me on Spotify. See you next month with a new stack of tracks.