Artifact/The Turn

Artifact/The Turn está disponible en español. Ver el artículo Το άρθρο Artifact/The Turn είναι διαθέσιμο στα ελληνικά. Δείτε το άρθρο Artifact/The Turn è disponibile in italiano. Vedi l'articolo Artifact/The Turn está disponível em português. Ver o artigo

General Information

Written by: A. Lee and S. Kirkland

Artifact/The Turn is the first track from Evanescence's fifth studio album, The Bitter Truth. A Metal Hammer UK review described the track as setting the scene for the album, with Amy's gentle soprano rising amid barely there, bubbling electronics. The intro was written, programmed and recorded on Amy's laptop by herself in her hotel room on tour in 2019. She initially wanted to rerecord it, but was encouraged by producer Nick Raskulinecz to keep the original recording. The Turn is a collaboration with Scott Kirkland of the Crystal Method.

We were on tour and I had this little piece that I was working on in the dressing room. I was kinda writing during the day and we had a show that night. But I was in my dressing room and I had this idea just singing along to it and sort of whatever came out of my mouth. I thought later I'd change this, but it was just kind of pure, same thing with that intro piece, the Artifact part, that was me all by myself in my hotel room on tour and I kept that entire recording. I made those synth notes with the keyboard typing in a program and I sang into the microphone of my laptop. And I totally intended first to redo it and then when I was talking to Nick at the end of the album, 'I wish we finish this intro'. He was like, 'You know, it's got all those weird stuff in it, all those little artifacts - that's a audio term - just stuff that happens because of the weird microphone and just the whole situation you were in. I don't know, how are you gonna recapture that? How are you gonna recapture that pure moment?' And I thought about it, I listened to him, and I was like, 'You're right, let's just leave it exactly like it is'. So it starts out totally raw, just the real life thing.

“I see the beginning of the album as starting from a Ground Zero place after a tragedy, and then, when the guitars come in, for me, that’s getting back up.”

In a Mexican press conference, Amy told how the collaboration with Scott Kirkland came about:

The beginning of the album there's a pretty dramatic intro that was a collaboration between myself and Scott Kirkland from the Crystal Method. He did this beautiful electronic landscape that just served as this just beautiful place to sing over and sort of set up what's about to come in the first proper song of the album. And that came about really naturally in a really cool way. We just met on tour and we traded numbers and I was like, 'If you got any ideas, you want somebody to sing on? Send it to me.' And we just were sending each other little ideas and then he sent me that one and I got this whole idea about this stuff that I was working on and glued it to a song and made it into a thing and that was really cool.

Versions

Studio Version

Artifact/The Turn

• Recording date: 2019, July - November 2020
• Status: Released
• Released On: The Bitter Truth (Track #1)
• Length: 2:26

Lyrics

Underneath golden skies
You will always be there
In the mirror, in my eyes
You will always be there

Where do we go now
That I have seen the turn?
Where do we go now?
Find a way to go now
To go back home
To who we are...