Nevrness is a instrumental project by Bassist Bitoku, from Sailing Before The Wind.
The project includes only Bass and Drums.
The debut album Reorient was released on the 7th September 2022.
The following article was originally written by Bitoku and you can find the original here
Keep in mind, everything from here on is written from Bitoku’s perspective, not mine.
Reorient
- Unorthodox
This is the first song on the album and the first song that got released. It was initially uploaded as a demonstration video for Ibanez and recieved over 110,000 views.
(sidenote: the video has currently over 124K views)
I wanted to make a riff with ghost notes, so I tried and this is the result. I mixed in some hybrid picking too. At this speed, it’s not easy to skip strings with a pick, so I thought it was a phrase with the necessity of mixing fingers.
- Alphametic
Because i released the first track in advance, i placed Alphametic here, as an intro, because it has a sense of beginning. In other words, the track that is completely new to existing listeners will be the second track.
It’s an image of 
here, instead a real greeting. The switch to the to the lead-in at 0:48~ is my favorite.
- Hexerei
I wanted to insert a 2 beat because of the mid-tempo songs before and after, so I decided on this arrangement. It’s the first time in my history that I played an easy-to-understand slap phrase 
The slap appears twice, once in the first half and once in the second half, but it is modulated modestly? (0:45), so the phrases are different both times, in terms of position.
- Afterwit
A danceable Track 
. The main phrase (0:00~0:12) can be played with one string. But, since different strings sound like the same note with open strings, it can only be played with this tuning.
And here you go (?), the chorus is a familiar twin lead of SBTW. It is also addictive on a bass guitar. Only the harmony of three can win.
- Diurnal
I tried harmonizing the chorus, but ended up using only one. I know i said “only 3 Part harmonies” but i am not a blind believer in it. The most important thing is, that it fits the song.
(Not limited to this song) I intentionally left room for growth in the parts that are composed of backing ⇔ lead interaction.
I imagine that in a live performance, I would not play the song as it was recorded, but would rearrange it. I don’t know if I will play live at all…
- Labyrinth
Harmonic riffs. I play it with pick, slap and tapping. The beat change at 0:46 is a technique, i’ve been using for a long time, its a “development habit” rather than a habit of the hand.
The riff is somewhat thin on SBTW elements, but the chromatic unison phrase (what’s that?) is a surprising favorite pattern! I do the same in the middle of Western Survivors."
- Sanctuarize
I dedicated the song to listeners of Sailing Before the Wind’s EP Sanctuary and especially to those who love Four Rivers. Thank you following us until today.
On the other hand, I would be happy if someone discovers SBTW from this song.
Nevrness is a different view on the world compared to SBTW, but if you look at it from a broader perspective, it’s an image that exists in the same universe.
The interval at 0:57~ is a favorite part of mine, including the rhythm pattern and development. Is it okay to play only open strings so clearly? lol
It is really only bass and drums. Super organic. Directly from pesticide free vegetables.
- Gradient
It’s a mystery to me how much of it really oozes out, but my roots are in 60’s rock. I got into bands like The Who and Led Zeppelin before metal and I would be happy if the riffs convey that kind of “rock” feeling.
By the way, the chorus (?) or rather the main melody is not included in the melody part on purpose, the same as in Hexerei. It’s just an arpeggio.
I thought it would be good to have an “off” pattern once in a while. I think the appeal of instrumental music is its openness.
- Vengeance
In contrast to the previous song (Gradient), this one starts out in an obviously “metal” way.
When I was a student, i used to buy a lot of melodic speed metal/ Melodic power metal/ Power Metal CDs. Not the major ones, that were release domestically, but more underground ones. I wanted to listen to a lot of music and used CDs were cheap, so it was it was convinent for me. Most of the labels were SPV/Scarlet/Napalm Records, and the jackets were the type with a warrior’s face or with too much dragon fire.
By the way, there was a beat other than 4/4 for a moment in the song, and if you noticed it, you are indeed right!"
- Skyline
I wanted to do a drum beat like “ELLEGARDEN - Salamander” for the intro. When deciding on the song order, I immediately decided on the placement of Skyline. Since we were at the halfway point, I wanted to put a key song with texture for the second half of the album.
If you have ever seen it in real time, you know that the moment of sunset goes by in the blink of an eye. It feels like a long time until it starts to sink. It is a song that was created when I was thinking of such a scene.
- Overrun
It’s in the same scale as SBTW’s Break the Silence. The song is arranged with the thought, “Let’s step on the gas pedal one more time!” The texture of the melodic parts has a natural influence from Scandinavian metal.
- Incorruptible
From a beginning with hybrid picking to tapping with an dotted delay in between.
The album basically separates the lead and backing (distortion) tones, and I think the tapping part in Incorruptible makes it easy to understand.
- Dazzlement
Soundtoys plug-ins played an active role in creating tones with effects like 0:11~, as well as the second half of Overrun. 0:58~ is my favourite.(Vengance and so on) It’s my compositional habit to try to balance the use of dark sounds by inserting a cool melody afterwards.
- Paralogism
I made an intro/outro because I wanted to do a rhythm pattern that starts half a beat away from the top. The lead effect on it is another Soundtoys plug-in. I tend to like repeating 5 (or 3) sounds to make one big phrase. The chorus is in Scandinavian style.
- Tidal
It’s the first song I made for this project, so the atmosphere is similar to the first demonstration video.
Sailing Before The Wind intentionally avoids riffs that use the 6th and 13th frets, so i use it with Nevrness instead.
- Waterfall
This song was influenced by The Omnific (or rather Toby’s solo playing). It might the hardest song on the album. Non-stop harmonic ghost note madness. At first there was only a track that sounded in the center, but I realized that it was really lonely and added arpeggios (phrases sounding on both sides).
- Cloudscape
I, literally, wrote the song while watching the clouds from my room. It’s a tapping phrase. The song with the least number of bass tracks in the album, 2 tracks.
- Moonlight
For those of you who tought „Isn’t this riff supposed to be used in SBTW?“ Your thought proves that i didn’t cut any corners. It wasn’t done with a sense of „I didn’t use it in SBTW, so let’s use it here“. No ideas were spared.
If you like, I’ve included a self-homage phrase from a SBTW song. The flow of the song order 17 to 20 (on the album) was easily decided. I wanted a strong, kickass song in the second half, so i thought Moonlight should be there.
I wanted to place 18 to 19 as a set and I particularly like the flow of 17 to 20 because it expresses the passage of time (of the scenery).
- Birthnight
This is, literally, the night of my birthday. But not from the subjective point of view ‘of the day I was born’, but more from the parents’ point of view. I wonder how what my parents felt, when I was born. I am not a parent yet, so I can only imagine…
From a technique point of view, the inevitability of the bridge mute is a key point. It’s not technical at all, but this album was never intended to be a technical work (from the creator’s point of view).
- Endleaf
Bass instrumental core, if you will. No guitars, no vocals. For me, it’s a breakdown, and it’s filled with my own rebellious spirit after 10 years of doing just this. I don’t think that using abusive language or being rude is the only way to be rebellious.
I use “Glitch 2” for the arpeggio effect on the outro. When i first used it for the production of Judgement in 2012, it was still “Glitch”, but in the meantime it became “Glitch 2”.
It’s been 10 years since I started using this plug-in. I’m still struggling with it. What do I mean by that? It’s difficult to explain, but I don’t remember putting away my fangs, and I would be happy if you could feel that from the breakdown and the bass tone itself.
I “translated” most of those notes song by song meanwhile each song got a playthrough uploaded to YouTube.
Please keep in mind i am a amateur translator and use deepL and google.
