Two friends have different bands, DER and TEST. Both bands share the same drummer.

They decided to release a split EP with four songs by each band.

So the drummer, who plays in both bands, recorded a single drum track for 4 songs.

Using that drum track, each band wrote 4 songs. Using the same drum track.

What they did then was mix both bands (two singers, vocals, bass and guitars from both bands) with the single drum track.

Listening to the normal album, you get 8 different songs, all with the same drum track, different bands playing their songs at the same time.

If you move your balance knob to the RIGHT you listen to the 4 tracks by TEST.

If you move it to the LEFT you will listen to the tracks by DER.

The process illustrated in this video, if you are interested:

That's a novel idea.

"ART" did something similar, two mono tracks in one stereo groove, but they didn't share any tracks on each channel like the 7" you're describing:
http://www.discogs.com/ARTOnly-Band-In- ... se/2337992

This is awesome, thanks for sharing. I recall that Marco Minnemann produced a long drum solo and sent it to several jazz artists to complete an album. It's a cool idea to see the process of different artists creating music from the same starting point.

It sounds good together and panned left left or right.

Do you have any more info on the bands (names, links, etc) involved? I found the video title to be a little perplexing in that regard...

The name of the bands are DER and TEST. The OP meantioned them in the post saying which side to hear which side was which.

It's kinda neat but being a member of multiple of bands/projects and ones that have done splits with each other... kinda lazy sounding to me. esp since to me the tracks aren't all that different to my ears.