I'm very proud and exited to announce that for the last few months an EP that I have been working on is to be released on Sol*Selectas.
DJ Sabo has been a big supporter of my style of moombahton, infact he was the first big name DJ to pick up on 'All my Zeros' and subsequently introduced it to Dave Nada and Matt Nordstrom.
To get to release on such an established and respected label, as Sol*Selectas is, something that I only dreamt of 12 months ago.
The 4 track EP has a lot of synergies with my release on Diabluma Sound last year, however it has a more R'n'B / house feel which is hopefully fitting with the Sol*Selectas vibe.
So - big love to the Sol*Selectas fam - I'm stoked to be part of it!
Friday, 18 January 2013
How Been Lean came about
I just came across t his in my email drafts folder.
I was asked to put some words together about Been Lean EPso that my PR guys could put together a press release.
Clearly what I wrote was a little on the excessive side, so maybe this is the best place to post it. :)
The Been Lean EP is in many ways a culmination of 12 month's work. That's not to say that it took me 12 months to write these 5 tracks :), more that these are tunes that I've written and put to one side over the year.
It was almost exactly 12 months ago that I wrote "All my Zeros are Greater Than Your One" - I'd met up with Don Kreecha and Rob Romor Morris a few months earlier, who I went on to form Scold with, and this had really opened my eyes up to the sort quality of sound that I should be creating. The title of All My Zeros was a thinly veiled dig at people who sit on the sidelines, mocking those that fail.
I'd really thrown myself into moombahton at this point, and it was getting a lot of stick from people who couldn't see the potential. The tune just evolved from a sample of silence taken from an Italian monastery. I have this whole thing in my head that sound and tunes in general need to have have an almost 3 dimensional feel. As long as there is something to guide the listener through, then abstract sounds that have movement really work for me.
Been Lean came next - I'd started to hear about the whole 'Lean House' movement - checked out a mix from Brodinski and then Boyfriend dropped his lean remix of MAW, To be in Love. Dots started connecting for me at this loin - I'd always liked his production and dropping the Dem Bow, strippin stuff back and making something minimal really appealed to me. The general vibe of the track also comes from a day I spent on a beach in Ibiza, walking up and down with a pushchair trying to get my son to sleep. Headphones on, with the sound of cars, lightly in the distance, drifting past. Crickets buzzing and people moving, muffled by sea and sand.
Bet You Don't was a tune I sat down to write while playing with a borrowed Oberheim DX drum machine. The same one as used by New Order for Blue Monday. Funny thing was that it came from a friend of mine who bought a lot of ex New Order study kit, and the first patterns were the ones from Blue Monday :)
Anyway - I spent the best part of £40 on cables and plugs, and ended up using one sample of a clap… which I already had in a sample pack haha. Still, all was not lost because I ended up with 'Bet you Don't'. This goes back to my early house and techno days, and I was kind of feeling the vibe of those original sweat box clubs that I used to frequent. This is all about jeans and dirty sneakers, black light and bass bins.
Standard Reflex - This is a tune that I wrote back in April - I just wanted something with a real laid back vibe. I sent it to Dave & matt - they liked it, but asked me to go back and re-think some of the sounds I was using and the structure. There must be about 30 versions of this - it ws worth it though as what I feel I've ended up with is something that has a great deal of subtlety. This is about setting up a night. Slowly.
12 months after All My Zeros, I finished "Burning Up' which was written almost entirely around a sample of the late Stooges Ron Asheton. He was being interviewed in one of the original halls where they first performed, expounding on the quality of the sound and I just ran upstairs, came down with my laptop and sampled it. There's an energy in this track that seems to come from the bass, but in fact comes from what he's saying and how he's saying it. In many ways this is one of my favourites because it evokes a lot of music memories in terms of sound and emotion
I was asked to put some words together about Been Lean EPso that my PR guys could put together a press release.
Clearly what I wrote was a little on the excessive side, so maybe this is the best place to post it. :)
The Been Lean EP is in many ways a culmination of 12 month's work. That's not to say that it took me 12 months to write these 5 tracks :), more that these are tunes that I've written and put to one side over the year.
It was almost exactly 12 months ago that I wrote "All my Zeros are Greater Than Your One" - I'd met up with Don Kreecha and Rob Romor Morris a few months earlier, who I went on to form Scold with, and this had really opened my eyes up to the sort quality of sound that I should be creating. The title of All My Zeros was a thinly veiled dig at people who sit on the sidelines, mocking those that fail.
I'd really thrown myself into moombahton at this point, and it was getting a lot of stick from people who couldn't see the potential. The tune just evolved from a sample of silence taken from an Italian monastery. I have this whole thing in my head that sound and tunes in general need to have have an almost 3 dimensional feel. As long as there is something to guide the listener through, then abstract sounds that have movement really work for me.
Been Lean came next - I'd started to hear about the whole 'Lean House' movement - checked out a mix from Brodinski and then Boyfriend dropped his lean remix of MAW, To be in Love. Dots started connecting for me at this loin - I'd always liked his production and dropping the Dem Bow, strippin stuff back and making something minimal really appealed to me. The general vibe of the track also comes from a day I spent on a beach in Ibiza, walking up and down with a pushchair trying to get my son to sleep. Headphones on, with the sound of cars, lightly in the distance, drifting past. Crickets buzzing and people moving, muffled by sea and sand.
Bet You Don't was a tune I sat down to write while playing with a borrowed Oberheim DX drum machine. The same one as used by New Order for Blue Monday. Funny thing was that it came from a friend of mine who bought a lot of ex New Order study kit, and the first patterns were the ones from Blue Monday :)
Anyway - I spent the best part of £40 on cables and plugs, and ended up using one sample of a clap… which I already had in a sample pack haha. Still, all was not lost because I ended up with 'Bet you Don't'. This goes back to my early house and techno days, and I was kind of feeling the vibe of those original sweat box clubs that I used to frequent. This is all about jeans and dirty sneakers, black light and bass bins.
Standard Reflex - This is a tune that I wrote back in April - I just wanted something with a real laid back vibe. I sent it to Dave & matt - they liked it, but asked me to go back and re-think some of the sounds I was using and the structure. There must be about 30 versions of this - it ws worth it though as what I feel I've ended up with is something that has a great deal of subtlety. This is about setting up a night. Slowly.
12 months after All My Zeros, I finished "Burning Up' which was written almost entirely around a sample of the late Stooges Ron Asheton. He was being interviewed in one of the original halls where they first performed, expounding on the quality of the sound and I just ran upstairs, came down with my laptop and sampled it. There's an energy in this track that seems to come from the bass, but in fact comes from what he's saying and how he's saying it. In many ways this is one of my favourites because it evokes a lot of music memories in terms of sound and emotion
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