Santiago

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Published on Wednesday, 13 March 2013 08:31

Melancountry

A few weeks ago, it was Social Media Week.

I signed up to go to a panel discussion on music and social media at the Danish conservatory. Looking forward to it, I hurried to make it in time. Sweaty, I was disappointed to see there was a warm-up band.

I have this prejudice to conservatory bands. It's stupid, I know. But I always think these insanely talented musicians will be stale, boring, lifeless.

As often with prejudice, I was proven horribly wrong. The band was called Santiago. A country/folk kind of outfit (I think - I have no idea what things are called in this type of music). Especially the song writing was amazing. Melancholy country.

The panel discussion sucked and I left after 15 minutes. But Santiago stuck with me. Unfortunately, I couldn't find them on the internet, but I thought they might show up sooner of later.

Sure enough, this new video turned up in my Facebook feed yesterday.

I don't really know any other great music in this style. So I guess this is a first: Doing a blogpost for a single track.

I'd love tips for similar melancholy folk country music though.

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Album Inspirations

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Published on Friday, 08 March 2013 08:25

Inspiration Celebration

It's Friday. And ever since Secret Selector Selections ended, I've felt something missing.

That nice end-of-week sharing of cool tracks.

Here's a fun playlist idea I've had for some time: Inspirations from my album.

Inspirations are strange. Some times, you blatantly steal something. A sound, a chord progression, a sample, a production technique. Some times you don't know you're inspired until someone tells you, or you hear yourself and notice it. Often for me, I draw on inspiration from things I don't listen to much at all. It's always different.

Boards of Canada: High Scores

BoC was some of the first electronic music I ever listened to.

I love them, but actualy they aren't an act I've spent too much time listening to or digging in to. So it wasn't until I was in the middle of my track Droogs I noticed it sounded a lot like High Scores.

After noticing that, I BoC'd the track a bit up, adding that bad tape recorder pitching effect and a bit of extra distortion on the drums.

Funny story about Droogs: I actually wanted to change the song structure a bit, have some more stuff happen. But I'm an idiot, so I had lost the project file and was forced to just use the semi-early version I had made ages ago.

James What: It Feels Wrong

When I started the track that ended up being Countact, I wanted to make a track with a tremelo synth, like It Feels Wrong.

I had a version of that track for like a year, and it just, well, felt wrong. So I spent ages changing the synth and the drums and little details. Luckily in the end, I decided to make an album, so I was sort of forced to just get on with it and finish the track.

The synths aren't that tremelo any more. But that was the starting point.

Stimming: Sunday Morning

Speaking of Countact, the strings and breakdown/buildup are inspired a bit by The Field, but more by Stimming.

Especially this track. I love the way it builds up, holds the suspense juuuuuuuust a bit longer, and the nothing big really happens. What a drama queen!

Burial: Archangel

This is not rarity and the inspiration probably isn't a big surprise for those, who have heard my track L'Assassin Menacé.

I had written the piano and strings parts one night at home, fucked after going out. I actually never make music like that.

The beat was crap though, but I thought something Burial-like would fit. And so I spent over a year trying to get the beat to sound just right, going through loads of different methods in beat-making.

In the end, all that was missing was that just right kick drum. After fighting with the track so much, I said "fuck it, if I want a kick drum that sounds like Burial, I'm fucking just gonna sample Burial".

Actually, that's not true. There's like four different snares in the track, and one of them I sampled from El-B: Digital, because I also wanted that exact snare.

An other inspiration for L'Assassin Menacé is the Magritte painting that inspired the title. After decidig on that name, the track got a bit more of that mysterious vibe. And those assassin footsteps as well.

Frankie Knuckles: Your Love

This one should be pretty obvious if you know both tracks.

I basically just stole the synth line for Return to Love. It's a high pitched 303. Or, in my case, an incredibly crappy emulation of a 303: Synthedit PD-303.

Actually, my original inspiration for making a track with up-pitched 303 was from Newcleus: Jam On It. But it's quite clear I basically stole the synth from Your Love.

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Some Favorite Un-Cool Tracks

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Published on Tuesday, 26 February 2013 14:43

Weapons of Un-Hipsterdom

I was thinking about the whole "music and identity" thing the other day.

You know, how you'll listen to a lot of music, but only post stuff to Facebook if it makes you look really cool?

It's the same with blogs, isn't it? Maybe even more so, because posting the newest rare stuff on a blog doesn't just make you look hip an in the know, it gets you more readers, which, I guess, is part of the point in runing a blog.

But what about all the un-cool music? How will that ever get shared (I mean, besides radio, premium spots on iTunes, billboards, TV commercials ...) Where is all that great music people won't share because it doesn't make them look smart and hip and in the know and first mover-ish?

I've decided to take matters in to my own hands and showcase some of the un-cool music I love. These aren't guilty pleasures or anything. Just great tracks that are neither new, old, kitch or rare enough to boost my cultural capital.

There are really too many of that kind of tracks to choose from, so let's just do some random (lame and un-cool) tried and tested theme: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.

Basically, if you want to avoid being pegged hipster, these are the records you should be listening to!

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Max Richter (and new Ambient Mix Plans)

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Published on Monday, 11 February 2013 19:46

Strings, strings. Piano, cello and violins

Today, I discovered the mind blowing composer Max Richter.

Or, I guess I knew him from the track "On The Nature of Daylight" (though I'm not sure where I'd heard it). But today, I learned his name and checked out a good deal of his back catalogue.

Awesome stuff. Awesome as in the proper use of the word awesome, rather than "want some gum?" "Yeah man, awesome!"

And so it's settled. I'm going to make a fifth ambient mix.

I always do a theme, because I want those mixes to each have their own identity, rather than being different versions of the same exact mix.

Apparently, Max Richter is no newcommer to this music thing. I actually feel kind of stupid just discovering him now. He's like one of the top cats in the "modern classical/cinematic/ambient" thing.

So my idea as of now is a mix with all the greates composers/producers of music that can be called ambient: Eno, Aphex Twin, John Cage, Clint Mansell and of course, Max Richter.

I'll also try to include a bit more electronic ambient, as the past couple of mixes have been very piano/cello-centric.

That said, today is piano/cello day! Here are some sweet tracks:

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