music that doesn’t drop.

Quite often when people hear my music they’ll tell me it doesn’t drop. It doesn’t quite ‘go there’.  I definitely agree with this.  However, I used to want my music to drop, and after working for the past 6 months on my new material, and indeed developing a new sound, I’ve reached a musical understanding with myself, that the intention of it is to just teeter on the edge of going there, and not actually commit to becoming a dance track.  It seems that my talent lies in composing tunes that flirt with the idea, but don’t take you there.  Whether this is just a fancy disguise for being lazy, I am yet to find out.

I’ve had people draw different conclusions and make vastly different comparisons of my work, which I love.  Its fantastic that people can all hear the same piece of music, but all have a different way of listening to it, and therefor have a different experience to the person sat next to them.  So I thought i’d put a few songs/artists on here that people have mentioned being similar to me, so you can have a listen and completely agree or disagree, or remain indifferent to!

Arguably, those tracks do have very dance based elements.  The music I like to reference and enjoy listening to is a mixture of full on dance tracks, and ambient/electronic soundscape pieces, which I think is how I arrive at the product I now have.

Its all quite exciting from here on in really.  Although its taken what feels like a big chunk of my life to get this project finished, its finally there. I am so relieved I can draw a line under it, and move on to noisier and tastier ventures!

‘A Very New Everything’ [2013] will be released through Bit-Phalanx, watch this space for more info.

A Very New Everything, teaser

here’s a little sneak peek

design- JamesNathan Illustration

EP out April 2013. Bit-Phalanx.

A Very New Everything – new release 2013.

I have a new release coming out soon through Bit-Phalanx.
It’s going to be available as a free download, and there will also be a handful of hard copies for the physical peeps out there.
Influence on this record from Burial, Nicolas Jaar, Janek Schaefer, and a little bit of Apparat.

New Release, coming soon.

I have just sent off my first track to be mastered today, whilst i’m adding the finishing touches to one of the other tracks.

The new EP is more exciting, current, and fresh (for me) than my last one ever was.  Kayla Painter (2012), seemed like an experiment to me, to see if I could finish some songs, run a launch night, and get my stuff on Spotify.  This project feels very different, it feels like I am releasing something because I have a group of songs that really want to be heard and remixed and enjoyed! Since my last release I have been gradually building a home studio, and I’m now the lucky owner of some grand equipment.

My new home studio set up consists of
KRK Rokit 6 active monitors
iMac
LG monitor
Shure SM58
NI Komplete Audio 6 (soundcard)
DT100 beyerdynamic
EWQL orchestra
Logic Pro 9
Ableton Live 8
NI Komplete 7 (instruments & effects)

It has certainly been an interesting 8 month project, and I’m really excited to push it forward to your ears.  I’d say theres plenty of influence from my favourite musicians, but even more so, Burial, Nicolas Jaar, Steve Reich and Will Wiesenfeld.

A Very New Everything (2013) – Kayla Painter – release date tbc.
sneak peak

New year. New release. and lots of New.

2013 brings lots of exiting new ventures for our ears.
Atoms For Peace’s new record due out in February. Website.

Jamie Lidell also releasing, on February 18th 2013.

David Bowie has just pulled a rabbit out of the hat with his new track.

I am very excited for 2013, having just read an article on Pitchfork about Baths, (one of my favourite chaps in the last few years) and his ventures into a new record. I’m still not remotely bored of his last project Cerulean, I’m still head over heels for the sounds he uses, and Im on the edge of my seat waiting for his next project.
Pitchfork Interview with Baths.

Finally, I should mention I will be getting my newest project out there as well ( A Very New Everything ) .  I haven’t finalised a date for this yet, but I have the tracks, they have their order, they are awaiting the finishing touches, and the artwork to be completed.
A Very New Everything will be available through Bit-Phalanx net label as a download.
Here is a snippit from one of the tracks.

Happy New Year.

New track, Remix of ‘Time’ by Chase and Status Feat. Delilah.

For the past week I’ve wanted to start something new and fresh to blast out any cobwebs.  I started to make a tune and realised i’d written the same melody as the Chase and Status track ‘Time’ feat. Delilah.  As i’d written this unintentionally I decided it might be a good idea to just work with the tune and remix the melody rather than work against it, when it was clearly coming out of me anyway.

So I just made a throw away version of it myself.  After i’d finished the track, I went looking to see what other remix’s had been done, and I saw that there was a remix competition for this track a while ago.  So there are plenty out there, but here’s mine.

I used Logic to make this track. I used the EXS24 a lot in this one, as well as a Ultrabeat and the vocals from the original track.

Original Track:

Mastering my EP

Today I went up to Caerleon, South Wales, to master my EP.  The end is so near I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  After several hours in a dark control room I have emerged with a four track EP. My EP is going to be available through Spotify, Itunes, and Amazon. The order is set. The music is set. There will be a limited number of physical copies of my EP for sale at the launch party.

Studio 2, University of Wales, Newport.