Clarks most recent and self-titled album is a really interesting piece of work that manages to blend both alternative soundscapes iconic of the Warp label with the drive of dance floor beats.
Unfurla is just one of the many great tracks on the album and can be heard below:
This week was an attempt to learn my way around my current modular build. The base of this was built around the OP1 with a few samples Choirs I have recorded. I then layered the sounds from my modular into the rest of the track:
The latest album by Caribou is fantastic and I will write about it in great detail later in the year. He’s managed to develop a unique sound that merges ideas from different forms of electronic music into something that feels mainstream with an alternative/experimental edge.
Back Home manages to blend an all out dance track with the kind of grandeur you would expect to hear in a John Barry, James bond title piece.
This week I had more time to work within the studio and on my computer. It’s a rare occurrence I haven’t used the OP1 instead favouring ableton live with FM8 to create most of the synth stuff. The track also heavily features the field recording samples I have taken throughout the past few years:
I’m slowly getting through albums of the year and this track really stood out.
It starts with a stripped down instrumentation which gives room for the vocals to breathe before something more rambunctious breaks out towards the tracks conclusion:
This Weeks track was Made on the OP1 and Ableton Live with Processing. Mostly in my car as I have been waiting for work. The background of the track features field recordings of crowds which i have been collating over a few years:
Summer is Here:
I have collated weeks 27 to 39 of my weeklybeats music along with a few extras into a bandcamp album you can listen to it below or feel free to pay what you like for it and download the whole thing.
This week’s track was made around a busy weekend of drinking and eating next to bonfires. I started the week on the OP1, designing a collection of drum patterns at 130bpm. The samples were then added to ableton live where I used them as the building blocks of the track adding instrumentation from software by Ableton, Izotope and Native Instruments:
I’ve been trying to catch up with allot of music recently and with the mercury music prize awards finishing last week i thought it would be a perfect time to revisit the albums from their shortlist and listen to the ones i hadn’t heard yet.
Anna Calvi’s album One Breath was one I had missed untill now and I’m throughly impressed by the whole thing. The arrangements included within it’s 11 tracks are wonderful. instrumentation is always additive to the experience without ever feeling over produced especially in the string sections which manage to provide some sweet contrast to some of the albums harder elements without feeling tacked on as they do in many alt-rock/indy albums.
Suddenly is the starting track and kicks the whole thing off with a beautiful use of dynamics and attention to detail that is seen throughout:
All instrumentation for this track and drums were made on the OP1 and imported into ableton live for mixing and processing.
I had some more time to work on the arrangement in ableton which includend some more work glitching up the drums adding effects, panning, compression and EQ to the mix: