From 2018 through to 2021, I produced tracks for a client, James Tennant.

When he approached me, James was a successful business-owner and enthusiastic ex-raver who had run club nights in the Birmingham area during the UK’s rave heyday.

He had an ambition to develop some of his rough ideas for house tracks into full-blown, radio-ready arrangements and productions, suitable for commercial release.


Much like a ghost writer, I considered my role as a 'ghost producer’. James would come with ideas in the form of loops, descriptions, and reference tracks, and I would be paid by the week to turn these ideas into concrete realities, doing the heavier-duty production, arrangement, mix, and composition work.

Throughout the process, James would guide the development of the tracks, often making tweaks, removing parts, and giving new instructions. He'd often commission vocals for other freelancers he'd sought out, for whom I'd create briefs and guide-tracks.

The job also required a great deal of organisation - proposals, action lists, and countless tables of data - to keep track of the flood of ideas being passed back and forth.


Each track was built from scratch - ie, all of the parts are original, and not sampled. A great proportion of my efforts went into creating thousands of original bass and piano parts, percussion and vocal arrangements, and set-pieces like breaks and drops.

With that said, a couple of tracks could be described as 'covers’, where James would request a remake of a popular track, normally from the 1990s UK rave era.

For each track that reached the end of this process, I'd prepare a final mix and master, and ready it for commercial release, usually creating Radio, Extended, and Dub versions. 


We were fortunate enough to land three of the tracks in Top-20 positions in the Club charts (#12, #12, #7), with several tracks getting airtime on 50+ UK major and independent radio stations, and we shared other successes along the way.

Over the course of three years, I followed a pattern of working roughly 3-4 days per week for James, which largely sustained me while developing my other projects in the remaining time.

By the end of 2021, I'd created thousands of mixes for him - in this playlist, I've compiled my favourite work from this period. 

All told, James was a client of once-in-a-lifetime quality, and working with him offered me a fantastic experience to grow and develop as a producer, and as a music-maker in general.

Rock The House (Peaked #7 in MusicWeek Club Chart) (2019) - #house #club #dub #piano

Say To Me (2021) - #house #rnb #piano

Celebrate (2020) - #house #electro #high-energy #pop #piano

Daft Vader (2020) - #house #funk #electro #piano

Safe (2021) - #house #rnb #piano

Break Free (2021) - #house #rnb #strings #anthemic #piano

Found Our Way (Peaked #12 in MusicWeek Club Chart) (2020) - #house #jazz #pop #rnb #piano

Somebody Else's Guy (2021) - #garage #bass #pop

Dance With Me (2020) - #garage #pop #contemporary-house #piano

Fool For Your Love (2019) - #house #pop #piano

In 2013, I collaborated with my brother's band, Bombs, to demo up 2 tracks at Miloco Studios in London - 'Crave You' was my brother's song, and 'Ignite' was written by their lead singer, my friend Charlie Fitz. I contributed keys, some vocals, and some production.

Crave You (Kanan Keeney + Bombs Demo Collab) (2013)

Ignite (Kanan Keeney + Bombs Demo Collab) (2013)

In 2015/17, I had the pleasure of working on a pair of my brother Kanan's songs - 'Three To Tango' and 'Redundancy'.

He'd written each song in advance, and I visited him in Bristol to produce and mix demos of his performances of them, contributing secondary vocals, drums, keys, and other instrumentation here and there.

Redundancy (2017)

Three To Tango (2015)

www.bokeeney.com

Produced and Performed by Bo Keeney, except where indicated in the track descriptions.

main page: 
https://soundcloud.com/bokeeney

solo work 2006 - 2016: 
https://soundcloud.com/bokeeney-06to16

bo keeney (collaborations + commissions)

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