Buy on Bandcamp

Smash And Grab

Hard to sum this one up. This track took the good part of an entire year to complete — I sketched it out first in early January. Five recording sessions, two mix sessions, split across two studios. 

Amazing drum performance yet again from the imitable Michael Hardy (KIKO SMOKES, KIM CHURCHILL) and the track hangs together atop lush synths and keys from Glenn Sarangapany (BIRDS OF TOKYO.) 

Stick around 'till the end.

---

Composition, Arrangement, Vocals, Moog Voyager, Production, Drum Programming: Christopher Giffard
Keys, OB6, Juno, Production: Glenn Sarangapany
Drums, Bass: Michael Hardy
Synths Recorded at Electric Sheep Music Sydney (Glenn Sarangapany)
Vocals, Drums, Keys, and Bass Recorded at A Sharp Recording Studio Sydney
Engineered and Produced by Nathan Sheehy at A Sharp Recording Studio Sydney
Mastered by Richard Lake at A Sharp Recording Studio Sydney
Cover Design: anaismiYASOKO

Talk To Me

While everybody else hacked on code at Decompress 2014, I wrote this track.

Skeptical

Built this track entirely in Maschine over the course of about three days. It has a scratch vocal in there, but I'm not sure whether I can be bothered replacing it yet. After all, I don't own a microphone (this had me hunched over the left speaker grille on my laptop trying to get something decent.)

Thanks so much to @oneiro-music who took the time to listen and give me loads of helpful feedback. :)

——————

Down on luck
far away
in an airport parking bay

Down on love
heart betrayed
sixteen years—the city's changed

Down on time
plane delayed
reflections of the life we'd played

Down below
golden trees
Fragrant air and heady breeze

(Aah, aaah, aaaah, aaahck *coughcough* aaah)

————

Trivia: most of the 'dubstep' beat is made from samples of me hitting things with teaspoons.
Other Trivia: My computer can't run this without stuttering horribly, so I kept having to bounce new versions in order to audition it. I need a new computer. :'(

Down on luck

It's arguably not a Berlin School Sequence, but it started as one.

Berlin School Sequence

Another attempt at a kinda trance-ish sound with Maschine.

I probably shoulda quantised the piano and cleaned it up but I got pissed off and decided to do something else instead.

Fucking around with Maschine again. This thing just keeps on giving.

Remix on Blend.io

Arbor

DnB tempo track that ended up mostly half-time, and therefore not DnB.

You Know You

Nice and metallic. (All shiny and chrome.)

Remix on Blend.io: https://blend.io/cgiffard/robot

Robot

Mucking around with synthesisers.

(Here's me improvising a bit of the lead from this track. http://vimeo.com/139782050)

On The Run

Accidental techno-ish remix of Kenji Kawai's Making Of A Cyborg using analogue synths.

Image ungratefully stolen from Project 2501: http://www.gits2501.com

Ghost Dive

Remix of Chagall's Sappho Song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks19HI3r2yQ)

Will be posting the project on blend shortly for your perusal.

Chagall — Sappho Song (Christopher Giffard's Delinquent Robot DnB Mix)

Calm The Fuck Down And Think It Through

My dubsteppy, garagey, gated snare-ish remix of Getsumen Hikou's Neko Kan no Uta (猫缶のうた — lit. "Cat can song".) Kyo from Getsumen Hikou was extremely gracious to provide me with the original stems, so I didn't have to do a bootleg. Super cool!

You can buy the original release here: https://getsumenhikou.bandcamp.com/track/--9

I spent a whole bunch of time trying to master this properly in Logic, paying attention to loudness and delicate stem EQing and being generally anal, but when it came down to it, my mastered version didn't sound as good or as punchy as the version straight out of Maschine, so I admitted defeat and just uploaded the Maschine version which is crunched pretty hard (sounds good to me, but will give some loudness-sensitive people the shits. Sorry about that.)

I wish I could've done more with it but my computer literally won't run the track any more. Every time I make a small change I have to bounce the whole thing just to hear it (for all its good points, Maschine doesn't make bounce-in-place easy.)

[Kyo pointed out that the titular 'can' can be thought of either as a cat food can, or a can containing actual cats — which, presumably can be opened whenever you're feeling sad and need a cuddle.]

-------
猫缶 
Cat can
ふしぎなひびき 
Mysterious sound

猫缶 
Cat can
ねこのかんづめ 
Canned food for cats [or canned cats!]

ふたを開けたら 
If I open the lid
つぶらな瞳 
[I'm greeted with] Round eyes
長いしっぽであいさつをする 
And a long tail

たくさん開けたら 
If I opened a lot [of cans]
猫まみれになっちゃうから 
I'd become totally covered in cat[s]
一日ひとつ 
So just one per day

すばらしきもの 
It's a wonderful thing
それは猫缶 
That cat can
さみしいときには 
In the lonely times
猫缶あけよう 
We'll open the/a cat can

猫缶 
Cat can
ふしぎなひびき 
[it has a] mysterious sound

猫缶 
Cat can
ねこのかんづめ 
Canned food for cats [or canned cats!]

ふたを開けたら 
If I open the lid
つんつんおひげ 
[I'm greeted with] pointed whiskers
ぷにっとおててであいさつをする 
And a chubby little paw

たくさん開けたら 
If I opened a lot [of cans]
ねこ王国ができちゃうから 
This would become a kingdom of cats
一日ひとつ 
So just one per day

すばらしきもの 
It's a wonderful thing
それは猫缶 
That cat can
うれしいときにも 
In the happy times
猫缶あけよう 
We'll open the cat can

なんてね
(Just kidding)

猫缶のうた(Christopher Giffard's Kitchen Floor Disturbance Mix)

A fusion jazz waltz at D&B tempo featuring blues improvisation from Glenn Sarangapany (Birds of Tokyo, Kiko Smokes) and a menacing drum performance from Michael Hardy (Kiko Smokes) — both of whom contributed immensely to the track and I couldn't have done it without them. The working title was Smash and Grab and it just stuck.

Release January 3, 2017 

Christopher Giffard — Original composition, arrangement, programming and additional keys 
Michael Hardy — Drums 
Glenn Sarangapany — Keys 
Recorded at A Sharp Recording Studio Sydney 
Engineered and Produced by Nathan Sheehy at A Sharp Recording Studio Sydney 
Mastered by Richard Lake at A Sharp Recording Studio Sydney

Smash and Grab

Buy at Bandcamp

Smash And Grab [Release 3rd Jan]

The original started life as a DnB track, and ended up a Jazz-fusion waltz: it has now come full-circle.

Smash And Grab (DnB Reinterpretation)

Picture: Billennium Waves (2014) / Tang Nannan 汤南南

Mutual Terror

Untitled

Hard to sum this one up. This track took the good part of an entire year to complete — I sketched it out first in early January. Five recording sessions, two mix sessions, split across two studios.

Amazing drum performance yet again from the imitable Michael Hardy (KIKO SMOKES, KIM CHURCHILL) and the track hangs together atop lush synths and keys from Glenn Sarangapany (BIRDS OF TOKYO.)

Stick around 'till the end.

---

Composition, Arrangement, Vocals, Moog Voyager, Production, Drum Programming: Christopher Giffard
Keys, OB6, Juno, Production: Glenn Sarangapany
Drums, Bass: Michael Hardy
Synths Recorded at Electric Sheep Music Sydney (Glenn Sarangapany)
Vocals, Drums, Keys, and Bass Recorded at A Sharp Recording Studio Sydney
Engineered and Produced by Nathan Sheehy at A Sharp Recording Studio Sydney
Mastered by Richard Lake at A Sharp Recording Studio Sydney
Cover Design: anaismiYASOKO

Talk to Me (Instrumental)

Talk to Me

‘Talk To Me’ will be in Digital Stores on March the 23rd.

cgiffard.com
christophergiffard.bandcamp.com
twitter.com/cgiffard

CHRISTOPHER GIFFARD - Talk To Me

It Wasn't Easy

Arabic Lessons

Just had to get something out to break the dry spell.

A Tribe Called Quest — 1nce Again (Christopher's Weekend Bootleg)

Just some idiot completely unqualified for beatmaking.

You can remix my shit at blend.io/cgiffard.

cgiffard

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