Discovery - January 27th - August 2nd, 2021

Discovery is my first full length album since 2017, and was written and produced in the midst of the worst pandemic of the modern era, and the mentally arduous lockdowns that occurred as a result. When I began this project, it had nearly been one year since I'd been further than 10 km from my home. Throughout my time stuck indoors, with my motivation at an all-time low and my life on hold, I ended up spending a lot of time daydreaming of the simpler and happier days in the before times. I decided to try and channel these memories into an album, which could transport the listener into the places and moments I'd been fantasizing about, through music. However, what began as a fairly simple concept eventually grew increasingly more emotive and personal as time went on. Discovery became more and more about my own personal developments, and how I rose to the occasion to tackle them head on, learning more and more about myself as I progressed. The album began to transform into a diary of sorts, becoming a source of comfort and stability throughout one of the most tumultuous periods of my life. Over the course of making this album, I dealt with an upheaval of my daily routine, an uncertain future, a full perspective change regarding my place in this world and in the lives of others, relationship dissolutions, family turbulence, friendship upheavals, and the loss of not only my most cherished musicians and musical influences, but the heartbreakingly sudden loss of two of the most formative and loved people to have ever graced my life. This album is a true testament to the determination, strength and bravery I have developed over the time of its creation. I genuinely couldn't be more proud of myself, and I'm incredibly grateful for living in what is probably the most content period of my life thus far.





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Discovery

Adieu is one of the most spontaneous tracks I've ever produced, being completed over the course of an afternoon and being basically fully completed after only one demo track. The song represents not only the beginning of the end, but also the start of a whole new chapter, and the optimism and excitement which comes with it. The song represents a freedom and a comfort resulting from my acceptance into a much anticipated masters programme in Sweden, which will allow me to pick up where I left off, and continue working towards my dreams and goals. I see it as a triumph over struggle and hardship, and the harbinger of a fresh new era in my life.

Adieu contains a sample from "The War Song" by Tatsuro Yamashita.

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Adieu

Enoshima was written over the course of 2 days, during a moment of incredible clarity and personal enlightenment. The song came on the heels of a long period of no motivation and an intense feeling of emptiness and listlessness. I felt lost and hopeless, and wasn't sure of the direction life was going to take me. Over the course of a week, I experienced an overwhelming sense of achievement and personal pride, and realised I was finally beginning to untangle the more intrusive thoughts and bad mental habits I'd accrued over the years. The song is named after Enoshima, a seaside town a reasonable distance from Tokyo, where I had experienced a similar (though less profound) feeling of enlightenment and positivity over the course of my time living in Japan.

Enoshima contains a sample from "Last Coin" by Naoki Watanabe.


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Enoshima

Dogenzaka was written and produced over a 2-week period in May 2021. Over the course of its production, my beloved grandmother sadly passed away after a short battle with cancer.

Initially, I had intended Dogenzaka to be a contrasting and melancholic companion to the more "Idol Life" that preceded it. I named it after the Dogenzaka area of downtown Shibuya in Tokyo, an area I was 
tangentially familiar with, and where all of my female Japanese friends steered very clear of. The region is often nicknamed "love hotel hill", and often associated with the exploitation of some of Tokyo's most vulnerable young women. In my mind, the area became a hill of broken dreams, something I began linking to the seemingly never-ending cycle of the Japanese idol industry, churning through young girls and disposing of them when they were past their sell-by date.

After the death of my grandmother, the sadness and grief I felt further fuelled the core concept of the song, a song I'm incredibly proud of but cried multiple times over its creation.

Dogenzaka contains samples from "さよならセンチメンタル" by Yumeko Kitaoka, "Angel of Love" by MISA, Emiko Furakawa & Mie Shimizu, and an extract from an Instagram live by AKB-48 idol Ishizuka Akari.


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Dogenzaka

I've been interested in the more human aspects of the Japanese idol scene for a long while now, with Satoshi Kon's profound and heartbreaking Perfect Blue being easily one of my favourite films. I felt compelled to write two songs centred around Japanese idols and the elusive culture that surrounds them, one more upbeat and the other much more melancholic. Idol Life was one of the first songs I'd written for the album, and allowed me to plot the mood of the entire piece from a very early point in its creation. I wanted to make something upbeat, but that hinted at a potential unsightly undertone, which only becomes apparent after the curtains are pulled back.

Idol Life contains samples from "Lazy Dance" by Yoko Oginome, and an interview with Momoe Yamaguchi from the TV series "Star Tanjō!".

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Idol Life

The announcement of Daft Punk's split in February 2021 couldn't have come at a worse time for me. I had only recently left a relationship, and just got word that a family member was gravely ill, unlikely to recover. I'd always felt a strong connection to, not only the music or visuals, but the members. Their story and humble nature inspired me, and their music had lifted me out of many a deep depression. I had previously played around with several names for the album, and my vision for what it was going to become still hadn't fully came together, though I feel the breakup had a profound effect on my motivation and the vibe I wanted to convey. I had sampled Daft Punk's music before, but decided I wanted to go a bit deeper, working their own music in a way that they did to forgotten funk and soul records of the 70s and 80s. I felt it would be an appropriate tribute, and it allowed me to weave even more elements of their music and ambience throughout the album.

Darlin' contains samples from "Face to Face", "Get Lucky" and "On/Off", by Daft Punk.

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Darlin'

As Discover neared completion, I felt the album was missing a key link between the two very different vibes and emotions portrayed throughout it. I had in my mind what the album needed, but had no real way of achieving it, until a sample fell straight into my lap. Using machine learning, I was able to strip the song down to its core instrumentals, and create an almost palate cleansing interlude, which allows the listener to unwind and more easily transition into the second half. The song is named after Kasai Seaside Park in Tokyo Bay, an area which made me feel a profound sense of calm and ease any time I've ever visited there.

Kasai contains a sample from "Mr Cool" by Amy.

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Kasai

I adore albums which have songs with runons to the next track, which is something I implemented throughout Discovery. Downtown Wednesdays makes up a trio of songs right at the core of the album, acting as a bridge between the album's more upbeat beginning and melancholic end. I wanted to evoke the feeling of wandering lost through the streets of Tokyo at night, something I found myself doing countless times over my year there. Its title is also a not so subtle reference to one of the TV shows that kept me sane during the lockdown, and allowed to me reconnect and reimmerse myself with my time in the east.

Downtown Wednesdays contains samples from "Explosion" by I.C Bell, and a segment from the TV series "Wednesday's Downtown".

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Downtown Wednesdays

Minato Beats is one of the more experimental tracks on the album, and marks a forte into inspirations from different genres of music. During the lockdown, I became deeply interested in early house and hip-hop tracks and song structures, doing a lot of research into the history of the two genres. Through the Daft Punk remix of Ian Pooley's "Chord Memory", I found a vocal sample from that era which really stood out to me, and decided to experiment with combining elements of early house and Japanese city pop, two musical genres which were flourishing at the same time in two completely opposite parts of the world.

Minato Beats contains samples from "Dear Breeze" by Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega Tribe, "Set It Off" by Big Daddy Kane and "Jump" by Kris Kross.



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Minato Beats

Although every song on Discovery corresponds to a distinctive area of Tokyo, AKB-K represents one of the clearest musical interpretations of a location or vibe I've ever created. The song's name is a pun on "Akiba-Kei", a term used to describe the distinctive culture and themes of the Akihabara region of central Tokyo, an area I spent a lot of time in and am incredibly fond of. The song harks back to the countless hours I spent hanging around the Electric Town Exit of Akihabara Station, soaking in the atmosphere and feeling the energy of the area. This is also where I spent my first and last evenings on my most recent trip to Tokyo in 2020, just weeks before the pandemic strengthened its grip.

AKB-K contains a sample from "Caribbean Blue" by Hiroko Moriguchi.

AKB-K

Takeshita was among the longest songs on the record to finish, owing primarily to an uncertainty over what direction to take it. I had the idea early on in its creation to pay homage to the eclectic and infamous Takeshita Street 
in Tokyo's Harajuku disctrict, and worked the sample into a more traditional house song early on. Midway through its production, with a number of demos under my belt, I decided to completely scrap the song and start right from the beginning, chopping the sample up more finely and playing around with the arrangement. I came up with the bassline live and played it along to one of the later demos, realising that the song I'd created was a much better representation of the area and vibe I was trying to emulate.

Takeshita contains a sample from "I'm in Love" by Tomoko Aran.

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Takeshita

When writing Discovery, I had the idea to make the album occur over the course of an imaginary evening in Tokyo. Welcome to the Weekend was inspired in part by Daft Punk's "Give Life Back to Music", the opener to the pair's seminal final album "Random Access Memories". As I wrote the song, I pictured an early evening house party just as the sun sets, a painful far cry from being under one of Europe's strictest lockdowns. This song is also my first instance of using machine learning to remove the vocals from a track, a technique I utilised at various other points throughout the album.

Welcome to the Weekend contains samples from "Fake Love" by Summer Dream and a segment of "New Plague Just Dropped Billions Of Insects Hatching Soon!" from the YouTube channel Internet Today.


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Welcome to the Weekend

I spent more than 2 months trying to figure out how to open this album, trawling through samples and trying to cultivate a vibe that I felt was appropriate. When I first started compiling Discovery, I was in a completely different mindset to where I was when I finished; I was upbeat, enthusiastic and hopeful for what tomorrow would bring. Although my outlook on life and the future has since improved, there was a large period of time in the middle of the album's creation where I had hit rock bottom and experiences several losses. I decided to keep the opening tracks on the album, and work on transforming it into a more comprehensive overview of my time over the past few months, whilst still maintaining that twinge of nostalgia which inspired me in the first place.

Hajime contains samples from "Hollywood Illusion" by Himiko Kikuchi, "A Hope from Sad Street" by Anri, and a segment from the TV series "Susunu! Denpa Shōnen".


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Hajime

Irish future funk and dance musician.
Heavily inspired by the forefathers of modern dance music and the electric eccentricity of Japanese pop culture. Combining classic and smooth old school sounds with retro unique visuals!

Discovery

Yappari!