Brainwave

Passing Through

Retro-sounding track with influences from Ape Escape 1 soundtrack sprinkled in.

Untitled 170223

I went back in time and asked my toddler self to do some vocals for a track. 

Ok... I found a recording of my brother and I that was originally on a cassette tape (I was between1.5 and 3 years old when the recordings were made). It was fun to go through it! We sang a lot my Mum says. It's not Mother's Day until May in Finland but why not celebrate it twice - in the UK is is Mother's Day today. So this one is dedicated to my Mum 😀 

Also, my toddler self is telling me... you can do this again. 

This song was born quickly in one evening and this is the first Garageband draft version.

Funky Toddler

I've been trying to make Jazz music by electronic means for a while now. It's been pretty hard.

So much about the ethos of Jazz is dependent on the traditional notion of musicianship: a group of people in a room, trading improvised passages. So much of its tradition is shaped by virtuosos. The thing is, even though I play 'real' instruments, I don't play them well enough and also (and this might be strange to admit) I don't even like playing them that much. I started playing the saxophone when I was 15 and then went for 20 years without playing, I got back into it last year, but I don't really enjoy the process. So I sold it. Now I have a clarinet (because it's quieter, cheaper and sweeter), but I also got a wind synth.

Yeah, the wind synth is not the same, but it's close enough for what I want, it allows me to literally breath some emotion into what I play without it being loud or overly hard to intonate and I have a lot more fun this way. This track features me playing the wind synth.

But another part of Jazz is the collaboration. So I invited the amazing producer and guitarist @ubo-music to contribute some jazz guitar improvisation and that changed everything. It brought a totally new life to the piece.

Overall, the process was: write a very repetitive pattern for the keys and the bass, then use that to play the virtual sax. I sent that to ubo, who send back this guitar part. Based on his part, I then re-recorded a big chunk of the sax parts. After that, I went back and played the keys again to add flourishes and variations, same for the bass. For the drums, I used Superior Drummer and made a bit of a collage of midi parts (I love doing this, it's like sampling, but for midi.)

In the end, even though nobody played together, I hope it still feels organic and if it does, it's because we did collaborate and traded passages, only they didn't happen in realtime.

Honestly, it's strange calling it Jazz. I have so much respect for the roots and traditions of the genre, but it has also evolved so much since the early days in New Orleans that I think I'm entitled, just like everybody else, to bastardize it in whatever way I see fit.

Jazz III (feat. ubo)

First new song in many many months, very rough mix.

Cold: Within the Dark

Briareus ~ Within the Dark [Rough Mix]

made in Reason.      
 all instruments are Objekt

Kert OB #ObjektChallenge

2023-06-23

Empty Tents In Snowy Landscape

Eyes On Lights

Dont Ever Fade Away

Finita

"When knowledge is right there, 
  we don't even look" 
KRS-ONE

Brainwave

Jvox