Sketches

ENFIN

Just The Two Of Us

‘B.Miles is set to turn heads with her angelic voice’– Earmilk

With previous singles ‘Nine Matches’ and ‘Shaking Hands’ both charting high on the Hype Machine, dark pop artist B. Miles returns with her new single, ‘Salt’, on 24th August.

Brimming with bluesy riffs and percussive clicks, bathed in her signature soulful vocals, ‘Salt’ - which was co-written with Eric Nizgretsky of indie rock group Loose Buttons - is as lyrically evocative as it is melodically sublime.

The Los Angeles native says of her new track: “When we were recording "Salt" in New York City, I began getting really homesick for L.A., and as a result, I really wanted this song to remind me of home. On top of that, I had these second degree burns all over my arms and hands at the time. Lyrically, I just imagined salt being poured into the wounds.”

An artist whose talents have already been praised by the likes of Earmilk, Hilly Dilly and Q Magazine, and prompted comparisons to London Grammar and Banks, B. Miles first crafted her songwriting in Miami, aiming to capture ‘the essence of melancholy and yearning, while finding beauty in the sadness and pain that all of us carry inside’.

Partnered with the atmospheric electronics of production duo Noise Club, best known for their work with Wild Belle and the Spin Magazine-approved Quigley, this young act has now developed a powerful sound that honours a pop aesthetic whilst retaining a bold originality.  

‘Salt’ will feature alongside her previous two previous singles on her forthcoming EP ‘twenty fifteen’, which is set to hit all digital stores soon. With a growing host of admirers, B. Miles as a true ‘one to watch’ this year.


Spotify

Salt

"With my sketch I started off with a classic drum kit, Standard 909. I then added a Reaktor synth from the Carbon 2 library called 3step908 and began layering melodies on top of it like a collage. From Reaktor, I then added from the 2-Osc library ARPBRI~1. Proceeding to FM8, I made a few customisations to the Subbaba bass synth to make it smoother and accompany the thin strings. The classic 909 drum kit needed a sister, so I added a the Studio Gong preset kit from Battery. Lastly, I added a brass melody from the old Reaktor library." - Angel-Ho

KOMPLETE 11 Instruments and Effects used: REAKTOR 6, KONTAKT 5, FM8, BATTERY 4

For more visit www.native-instruments.com/kompletesketches

Sketches 005 - Angel-Ho

"First I laid down the kick drums using Polyplex. When I'm trying to get a sketch down quickly I'll go straight a preset that I like and then modify it a little and replace some samples with my own. Next, I added the Session Strings layers and used the pitch control on the keyboard to create that ebbing effect and automated the reverb so that it would open up gradually throughout the 30 seconds. The track begins with just violin, but cello and double bass are introduced as the loop gets more intense. I used Razor to create the pulsing bass throughout and automated the bandpass cutoff to give it some movement. Lastly, I put the Driver on the strings group and gradually brought the effect in." - WIFE

KOMPLETE 11 Instruments and Effects used: POLYPLEX, SESSION STRINGS, RAZOR, DRIVER

For more visit www.native-instruments.com/kompletesketches

Sketches 004 - WIFE

"I wanted to keep a pure signal from each part to allow for space. A kind of serene, altered state of consciousness. To effect the vox I used the Solid Dynamics EQ, Replika and the convolution reverb Reflektor. Both Replika and Reflektor are awesome on vocals - airy and never aggressive or metallic. The synth comes from Reaktor Prism. It has a huge identity and can define a track on its own. I effected it with Solid Dynamics EQ.

I used three bass sounds. The first from Kinetic Metal - I love the whole kit. It's deep, industrial, texturized and spacey. The second was Massive - I've been using it for a while now. The third bass comes from Reaktor 6's Lazerbass which is really rewarding with very few tweaks – it's sharp and always evolving. I combined it with the Enhanced EQ. The drums are from Battery and Action Strikes with effects from Replika and Driver." - Aïsha Devi

KOMPLETE 11 Instruments and Effects used: SOLID DYNAMICS, REPLIKA, REFLEKTOR, REAKTOR PRISM, KINETIC METAL, MASSIVE, REAKTOR 6, ENHANCED EQ, BATTERY 4, ACTION STRIKES, DAMAGE, DRIVER

For more visit www.native-instruments.com/kompletesketches

Sketches 003 - Aïsha Devi

"I made this sketch using a selection of presets in Massive: 1991, Astral Saw, and Slightly 5th. Some are quite bassy whilst others are more focused in the top end, with a kind of ethereal pad-like sound. The idea was to create a piece with lots of space in it by utilizing a wide frequency range, emphasized further by track panning. For each synth sound I adjusted the filters in Massive. By adjusting the cutoff and resonance, you can create nuanced changes in the sound and feel which helps to give a fluid, ever-shifting character to the music.

To make the whole piece sound together and even 'bigger', I added the built-in reverb to each Massive synth, then I worked on the track panning. The low bassline synth is panned to centre, and each layer of sound above that is panned wider as it gets higher, with the highest sounds panned hard to the right and left." - Throwing Shade

KOMPLETE 11 Instruments and Effects used: MASSIVE

For more visit www.native-instruments.com/kompletesketches

Sketches 002 - Throwing Shade

"In this track I focused on percussion. I used several percussion sections of Komplete Ultimate, which consisted of West Africa, Cuba, and India. I decided to use timbales from the Cuba pack because the sound slaps so hard. Impact is everything to me but knowing what to do with that impact means so much more. The different versions of the djembe in the West Africa pack are amazing. I decided to use djembe 1 and 3, as they were the two that gave me chills. I enjoy making up my own sequences and what better way to do than to do that using India. The entire India pack gives you so much room to be flexible." - Jlin

KOMPLETE 11 Instruments and Effects used: WEST AFRICA, CUBA, INDIA

For more visit www.native-instruments.com/kompletesketches

Sketches 001 - Jlin

Running
B.Miles
2017

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www.facebook.com/B.Miles.Official
www.twitter.com/brenna_miles

Written with Eric Nizgretsky
Produced by Noise Club
Mastered by Brian Lucey @ Magic Garden Mastering

Contact: eric@mooncrawlmgmt.com

Running

Sketches 050 - Cadenza

With his cyberpunk assemblages drawing on sounds from across time and space, Howie Lee represents the cutting-edge of China’s blossoming electronic music scene. The co-founder of Do Hits, a Beijing-based party and record label, he has pioneered a new musical language, fusing folk traditions with experimental soundscapes and the global language of trap, bass, and techno.

His most recent album, 2019’s Tiān Dì Bù Rén, combined Chinese instruments like the erhu and rawap with an array of global sounds – glockenspiel, flamenco guitar, Auto-Tuned vocals – to confront ideas of nationalism, capitalism and ecological destruction. During spells in London and Taipei, he has also completed an MA in sound art, created an audiovisual show with Taiwanese 3D animator Teom Chen, and added to his conceptual album series, Socialism Core Value.

Howie Lee’s NI Sketch captures his playful “Made In China” aesthetic in just a few gestures. Opening with a melody line recorded on his rawap, a long-necked Chinese string instrument, it’s a dense collage of globally sourced sounds. As a heavy rhythm takes shape, elements of African and Indian percussion become knotted together in unexpected ways.

Sketches 053 - Howie Lee

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