Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/scared-complacent

13.)
Scared Complacent (Originally Manufactured Complacency, although I think the new name works much better) runs on from Let It Happen in its themes of anxiety and complacency, but with a more uplifting outlook during the main section. Originally meant to be a collab with zak1, the beat started life on the 4th June 2020, but I only wrote the ending section much later, in November. I think that the ending section really helps to round the track off structurally, and makes it one of the longest and most interesting tracks on the album. It stands out in a number of ways, it uses live electronic drum kit during the middle section, whereas all the other drums on the album are sequenced or sampled. Its 3/4 time signature also makes it stand out, and the fact that I strained my voice a lot during it, in a way the ending section in particular felt like a sort of vocal challenge for me. The intro in particular was quite inspired by the production style of Galimatias, one of my favourite producers. 

- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

13. Scared Complacent

Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/monolith

12.)
Monolith is a beat I produced on 25th October, during this week I was making many beats for practice, (Mindrider is also from this time). I like the 5 part time signature, this and Mindbloom were the only times I got to use it, although Dichroic and Scared Complacent also have non standard time signatures. 


- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

12. Monolith

Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/let-it-happen

11.)
Let It Happen was one of the first beats I started work on over lockdown, it began life on the 2nd April 2020 as an instrumental originally meant for Nofen, but he didn't really fit on it so well, so I shelved it until October. During this time I felt it was one of the weakest tracks on the album, and thought about cutting it, but in October I managed to really improve the production and write new lyrics (originally I was only working with the chorus lyrics), and once I got good vocals recorded in the studio it became as good as any other track on the album. The vocals are aggressive, for my music, and are meant to capture a crushing feeling of anxiety, and just letting things happen even though you have the power to stop them.

- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

11. Let It Happen

Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/change

10.)
Change started out on 23rd August 2020, although for a while it was really only a basic beat built around the main synth line in the chorus because I thought it sounded cool and wanted to build a track around it. Later, around November, I expanded on the structure and wrote the chorus and a rap bridge section and then brought that to the December studio session. Quickly afterwards though, I dropped the rap section because it sounded pretty bad. I produced it as a mostly instrumental beat until 10th December, when I played the track to Nofen for feedback and he had the idea of adding 2 verses of his, which he wrote and I mixed in within the next week. This is also when the track became named Change, before that, the working name was "Knights"

- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

10. Change (w/ Nofen)

Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/digital-sinner-mind

9.)
Digital Sinner Mind is a track that I started over lockdown. Unusually for me, I started with the lyrical/structural writing rather than the production aspect, starting on the 23rd May 2020, but only starting production on the 29th June. The concept for this track is that I have a "digital sinner mind" for being addicted to a phone screen instead of working on music, which definitely felt like the case from March to August while I lived at home with my parents. I took heavy inspiration for the production from Medasin, specifically his remix of Feel it Still. Along with Mindbloom, I felt that this was the track with the most solid, polished production in January 2021, so this was the second track that I finished stem mixing on.

- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

09. Digital Sinner Mind

Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/dichroic

8.)
Dichroic is by far the oldest track on the album. It started life as one of 8 production streams I did in late 2019, this one on the 17th October. All 8 of these tracks including a very old instrumental version of Dichroic are available at ETAOI - lofidreams3 on Soundcloud. After the stream I didn't really touch this track until September 2020, which is when I wrote the lyrics and cleaned up the production. Dichroic stands out to me as sounding much more like an earlier production style of mine, so I'm not such a fan of the production of this one, and the lyrics are a bit weak and last minute, but compositionally I think it was one of the best, that's why I included it in the album over any of the other production stream beats. 

- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

08. Dichroic

Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/offshoot

7.)
Offshoot was at first just a beat I made for fun on the 9th November 2020, but a couple of weeks later, after figuring out the structure for Monochrome, I realised that by coincidence it was in the same key. So I added the guitar riff from Monochrome onto it and produced it as a run-on track, then i shelved it until stem-mixing in January

- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

07. Offshoot

Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/soon

5.)
Soon stands out as the most uplifting track on the album, both in lyrical content and harmonic. In the future I would like to 
depart from writing such depressing, over-abstract songs, so Soon is a step in the right direction. It started life as an instrumental 
on the 15th May 2020 during a marathon production session during which I made a lot of other beats as well, including Hello World
and 2 that never made it to release. At this stage it was only really an 8 bar loop with guitar: that ended up becoming the chorus.
In June I wrote the lyrics for the chorus, and these included a whistle part, which I had to take out much later, because as hard
as I tried, I couldn't really whistle in tune during either of the recording sessions. I added in the verses around August, but
struggled to finish out the structure, since the track was too short and ended abruptly. In November I came up with the idea
of a long guitar solo, which filled out the track perfectly. Mixing-wise I was very happy with this track in the end, because
I managed to get a nice analog vibe. The guitar tone in the chorus was nice and wide : I did this by recording the same riff on both mine 
and my friend Kashmir's guitar and double tracking the result.

- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

05. Soon

Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/anomie-so-am-i

3.)
Anomie started out on 9th March 2020 as a project for a university composition assignment due in April. At that stage there was no rap section, barebones vocals and an extra chorus, but because I had that deadline to work with, Anomie was the most structurally developed track early on, with the exception of Dichroic, but after the deadline I shelved it until August, which is where I made the structure changes. Afterwards I shelved it again until my studio session in October, which is when the track really came to life due to much better vocals. The song deals with themes of social outcasting and the feeling of being trapped in my dorm during that year, and wanting to escape somehow. I believe this to be the most catchy track on the album during it's choruses, but there is also some heavy production technique during the middle section. I took inspiration from Chrome Sparks for the old tape sounding drums. Overall I'm pretty happy about this one. 

- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

03. Anomie (So Am I)

Listen to this release in other places at https://songwhip.com/refractor/architecture

1.)
Architecture was originally a short (~10s) synth intro to Mindbloom which I removed around April 2020 after deciding that it worked better just going straight into the heavy section. On October 11th, I brought back this synth line into it's own project with more elements because I wanted a short instrumental to introduce the album. In a way architecture is meant to not be too complex in order that it doesn't take away form the hard-hitting Mindbloom. The delayed guitar sample at the start runs straight on 

- For more commentaries and high quality downloads, please support me by buying the album at https://refractortunes.bandcamp.com/album/refractor

01. Architecture

Hi, my name is James. I started producing all genre bedroom beats on FL studio for fun when I was 14 and got obsessed with it. I released this stuff under the name ETAOI ( @etaoi-1 )

Over the next 3/4 years I refined my craft and started adding more guitar to my tracks, still releasing lots of stuff on soundcloud regularly. At some point around my 18th birthday I made the decision to go to university for music tech and pursue music/audio as a career.

During my time at uni I expanded my horizons a lot more, taking my craft out of the bedroom and into the studio where I started collaborating, producing and engineering, also learnt to play the drums and bass guitar.

Refractor was my project mid way through university aged 19-20. It was the first time I included studio recorded instruments in my projects and I sang myself on most of the tracks, though it still had a bedroom feel - I was still figuring out how to do a lot of the producing/engineering I can do easily now. They were also the first tracks I put out on Spotify.

Soon after releasing the album I decided to abandon the project and focus on more collaborative projects and securing work coming out of university. 

I'm 23 now and sometimes release music (mostly for fun) on Spotify as James Stickland, so look there or on my Instagram @ jamessticklandmusic for more recent updates. I frequently play gigs in London and Brighton with several bands (mostly as a bassist) and work as a sound engineer at some local venues in London as well as producing and engineering a lot of my friends and collaborators (mostly live instrument based) tunes, so I've really changed direction since this project came out 3 years ago. 

Although, if you like this stuff, I've released and am still working on some new solo electronic stuff which will go on the James Stickland spotify page, so definitely keep an eye out. I also frequently post WIPs, outtakes and all types of random crap on the @mylesmadeofmoneyjohnson and @mylesmadeofmoneyjohnson-2 accounts!

Refractor

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