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

6.)
Monochrome is the most recently started track on the album, I only got to it on the 14th November 2020, although zak1 had been working on it before then. Because of this, it is one of the most clean in terms of production - I was a much better producer in  November than I was in May. It also stands out in style, being much more Trap/RnB than the other tracks. zak1 is a long-time producer friend of mine, we've been rating eachother's beats since 2015, so I knew I wanted to have a track with him in the album. At first I produced Scared Complacent (at that time called Manufactured Complacency) in June to start a collab with him, but he had trouble working with that idea and was busy at the time anyway, so I put the idea on hold. Later, in November I asked him to send me his whole unreleased beat catalog to see if there was anything I could work with on a collab, and this one beat in particular really appealed to me. Within the next 3 days I had written all of the lyrics, and I got them recorded in the December studio session. I also added the guitar and did some production/mixing work on it, but all of the other audio on this track was produced by zak1 earlier in 2020. The lyrics are about another old relationship of mine, and it's gradual decline into something stale and uncomfortable. 

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06. Monochrome (w/ zak1)

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

15.)
Mindrider was originally produced at the same time as Monolith, 26th October 2020, and I built it around the vocal harmonies I had recorded for Hello World, which is why the tracks fit together harmonically. For production here, I went for a lo-fi hip hop paired with indie vibe, and the track feels more casual than many of the others. I mixed and mastered it messy on purpose and left a long noise tail to finish the album. It is one of the most catchy tracks however, and ended up sounding much better than I expected given that it was really only a one day project, and that I came up with all the lyrics the night before my December studio session.

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15. Mindrider

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. 


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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.

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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"

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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

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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.

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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 

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01. Architecture

Nofen - Thank You (Remix)

20 year old producer, singer/songwriter, etc.
i make psychadelic electronic pop mostly, but a bit of all sorts as well

Refractor

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