music, noises and other stuff
featured
Remix: Viltin ft Kitana – “Gyratory”
Apr 30th
UK-based DL40 Records commissioned this electro-flavoured remix from me. It’s by a new artist called Viltin, and features vocals by singer Kitana. You can hear the original version of this song on DL40’s Myspace page.
It’s been an interesting project to work on – Viltin’s a very dynamic character with a strong vision of where his brand is headed; I expect big things from him in the near future.
If the woman in the image looks familiar, it’s because Kitana is an alter-ego of Kimberly Dayle, the singer and live performer. She’s well known for her high end impersonations of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilerra and, more recently, Lady Gaga.
Take a listen.
Remix: Jesta’s “Be Mine”
Mar 29th
Jesta is a talented singer and songwriter based in London, England. I have to say, off the bat, that her personal taste and style is a lot harder than this remix suggests – she’s a big fan of the dirtier, more experimental underground dancefloor beats.
I typically ask my clients to list some tracks that they like in the genre we’ll be producing, but beyond that, I’ve also begun asking for examples of music they listen to recreationally, for their own pleasure – it helps me understand their musical headspace.
Well, Jess schooled me. She sent me a list of some of the most interesting, cutting edge beats I have ever had the pleasure of working my way through. Some of them I knew, others were a complete discovery to me and had me bouncing around the studio. If nothing else, Jess has markedly improved the quality of my mp3-player’s playlist.
But “Be Mine” is a gentle ballad. Much as I tried to coax this song into a hardcore format, it refused. It would impishly roll its eyes at me, smirk, and point towards the Beach. I discussed this with Jess, and she was cool to head beach-ward, so I gave in, and followed where the song led, which was all the way to Ibiza. The result is this fluffy, uplifting mix.
Karoo: The Smackdown
Mar 25th
Today we locked off the soundtrack to Karoo, the film I’ve been working on for Kaugoomi. It’s been one of the more challenging projects I’ve been involved with in that I’ve spent most of my time on it wayyyy outside of my comfort zone, composing music that is largely unlike anything I’ve ever had to write before. This is less scary than it sounds, because it also means I’ve been pushing myself and having a lot of fun.
Instead of epic orchestral, I’ve been doing lots of dark atmospherics, using palettes that are largely limited to organic instruments, with a strong emphasis on mood rather than melody. Most of the work I’ve produced on it is designed to support and punctuate what’s happening on screen rather than taking centre stage itself, which is as it should be. It was hard to begin with, but the process began to flow when the various characters defined themselves – not with melodies, but with textures of sound and signature instruments.
For example, we’ve got a leather-clad villain who decided he was best represented as a metallic sounding bushman bow. We’ve got a mysterious protagonist who eventually revealed herself as a sound not unlike breathing air.
Karoo is an interesting movie, jam packed with stuff that makes for entertaining viewing: sex, death, drama, violence, and even a bit of humour. I’m sad it’s over – I love this kind of work.
The producers have given me permission to post some of the score here, so below is a cue entitled The Smackdown. In it, a very pissed off bad guy tracks down someone who’s stolen something from him, and dispenses a liberal amount of corrective treatment. Without dropping spoilers, the scene resolves with gory death for someone.
Remix: Slide’s “Dime Store Queer”
Jan 5th
Kicking 2010 off with a bang, here’s a kick ass remix of Slide’s new single, “Dime Store Queer.” This is the second remix I’ve produced for Slide, the electro rockers from the USA’s west coast, and follows on from the equally clubby “January (Feel Like Dancing)“, which recently garnered a Platinum Auddy award on uPlaya.com.
I’m really proud of how the Dime Store Queer remix came out – this one roars. There’s a lot I like about this song – not just the catchy chorus hook or the solidity of the bassline, but the fact that underneath its glitzy pop sensibilities it’s got a serious message: don’t let these bastards push you around.
Don’t let them hurt you, don’t buy into the vicious labels they attach to you. You won’t always be stuck where you are. Keep your head up and stay fabulous, because some day soon you’ll grow up, get ripped, and tear all their heads off. Kinda.
Have a listen to the radio edit:
Remix – UT’s “Music”
Nov 19th
Terry Pinana (aka Uncle Terry) is one of the most prolific producers I know – this guy literally eats, drinks and breathes music. Reading over his discography is like checking out a list the players in the local music industry. He’s done work with Osunlade, TKzee, KB, Guffy, Gug Shezi, Dantai – the list goes on, and that’s not even touching his work for film and TV. He’s like a musical ninja – you don’t see him, but you feel the effects of his passing.
The track we’re talking about today is something he recorded for his self-titled solo album. Ultimately, it didn’t make the cut (you can only fit so many songs on a 70 minute CD), but the vocal was compelling, and I got a shot at remixing it.
I struggled with this track for a long time. Lyrically, it was uplifting, but in stark contrast to the melody, which was minor key and very dark. It kept dragging me to places I didn’t want to go. In the end, I was inspired by another UT track where he used Melodyne software to completely change the melody of a difficult vocal.
So that’s what I did. I completely tossed the minor key melody and wrote a new tune that went with the lyrical content. Then I used Melodyne to shift the individual notes of the vocal performance to follow my new melody. This is the result. It makes me happy, and I’m hoping it does the same for you.
Music (Mdavisto’s Mix) by mdavisto
Note: I’m experimenting with embedding SoundCloud’s music player widget because Feedburner’s been stripping my player code out. If you’re reading this via RSS or email, would you mind getting in touch and letting me know if you can see/hear the track above this text? Cheers.
Remix: Slide’s “January”
Oct 15th
Slide are a difficult band to categorise – kind of a mix between rock and synth elements. Based in Orange County, California, the group includes members of the 80’s alternative group Sincerely Paul.
Their new debut single January is a catchy piece of work, which you can hear on the band’s home page, their MySpace page, or streaming on FaceBook. I like it in particular because not enough bands write in triplets. This is my absolute favourite groove structure, and found natively in both Celtic and African traditional rhythms.
But the song, therefore, presented some unique challenges in remixing – Jim had some very clear ideas about how he wanted it to sound, and it was solid, 4 to the floor club all the way. But a triplet rhythm vocal doth not upon a club beat sit.
Melodyne to the rescue. People (including me) rave about what a natural tuning tool it is, far superior (IMHO) to AutoTune*. But Melodyne’s real gift is the ability to shift timing as well as pitch.
This meant tracking through the entire vocal and nudging it back to square eighths, syllable by syllable.
Melodyne’s results are impressive, particularly in how organic the end result is. If you hadn’t heard the original, it would never occur to you that it had ever been in any other time signature.
Take a listen to the radio edit of the track here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
(Feedreaders click here.)
Visit the band’s website, they’re offering their debut single as a free download for 30 days after release.
Update: This track just picked up a Platinum Auddy award from uPlaya.com.
*AutoTune is a pet hatred of mine, not because it’s not a good tool – it is – but because of how the hip hop industry has killed it. It’s supposed to nudge an off-pitch singer back on key, but if you turn the knobs all the way to the right, it applies pitch correction so hard that you sound like a robot. Many hip hoppers do this intentionally on their entire vocal performance, as a combined vocal effect and to hide the fact that they cannot sing. The effect is a fad, however, and will (please god) go out of vogue soon, as evidenced by the fact that it has already become an Internet meme (recurring joke) – people are using it to AutoTune cats, political leaders and Carl Sagan. And before you start hating – I love hip hop. I just cannot stand that f***ing sound.
Remix: Newtown’s “I’m OK”
Sep 14th
Where's Leroy?
The term “remix”, like the term “R ‘n B”, has taken on different meanings over the years. Back in the day, it meant that if you didn’t like the levels and EQ that your engineer had done, you handed over the reel-to-reel master tape of the song to a different engineer, who would perform a “re-mix”.
Nothing changed about the performance or the arrangement, it was purely a dynamic adjustment of the original recording.
Of course, that’s not what it means today. Today, when a remixer produces their take on a track, the result is usually in a totally different genre and tempo, and only the vocal gives a clue as to what the original recording sounded like. 99% of the time, it’s designed for the club.
Now, Leroy (Newtown’s keyboardist and 12th dan technological wizard) gave me carte blanche on these remixes, and in the case of I’m OK, I decided to exercise it in an unexpected direction.
Leroy had told me that, of all the songs on the Newtown debut album, this track was probably most suited to a balls-to-the-wall house/dance remix. While I don’t disagree, I tried three different clubby versions and they all sucked.
Actually it’s not so much that they sucked, but more that they didn’t elevate the track; they didn’t add anything new and they all sounded like they were going through the motions.
You see, the original of “I’m OK” is an amazing track. It really shows off what Newtown can do, and it’s a beautiful piece of work. You can hear the original on Newtown’s Facebook page, or listen to a clip of it here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
(Feedreaders click here)
The way the chorus works in the original – well, I didn’t feel that a club version was in any way superior.
Now, it just so happens that I’m gearing up for a movie soundtrack job, so I’ve been doing maintenance work on my orchestral templates in between remixing … and in the midst of that, I had an idea. And so this mix happened.
It’s not a club remix. It’s not a groove remix. I suppose, technically, that it’s more of a rearrangement than a remix, and I can’t say whether it’s better than the original or not, but I do feel that this has more integrity as a piece of music than a club mix would.
Take a listen:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
(Feedreaders click here.)
Remix: Newtown’s “Rises”
Aug 4th
Newtown are an extremely interesting band from Johannesburg, comprising Pebbles (vox), Ryan (guitars), Amy (bass), LeRoy (sonics, guitars, sundry noodling), Doug (drums) and Ernest (trumpet). It may seem completely odd in this day and age, but this band actually plays real instruments, with extreme competence. Live, even.
This is my first of two remixes that I’m doing for the group, and it’s called Rises. The original is a slow, soulful, jazzy, laidback track, heavy on the brass and guitars. Naturally, I sped everything up by 20bpm, but I also ended up keeping a lot of the live elements of the track, which doesn’t often happen when I remix live material.
However, when you’re dealing with such quality musicianship, it’d be a crime not to use at least some of it. Granted, I chopped the guitars and the brass up and changed their time signatures (REX is a seriously underrated file format), but a lot of the resulting remix is pure Newtown. Wellllll … it’s Newtown, but not as we know it, Jim.
If you’d like to hear more Newtown, check them out on FaceBook, and watch their new music video on Vimeo.
Listen to it here:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
As always, if you’d like to commission a remix of one of your own tracks, get in touch via the Contact page.
Aylos – single released
Jul 18th
Well, Guffy gave us the go ahead, so it is with great pride that we present the first of what we intend to be many “CD singles” sold through Amie Street. The album art is the work of my frighteningly talented brother Christopher.
The term “CD single” is of course redundant in this day and age – it’s a digital download of 3 different mixes of Aylos’s track “I’m Beautiful,” all completely DRM free. If you want to burn it to CD, be my guest.
I posted a version of this track a few weeks ago, so for variation find below a much harder, much clubbier, much more radio friendly version.
Dig it:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you like it, play it again 
If you feel like owning it, pop over to Amie Street, where it is available free for a limited period.
Mr Ray: Run
Jul 12th
So, yesterday I nailed a mix for a produced-up version of Mr Ray’s track, Run. The original is here.
This has been a tricky project because of what Ray does. Part of what makes him so unique is his style of delivery – not just the mind bending weirdness of seeing him pull off the simultaneous beatbox + singing + playing guitar thing, but the intimacy with which he does it.
So any production I do on it needs to respect that, and I have to approach it carefully in case in my zest to elevate it with cool synth noises I lose the very thing that made it appealing to begin with. Also, I don’t want to add too much that can’t be reproduced in a live setting, which is where Ray truly shines.
So I’ve done my best to keep it as organic as possible while going nuts on it. I think I’m happy with how it came out.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
edit: find Mr Ray on the Intarwebz here. Buy his stuff here.