On Wednesday of this week I was lucky enough to accompany my good friend and superstar singer, Neha, to Radio 2RDJ. She was invited to join the most lovely DJs Liche and D for their Mixxbosses radio show – a 2 hour slot dedicated to Neo/Soul music!
The evening ended up being a lot of fun for us – getting to play a few songs unplugged (an American Boy/Kiss medley, and a rendition of one of our original tracks, Your Love), as well as general chit chat with the girls in between their regular show features. Neha’s vocal performance was angelic (as always), and despite having some butterflies before going on air, she kept myself and the listeners well entertained with her amusing anecdotes.
I must be honest and say that I was not expecting a whole lot from the show in terms of the playlist (although admittedly I had never heard of the station/show before we went on). Much to my [pleasant] surprise, DJ Liche dropped a whole bunch of awesome music – some sexy, some groovey, some funky, some old school, and some fresh new stuff. Props to Liche for her knowledge of soul/RNB, and for her exquisite taste in tunes!
Some highlights for me were tracks by Ryan Leslie, Pharrell, John Legend, and a couple of new artists that I have since been exploring. They also had an interview with the one and only Gary Pinto, and a couple of tracks from his newly released album (awesome, banging tracks – might I add).
Here is a little snippet from the show (I don’t know if the full performance is up anywhere, but this was a sassy little freestyle that Neha conjured up at the end of the show)
Thanks again to Liche and D for the fun times and hospitality, and I look forward to tuning into their show for more great tunes
I’m not a big fan of classifying music into Genres.
Especially from a songwriting and production viewpoint as soon as an artist specifies a particular genre they want to fit into it feels like 4 walls are built around the song restricting the free flow of creativity. With all that in mind Nic and I set out to write a track to fit into a Modern Soul/Acoustic Genre on request.
For me ‘Soul’ in itself is difficult to define as its roots and influence can be found in most modern music ranging from Hip-Hop to Rock. The concept of the track being written was quality but we weren’t feeling the direction of the production so we decided to whip out the metaphoric sledgehammer and break down the walls.
The artist we wrote the track for wasn’t digging the final direction we took, which was no surprise as I doubt anyone could squeeze the result into the Soul/Acoustic Genre. But we all liked the track and the initial reviews were good so in stepped the super talented Cheyenne Kavanagh (www.myspace.com/cheykav) to lay down the vocals. It took Chey less than 4 hours to nail the vocal session. His interpretation of the melodies and harmonies as well as his ad-libs really took the track to a new level.
So now it’s over to you guys to have a listen and tell us what Genre ‘Buckle Up (Ur with me tonight)’ fits into?
I hope it stays a rhetorical question.
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“Your Love” was the first track I recorded with Neha, and the also my first time experimenting outside the box with heavy syncopation in RnB music. At the time I wrote the track (around 3-4 years ago now), I was just starting to discover artists like Aaliyah and Brandy – and I was beginning to take a real interest in the likes of Timbaland and Darkchild. I was absolutely fascinated by their complementary (or perhaps opposing) use of cabasa and electronic hats, and the off-beat snare and kick work.
A year or two after completing the track, Neha and I were asked to play a charity benefit gig in Sydney. I jumped at the chance, and saw it particularly as an opportunity to re-arrange some of the harder, beat driven RnB tunes we had worked on just for acoustic guitar and a single vocal (as opposed to the layer upon layer of vocal harmonies that are typical of our songs, but also of RnB in general).
We performed Your Love and a number of other originals as acoustic tracks on the day, and the reception we received was so good that we quickly made the decision to record Your Love again, but this time as an acoustic track.
The intention for this track was to go for a really stripped back feel, and keep it very organic and live sounding. I promised Danny that we would take it easy on the harmonies for this version (this is always easier said than done for me – a self-proclaimed harmony lover), and I think I was more or less true to my word.
You can check out the finished product below, in all of its acoustic glory!
