Conscious Love EP launches today. I thought I'd share my thoughts and a few anecdotes about the 6 tunes it contains. First the track list:
1) One Energy
2) Conscious Love
3) Bulletproof Feeling Transatlantic (feat. Normbeatz)
4) Cenfigen
5) Bulletproof Moombahton
6) Limitless
The two electrohouse tunes, 'One Energy' and' Limitless' tunes which I released as singles start and end the EP. They were both influenced by the pop/dance styles of people like Guetta and Calvin Harris. Riffy with a house beat and Massive synth sounds. One Energy actually came to me after listening to the Eurovision Song Contest in 2014. I thought of it as the kind of song I'd like to be hearing. Its lyrics partly came from a song I recorded long ago called Garden of Paradise which I demoed on an 8 track tape machine with my brother Paul programming a Drumtrax drum machine (Prince used this model of drum machine on some of his 80's productions) The title One Energy came from trying to come up with an image of unity and global harmony and then the second verse flowed naturally once I had this strong image in my head.
Limitless was from the same mould as One Energy in that I was trying to write a contemporary pop song with a lyric which empowered. I worked on it for some months and then let it go before returning to it early this year and completing it. Around the same time I wrote Conscious Love which again came partly from an older song called All Night Long. I used the lyrics of the verse but wrote a completely new chorus which ended up quite rocky and bluesy. Again I left this unfinished for a few months until returning to it in April and finishing it off. I used a speed which doesn't fit in with normal dance genres but I felt it needed to be more of a one off. I couldn't make it work as house or Dubstep and drum and bass was a bit too hot for it. It's about romantic love but also a deeper love which transcends the purely physical A relationship which engages and supports both partners when they decide that they will be there for each other. I have been in such a relationship myself now for over 30 years!
The two tracks Bulletproof Transatlantic and Moombahton came about when rapper Normbeatz contacted me on Reverbnation with the offer of a collaboration. I had never worked with a rapper before but I liked the idea. When I was younger I was very influenced by the work of Black Moslem collective, 'The Last Poets' and I felt that rap had kept alive the spirit of protest which has largely disappeared from the mainstream of popular music. Transatlantic was the first version where i sent Norman the backing tracks for Bulletproof Feeling and he just went for it and sent me back a mix which was pretty much what you hear on the EP although I added some extra sound bites of Normbeatz over the drop which is different to the Soundcloud version. I also wanted to do a Moombahton version at 140bpm (Dubstep speed) as I have strong links to Jamaican music from my friendships in the 80's with producer Raymond Harvey and guitarist Cheese Benson from Cardiff Docks who worked with me and my brothers back in the day. You will also notice a lady's voice on this tune, that's my good Jamaican friend and fellow Buddhist, Beryl Poelvorde who is now in her 80's but still going strong. I got her to say 'Mash it up big time!' into my mobile phone. She said a few more things too which I spun into the tune if you listen. Normbeatz' rap adds a different dimension to my attempt to sound a bit Jamaican and I think this is perhaps my favourite track on the EP. The mix, by the way, was new compared with the YouTube and Soundcloud mix. As I've said in other posts I boosted the bass to within an inch of its life, so get the headphone's out and turn it up for bass meltdown!
That leaves Cenfigen the instrumental Dubstep track. Some of you may know that I made a film when I was at University studying English in Swansea (South Wales). I recently remixed the film and changed some of the music. This Dubsep tune came out of that process. If you want to see the film its on YouTube search The Holy Six (in 4 parts). The word Cenfigen is Welsh for Jealousy. I recorded a vocal track in the 90's with multi-instrumentalist and producer, Marc Elton called Lloer Cenfigen (Jealous Moon) and basically I used sound bites from this, changed the speed using Audacity and then created a Dubstep track around them. I think its very original blending two different dance forms to create Celtic Dubstep! Marc is still very much an active musician who plays in folk and jazz bands in Cardiff, listen to our album, Chaozmos by Roy Jones and Marc Elton to hear more of the roots of this track.
So its out there as of today so please listen, download and leave some feedback either on this website or your preferred download platform!
Peace, dRedzilla