Aikho: Recent Episodes
Aikho
Way too long ago I asked Roar, a friend of mine, if he had the stems to A World Ablaze by Aphzelia, the band he used to play with. He did and he sent them to me, but I sat on them forever without doing anything, really. I wanted to remix it, but not how.
Finally I've figured out how.
I took some inspiration from artists like phaseone and other riddim-y dubstep folks (I've been listening to quite a bit of riddim lately) and Subscape (Because I've always enjoyed that 4 to the floor kind of melodic dubstep he makes and with the chorus in this track sounding a bit more uplifting and melodic than the rest I think it was a good fit). Then scraped together some influences and sound-design ideas from more EDM-y Trap and Dubstep.
So, with the foundation decided upon and built, it took about a month of working followed by bouncing my ideas off Roar which wrote the original to finally end up ended up with this. A blend of Riddim-like Dubstep and melodic Dubstep as well as Metal to the point of including a breakdown with a lower BPM than the rest of the track (146 dropped to 140 for the last part of the breakdown).
The master was done by my friend over at Studio Nubdal: https://www.studionubdal.com The cover is and edit by me of their original "I"-EP's cover.
You can check out and buy the original song here, https://aphzelia.bandcamp.com/track/a-world-ablaze as well as on your favourite streaming service.
My inspiration here came from listening to a track on the album "The best of Toolroom 2017" on my way home from work. A track came on, "The Truth" by Stonez and Namazi, I got goose bumps when the choir came in. I loved it, and wanted to make a track with a choir and I had just the choir for it too.
I got home and sat down with a beat I had started on a couple of days prior, imported the song Transformation from the Brother Bear OST, seeing as that is probably my favourite animated movie and it has a beautiful choir piece performed by the Bulgarian Women's Choir, that had to go into the track.
Day one was spent cutting up and processing the choir parts in a way that made it sound the way I wanted with the beat I had. Day two was used to build out the track's layout and add in the melodic elements. Then started the days and days of small changes and additions until I today feel that it's finished to the point where I want to share it.
I decided to put up a Radio-ish Mix, for those that prefer less DJ-intros in their music, but since I built it up like a track that should be playable by a DJ (if I ever decide to get into that again I guess), there's also the Original Mix to check out. The differences aren't very big outside of the intro being cut by almost 2 minutes and the outro being basically half for the Radio Mix.
The mastering this time around was done by me, but still thanks to Roar (www.studionubdal.com) for the valuable feedback and tips during all stages of this project. The artwork was put together and edited by me, photo is © www.robvanhout.net, used with permission.
My inspiration here came from listening to a track on the album "The best of Toolroom 2017" on my way home from work. A track came on, "The Truth" by Stonez and Namazi, I got goose bumps when the choir came in. I loved it, and wanted to make a track with a choir and I had just the choir for it too.
I got home and sat down with a beat I had started on a couple of days prior, imported the song Transformation from the Brother Bear OST, seeing as that is probably my favourite animated movie and it has a beautiful choir piece performed by the Bulgarian Women's Choir, that had to go into the track.
Day one was spent cutting up and processing the choir parts in a way that made it sound the way I wanted with the beat I had. Day two was used to build out the track's layout and add in the melodic elements. Then started the days and days of small changes and additions until I today feel that it's finished to the point where I want to share it.
I decided to put up a Radio-ish Mix, for those that prefer less DJ-intros in their music, but since I built it up like a track that should be playable by a DJ (if I ever decide to get into that again I guess), there's also the Original Mix to check out. The differences aren't very big outside of the intro being cut by almost 2 minutes and the outro being basically half for the Radio Mix.
The mastering this time around was done by me, but still thanks to Roar (www.studionubdal.com) for the valuable feedback and tips during all stages of this project. The artwork was put together and edited by me, photo is © www.robvanhout.net, used with permission.
I've recently started looking more deeply into what parts of genres inspire me, the roots of my inspiration if you will. In this track I dug into Hard House and thereby the rules or limits I set myself for this composition is based on what one often hears in a Hard House track.
Long rhythmical intro, shorter but just as rhythmical outro, Thumping 4/4 beat throughout sans the breakdown and chorus introduction in the middle. Heck, I even added some mild simulated analogue distortion to the volume peaks and a very low amplitude bit of vinyl crackle to it to make it sound more like it would in a club in the late 90s to early 00s!
The mad as hell monologue is a speech from the 1976 movie "Network".
The picture is one I took myself on one of my most recent trips to London.
A few years ago, a friend told me to try my hand at remixing the theme from the third Fast and Furious movie. Originally I had no idea how to go about it. So it's been sitting for a really long time with no progress.
At some point I got some synths and a short sample together to make the melody and every few weeks I toyed around with that, making some simple rhythms and stuff with the main melody.
Then suddenly a couple of weeks ago it all fell together and I got this result. A result I'm pretty proud of, especially seeing as I've had nothing really finished for something like a year.
I find it a fitting birthday gift for myself, to share this with everyone. :) The artwork was done by me. Both taking the photo and editing it.