For this week we paired up to create a track inspired by the work of Moor Mother. I worked with Ollie on this project and I’m going to reflect on how we created the track.
For the start of this project we both did some critical listening of the track Deadbeat Protest off the album Fetish Bones and picked out three to five key skills she uses within production. This critical listening exercise can really be beneficial as a producer as you can take notes of consistent production techniques and key skills this artist uses, especially if you are trying to create a track inspired by them. A key skill that is a staple for this genre of music is using an anchor point. This is a consistent element that repeats throughout the whole track to give the listener something to focus on while other elements fade in and out. Our anchor point for this track was a very simple drum track that sits over the mix and guides the listener through the song. We used drum samples from various old drum machines found using the Decent Sampler library.
Another key skill that is spread across this whole album was sampling. Using vocal samples from media across the internet and chopping them up in musical ways in time with the beat is a very prominent part of a lot of music within this genre .This idea of sampling as a political and creative tool is also discussed by Franklin (2021), who explains how reusing and reshaping sounds can create completely new meanings. We found a sample of Björk during an interview where she speaks about dissecting a TV.
We then chopped some of the interesting lines and spread them across the whole track, then manipulated them with pitch effects and delay, as well as at times using automated distortion. We really explored more obscure avenues to manipulate and change the sound of the original sample to dirty it up and make it sound a lot different from the original, as well as to emphasise words we want the listener to focus more on. I believe this way of producing is really beneficial for a producer and can provide a lot of inspiration when looking for samples, as you can create something new from a pre-existing sound. It gives the song its own identity and character that is unique through experimentation. (Street,2012)
References
Franklin, M.I., 2021. Sampling Politics: Music and the Geocultural. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at : https://academic.oup.com/book/39843?utm_source (Accessed 1st of November)
Moor Mother on Sampling, Afrofuturism and Collaboration | Red Bull Music Academy. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPWi2wJELh4 (Accessed 1st of November)
Street, J., 2012. Music and Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Available at: https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/6214/1/CarrascoGarcia15PhD.pdf?utm (Accessed 1st of November)
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