Oh Yeah! I'm a Person.

This E.P. felt like a bit of a sloggish journey compared to the "Flap Dawg" release. Whereas I wrote most of Flap dawg at the start of last year quite successfully one after another, "Oh Yeah! I'm a Person" creation of songs are super spread out across this year, even back to the end of last year with Chewed Up.

Chewed up, don't really remember how that happened to be honest. I'm very sure I was playing with bass sounds and textures. I only had the first half written for a long time and I think I was going to play a show so quickly wrote the second half before touring!

Wrote Quack Motif like 6 months later. I was looking at a tutorial on making the liquid dnb basses. once I had a bass down, i chose a sequence of notes which ended up being major 3rds apart i'm sure. First thing to improvise on the piano ended up being the intro and main motif of the song. I guess the question or curiosity was in a classical, improvised piano feel, very melodic and harmonic, with driving bass and kick. Funny enough, it ended up being very psy influenced in the bass juxtaposed with classical pentatonic piano. It was more of a harmonic exploration I suppose whilst trying to maintain focus in the dancing part.

Safety Ranger I probably worked on the most intensely. Inspired greatly by watching "how to listen to Classical Music" and regaining some perspective. I watched about Sonata form and was inspired by the way it was taught, like a conversation of two ideas. So the first week of Safety Ranger, I purely focused on the composition, to give a solidied strength in the overarching story. This was also inspired by the feeling that my compositions may go on tangents. Once I felt that there was a fully developed compositional structure, then the 2nd week I focused on the decoration, amplifying the story of the composition with embelishments made with sound design. I'm inspired by my past band Quantum Milkshake, where each instrumentalist would go on their own journey whilst retaining the origin of the original melody. So you'll find that each part (even hihats) will improvise and diverge from their main part in the same way a musician might, all playing off each other.

Grand Pop was inspired by sampling a classical record. I just recently gotten a record player and started going to op shops to find wierd records. One day, I experimented in sampling a classical piece and chopping up which formed the melody that Erica plays on flute. The perc and drums were hugely inspired by a Gramatik track. The bass was kinda inspired by sine-wavey basses, heard in some techno tracks I guess? Once the chord progression was established, I really wanted to make sure the track didnt feel like a bunch of loops together so I tried to vary the chords when I could, or the way that it was played. I got Erica in to play the Melody and perform her own improvisation over the top. I directed her through a story I wrote her, describing each section with visual storytelling (think it was something to do with animals in the forest being consumed by a black darkness, then dropping off the face of the earth in a slow motion awakening).

The remix of Grouch's track "Corpus Callosum" was inspired by trying to emulate the same kinda sound as the Matric Reloaded soundtrack (Freeway scene and the many mr smiths scene). The use of orchestral arranging with electronic tools and techniques (Thanks to Don Davis and Juno Reactor). I was hearing of these orchestral flourishes, similar to how sound design in psytrance can be playful in entering and guiding your thoughts, or brain under the constant barrage of low frequencies. It took me a while to get started on the track as I was intimidated on how I would perform. The track was already so immaculate in sound design and already so amazing as it was. Finally one day, I guess it clicked to play with the stems and explore. The last track for the year and very appreciative to get feedback from oscar.

Reflecting on the year, it was challenging and worthwhile. My focus shone upon my experience living as a human right now whilst creative output rested from the side. Through the pain of facing consequences of conflicts left unresolved, to regaining a stable healthy sense of self-worth, this year was a grand process to recalibrate back to a neutral standing point of accepting truthfulness. Authenticity feels extremely liberating. Heres to being human ey?!