Day Five

Riquiqui - Arca  
This song changed my life. This song successfully maintains Arcas' unique South American-inspired hyperpop sound, but it is unlike anything I’ve heard before. As a general listener, this may sound scary. On first listen, I was confused about what I was hearing. But as a producer, this song felt like submerging from the Mariana Trench and taking a deep breath. It’s so inspiring and refreshing to hear something that shifts your understanding of creation and in my case, this song made me rethink almost every creative process I was using. I would assume Arca felt the same way when she released over a hundred versions of the music on streaming platforms.  

It's Gonna Rain - Steve Reich 
 Steve Reich still acts as a pioneer of electronic engineering and production. It’s Gonna Rain was a crucial milestone in minimalism and experimental audio, and was also Reich’s first paramount release. Using a tape-loop, Reich repeats the words of a pastor while changing certain aspects of the audio, such as loop length, adding delay, doubling the audio and so much more. The plethora of work that Reich would go on to make shaped the future of music production.  

Numbers - Kraftwerk 
 As a child, my dad taught me how to breakdance like his friends did in New York in the 1980s. Those lessons were not just about the beginnings of hip-hop and its importance, but also about Kraftwerk and their electronic influence. Kraftwerk utilises the tone, timbre and pitch of language playfully in their song ‘Numbers’. The crunchy, whispered German, the crushed, grainy English, the French computerised voice and the muffled Spanish are just a few examples. Often these blips of processed audio guide melody and are only accompanied by drums. But unlike an ambient song, the pulse and motion of the track are never lost.  

Getting Killed - Geese 
 Geese has become a new favourite for many students at Guildhall, including myself. Their Americana-influenced tracks are layered with rich, intelligent, yet free-spirited and analytical vocals from frontman Cameron Winters. The seemingly nonsensical lyrics of the track ‘Getting Killed’ discuss in a social media-built world, it is strange to express and justify personal pain. Exploding into the chorus, Winters shouts, “I can’t even taste my own tears, they fall into an even sadder man’s eyes.” As news and media become more public, it’s hard to feel upset when comparing one’s own hardships to another’s struggles. Cameron describes the melancholy, dull feeling of getting up and putting on shoes; he finds it ridiculous to address this depression. Another very notable and personally touching lyric from the LP can be found in the song ‘100 Horses’. Winters sings, “There is only dance music in times of war,” a line which speaks volumes to current political affairs and musical trends. As a student who studies those trends, it is fascinating to think that the rise in dance music and DJing is a result of the wars the world faces now. Whether politically driven or not, dance music brings people and communities together and raises spirits in hard times.  

Debra - Jockstrap  
‘Debra’ by Guildhall alumni electronic duo, Jockstrap, feels like an old song by British artist M.I.A.,with its Middle Eastern-inspired drum patterns and strings. It’s addictive. As a producer, something I love about this song is its width. It is typically a struggle to achieve warmth and width when, apart from the spacey synth in the intro, the track consists mainly of punchy, plucky sounds. It typically results in a lack of warmth, a thin mix, and a confusing distribution of sound over the left and right stereo. This is because nothing is consistently playing to exhale warmth into the track and give the punchy noises impact; songs without warmth lack depth. Often, a producer will add more and more sounds to compensate, causing the listener to not know what to focus on. Jockstrap, however, avoids these issues by intricately panning noises and automating the volume and dynamics of strings and sequences based on synths. I love how the track feels like a wheel with patterns rolling in and out throughout the track, creating drama and motion.  

Berghain - Rosalia, Bjork, Yves Tumor 
 The gorgeous new single ‘Berghain’ from the Madrid-born artist Rosaliá, is dramatic to put it lightly. It crosses the border between pop music and opera, mostly being the latter. This shift in direction from Rosaliá is understandable but unexpected. The performance is masterful, the features are creative and the way speed works to create drama is grand, lush and emotional.  

Hajnal - Venetian Snares 
 ‘Hajnal’ reminds me of the interesting ways many students blend genres in the EPM course. It brilliantly combines Hungarian classical music with breakcore drums, fusing historic composition with club and rave culture. Fusing genres is often a useful tool in film music when scenes set in fictional locations need a unique feel. Students consider Venetian Snares to be an amazing artist and a symbol of sonic interest and creativity. 

Flight FM - Joy Orbison 
 Flight FM flew to the top of the dance charts for good reason. It’s danceable, it’s fun, it’s creative, but most notably, its mix is out of this world. I admire how everything seems to blend in and out of other noises. Like how the high buzzy noise in the verses develops and builds eventually exploding, becoming the thick bass of the drop. It’s inspiring to hear a song this well-produced and thought about reaching the tops of the dance charts. 

Music from How to Train Your Dragon - John Powell 
 Guildhall's Electronic & Produced Music department has many courses, but most fall under two branches: film/composition and electronic/pop music. I wanted to get a more rounded look into what my classmates in the film department were listening to in the film world. Almost every single one mentioned, recommended or discussed How to Train Your Dragon’s soundtrack and its genius. I personally love the orchestration, how everything sounds as grand, beautiful and sweeping as the dragons flying across the screen. It also manages to capture the Viking inspiration in such an authentic manner, while freely moving between other stylistic, more modern film scoring techniques. It is a gorgeous score, and Test Drive is just one cue of many!