I've finally released the album that I've been working on for the past couple months - "Same Frequency". It's an album that centers around a rough breakup I had and the feelings I have towards the girl I fell for. I'd class it as my best work to date, I don't want to say I've 'peaked' because then I'd give up on making music as good as this ever again, but the fact that I've even made this has given me a bit of a confidence boost that I can make art like this. I took inspiration from "Black Country, New Road", "Headache", "Nick Drake", "acloudyskye", "EDEN" and "Issac Wood".
I tried to go for something akin to hip-hop mixed with folk for the first four tracks with the last track being an explosive crescendo that serves as the final feelings. Simple drum loops with snare shuffles mixed with simplistic melodies that support the general theme for the track, supported by the spoken word vocals by my god friend "justaam". I searched through my pack of over 500 drum loops just to find the right one that had the timbre and energy that served the track, but once the loop was set then I would start crafting the rest of the track after it.
For all of these tracks, I started with a drum loop and created the chords afterwards. I'd pay heavy attention to the root note in each of the chords since, to me, it can serve as an additional melody rather than just supporting the other notes in the chord. If the bassline through the chords wasn't fitting, I'd either scrap the whole chord or rearrange the notes (or, another way to say it, try inversions of the chord) until I was satisified. After the chords were created, then I'd figure out a melody or something for the listener to latch on to. Because of the spoken word element, it was important that the composition of the track wasn't too complex that the listener's ears would get tired listening to both the melody and the lyrics.
The Rhodes piano was used in every track, I generally use it as a compositional device to create chords that set the tone but I also just love the timbre of the instrument. I try to use it in every track I made due to the smoothness and calmness of its sound. The chords themselves are mostly four note chords, I remember trying to emphasize the 9th in a lot of the chord shapes because I love how the 9th sounds, it's heartwrenching but hopeful at the same time. Generally, I'd create the chords after finding the right drum loop. I recall spending hours on finding the right chords for the track "I don't want to be seen". I had an idea for a three chord sequence in this track, the first two chords have an ascending tone while the third chord descends. The ascension creates hope, the decension creates loss. If I combined those two together, you'd get this bittersweet grief, like you'd be saying "Ah well, it is what it is" just through the chords.
I generally love three chord sequences, having one chord drag out almost feels like it emphasizes a specific theme or feeling you want to evoke more than four chords. Four chords are good but at the speed the tracks were at, there would be too much going on. Having a chord drag on can almost act like a break to the listener, a push and pull vibe. I had to make sure that these chords weren't too abrasive, each note had a reason to be there and had a distinct relation to the note that came before it.
I also commissioned a violinist to play on the tracks "Airport" and "End2". The violinist goes by "Germen Dmitrev" and he's amazing at his instrument. It was my first time mixing a violin properly so I had to figure out how to actually get it to fit properly, it took some effort but I think I got it down pretty well. In the track "Airport", the violin serves as the melody while in the track "End2" it serves as the leading instrument that pushes the crescendo higher and higher.
As a final note, this was my first time working with a vocalist that spoke and sung throughout the whole track. I had to learn a lot about mixing and compressing vocals to get them sitting correctly in the mix. Listening back, I think there's some adjustments I could make, the high end on some of the S and T sounds are too much at parts. It's something I can work on in the future. I want to work with justaam more, he's got a great voice and I really want to try and make him shinee. In a way, he can be my voice since my singing voice very bad lol.
Also, "End2" and "I don't want to be seen" are my favorite tracks in the album.
The lyrics were all written over a period of a couple months. I started writing them around a week after the breakup. "I don't want to be seen" came first, followed by "Setraline", then "Airport", then "Home" and finally "End2". "End2" was the one I spent the most time on, it was to be written as the final piece and the song to emphasize all the feelings and themes I wanted to express in the album. I started writing it a couple weeks after being on SSRI's so I was in a much better headspace than I was when writing the other tracks. I'm happy to say that I'm glad about what I wrote. I'm not a writer, I used to write bad poetry on tumblr when I was a teenager but that's the only experience I have with this kind of stuff. I generally just let my hand write what my heart was feeling which ended up being the best idea. I think I'm an emotional man, I've been told that's rare nowadays but I don't know if that's true or not, I'd like to think it isn't, so it felt both painful and easy to write.
Sometimes when I look back at the lyrics, I tear up slightly. It makes me think about all the good memories I had and all of the negative thoughts I had about myself, how I didn't want to alive and how much pain I was in. I'm doing better nowadays, I get the thoughts but I don't act on them anymore. I'm proud of the work I put in the words, it expresses what I was feeling at every step. Since the album is meant to show a progression of the entire saga, "Airport" being how I felt before the breakup and the album progressing to "End2" which is a couple months after the breakup, the album encapsulates every emotion I've ever felt when I was with this woman and how I felt after being unable to call here mine.
I've been asked about the term "I need to leave my head behind my heart" a few times, it's a reoccuring theme on the album. I came up with it during the writing of "I don't want to be seen". It's the idea of letting the heart make the decisions while the brain picks up the pieces in case it ends up sour, the risk of choosing emotion over logic. It's not a smart thing to do, I think, but it's the path I've always naturally gravitated to.
You can find links to the album here. Alternatively, you can just check the youtube link out below for the video itself. Cheers :)
