No Thrills Attached

Evening all.

Well it's been hard to resist uploading this one since it's inception about 2 weeks ago, but a promise is a promise is a guarantee with Andy. Yep - an exclusive it was made as and an exclusive it remained until now when it is available for all.

This one had a bit of background to it. It came about as a result of a pure fluke. I have a 12 CD multichanger in the car (my pride and joy!) and I generally go through the full 12 every week with the amount of driving I tend to do. Anyway, a few weeks back, I was struggling to think of CDs I really wanted to hear and was going through the CD cabinet that hasn't been opened in like 12 months or something. In there, I saw the fourth Prodigy album, "Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned". Now I was a huge Prodigy fan back in the day, and my collection of Prodigy singles is my pride and joy. Admittedly though, the last few years has seen them change their direction, which is great, but I was so not keen on the last few tracks coming out. Anyway, I bought the album eons ago, and I think I've listened to it maybe twice. Hmmm....time to give it another chance. Well, the singles from the album still do it for me, but I thought the rest of the album was ok but nothing amazing. But then track 11 kicked in. "The Way It Is". I'd forgotten all about it. From the first few bars, I recognised the Thriller bassline, twisted out of recognition. The angular beats and synth distorting the bassline out of recognition, before kicking back in. I was smitten straight away with the track, and pretty much there and then I thought, I gotta make a Michael Jackson mash with this.

An hour or two later after getting in, and with very little joy in finding a Thriller 'pella, I experimented with the Jacko 'pellas I did have (about 7 or 8). A drag and drop later, and Bad was cued up, virtually fitting like a dream straight away, with very little tempo change required.

But strange things happen and somehow this ended up sitting on the desktop for some time, and my enthusiasm waning, I moved on to experiment with other things (along with Killa Katie - see below).

But then 2 weeks or so later, after I'd put this to the back of my mind, Scott Johnson of the awesome Ramdom Thoughts podcast dropped me a line asking if I had time, to put together an exclusive for the show. I was honoured! Made me feel I was finally starting to get somewhere. But what track to make? Well, with a half finsished tune sitting there, I revisited it. I chopped up the vocal a little, and moved it around to try and vary it up, but something was missing.

In the meantime, I was pratting around looking for Thriller pictures on t'interweb to make the cover (a little prematurely, admittedly) - I can't tell you how many times I watched that Thriller video whilst working on this project, but I'll never get tired of it. Not getting much joy with decent pics, I decided to get on SLSK to see what I could find Thriller related. Well, what a treat. The original demo acapella of the Vincent Price rap from Thriller with the missing second verse!

Immediately, I was back on track with this - I was in love with the idea of getting this done properly and finished. The Vincent vocal begins with a cool little snippet of producer getting the show on the road, and intros from Michael and Vincent. Brill. Chop those up and drop them around the place a bit. The silky smooth, legendary voice of Vincent fitted so well over those jagged beats it was a no brainer. A few samples of the obligatory Michael "Wooos" and "Shamone" later, with some widdly sweeping phase on the vocals and some of the beats and there it was. I don't know what it is but I can't stop listening to this track.

Hell, I even came up with a decent title for it for once.

I sent it to Scott and he gave me such great feedback, featuring it on the excellent show #70 as an exclusive. It was so hard to not post this early though, that's how proud of it I am.

So for whacking a random CD I hadn't really thought of in to my car, I've come up with probably my 2nd fave track I've made (Killa Katie is still my fave....download it if you haven't already!) and I hope a danceloor filler/thriller

Big thanks to Scott, for making me pull my finger out and do this properly. And also, big thanks to John Sakamoto of The Star in Toronto for making my week by including Killa Katie in his anti-hit list top 10 - finally, the recognition I craved! check out the mini-review at

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/249256

Fingers crossed, a lot more material heading this way soon - keep 'em peeled

No Thrills Attached

The Prodigy vs. Michael Jackson vs. Vincent Price
(The Way It Is vs. Bad vs. Thriller)



Download page here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?9gvj0tmm1um

And if all else fails, get your thrills here:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3412183b2f5bd9/

Killa Katie

Another busy week in terms of production from me - fortunately I've had a lovely lazy week off from the office and as such have managed to complete a couple of the 5 or 6 projects that have been sat on my PC for a while now.

The first of which I can't tell you too much about, as it's an exclusive track I created for Scott Johnson over at the excellent Ramdom Thoughts podcast which will be played on show #70 next weekend (24th August), and I will then put up for download on the 31st. All I will say is that it's some dark electro funk from a well known band, spliced with some powerful pop, and I love it. Seriously, if you get chance (and you should check him out anyway as his shows are awesome) head over to

http://www.ramdomthoughts.co.uk/

and check it out.

The second track I've bashed out this week is this, and I have to say, I'm am STOKED with it.

I've been long toying with the idea of doing a Kate Nash track ever since I first heard Foundations. For me it's in the top 5 tunes released this year so far, with it's simple 4 chords, catchy handclap beat and uplifting piano. And of course, it's Mockney-esque pronunciation of the words Bitter and Fitter (Harrow's a bit far from the East End me thinks). But as far as I am aware, no-one else has produced anything with her vocals on the scene, so the dilemma was, where to grab the 'pella?

Well, why beat around the bush. I made me own instead on Audition! It didn't come out too badly at all on the verse parts, although the chorus seemed to mixed in with the piano riff, and as such a few artifacts remain, but I like their sound so I won't quibble.

So what to mix it with? Well, it was obvious to me that the rhythm follows a simple skipping drum n' bass-esque pattern. Of course, this is another genre I grew up on in the 90s so I fortunately have a large collection of d'n'b tracks to choose from. Saying that, I tried quite a few out agains the vocal but I found the end results a little too dark. By coincidence though, I'd got hold of the awesome Killa Kella debut album the other day - "The Permanent Marker". I've been listening to quite a bit of human beatbox lately (since making the Deceptikon/Lily Allen boot earlier this year!), and this chap really is the business

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killa_Kela

And so I found the perfect track with a d'n'b rhythm, but with the added bonus of it being performed live by a human.

One last element needed was the addition of some vocals fom the Streets eponymous "Don't Mug Yourself". Not only does this create a bit of a dynamic tension between Kate and Mike ("Oi oi oi"), but it almosts fits together as a bit of narrative story, Kate moaning about the night before, with Mike talking to his mate about the night before too. Or I could be making that bit up, hehe, but either way it's a battle of the Mockneys. With some bass rumbling filters applied in the last few bars.

Anyway, this track is dedicated to my lovely friend Katie - she's always been a big Streets fan, and is partial to the odd bit of beatbox too, so I've named it after her, and made her the cover star too. Hope you enjoy it hon.

Killa Katie

Killa Kela vs. Kate Nash vs. the Streets
Crop Circles (Splinter remix) vs. Foundations vs. Don't Mug Yourself)



Download page here
http://www.mediafire.com/?dbvi5iyxx3o

And if all else fails - give it a shot here
http://www.zshare.net/audio/3199620252e5da/

U F.E.A.R. My Name

This is sheer lunacy. I've been awake now for nigh on 24 hours, I've worked a 10 hour day, I've been to the pub and got drunk, I'm sure it was dark when I got in, but here I am still awake making mash-up.

I got in from the pub tonight (or is it yesterday) at about 10:45pm and was straight on my PC to send Lee Spoons of 10000 Spoons fame an instrumental of Ian Brown's classic F.E.A.R., one of the best tracks of the last 10 years. Howver, on searching my PC I realised I only had the UNKLE remix of it. Not being one to let people down, I had a go at making my own instrumental from a B-Side version of the song from the single, which amazingly came out really well.

After sending both versions to Lee, I was suddenly gripped with this silly desire to use the track straight away, and so an acapella of the irresistable Alicia Keys popped straight in to my booze-addled head. A little drag and drop later and it fitted nigh on perfectly, and was in key! Well, that was it. I set to creating this track I now present to you. However, the tempo kept changing throughout the vocal in relation to the instrumental. Not a problem he thinks setting to chopping it up. 3 hours later, I suddenly get the bright idea to add the UNKLE remix too, to make it in to an epic soundscape of ambient strings descending in to pulse-racing techno breakbeat. 1 hour later and he's got the tracks all cued up, with an added snippet of Ian Brown vocal kindly supplied by Lee, and rendered ready to add the effects in Audition. A bit of echo and reverb on the vocals I snipped a bit too close, and here is the final result. I couldn't head to bed, as this has to be my fave track I've made so far, if only because I love the Ian Brown track so much. 7 hours of hard work for this. I could have made another 5 minutes for this track but I really am shattered, and I have to be at a party tomorrow night.

As I look out the living room window, I see blue skies; my head is pounding and heavy, I have the shakes and a feel exhausted, but it's all worth it for this one track. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

U F.E.A.R. My Name

Ian Brown vs. Alicia Keys vs. UNKLE
(F.E.A.R. vs. U Don't Know My Name vs. F.E.A.R. (UNKLE remix))



MP3 Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ebf01ojblyr




Be sure to check out the Ramdom Thoughts podcast nest weekend for show #68. There will be an exclusive Bobby Martini full length mix showcased which won't be available for download until the 10th August. Hear it there first, it's going to be big

http://http//ramdom.wordpress.com/

Black Eyed Eric (Colatron Wants Your Soul)

Well, as the lyrics go, "It's been a long time"

What a month July has been. Highs and lows....lots of lows. Stag parties, weddings, drinking, assaults with a piece of salmon, torrential flooding, assaults on hotel doors with water colour paintings, more drinking, work, work, work, and unfortunately, a death. It's been one long month, and the amount of work I have been doing recently has been ridiculous, hence the lack of updates so many apologies to my listeners.

This track has been sat on my desktop for around a month now and finding the time to actually concentrate and finish it off properly has been nigh on impossible but last night I knuckled down and worked through the night to get it out

Been playing around with the Eric B & Rakim vocal for ages and couldn't find anything to match it to, and then one day after listening to the mighty Loo & Placido it clicked. Now this ain't no "Black Beatles" - to try and top that would be foolhardy, but I am pleased with the outcome. Think party choon. Think added bass. Think Colatron

I've been constructing the songs in Acid Pro still, but have been using Adobe Audition lately to add the effects and filters, and I think the results are much better. That plus my new bass shaking speakers (17W woofer in my tiny flat? You gotta feel for the neighbours) for the PC just made me want to add the additional bass drum to certain sections of the instrumental. Apologies if it drowns out your speakers, but it sounds perfect on mine.

A few random samples from The Running Man (this was originally gonna be a tribute to Damon Killian, top villain with all the best lines in the classic Arnie movie), a smooth vocal from Lil' Flip straight from Beyonce's "Naughty Girl", a snippet of InDeep's "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" and a bizarre ending top off the track.

The ending is my little apology to all my friends from MySpace and Facebook that I've neglected the last 4 weeks. I decided to give them a little Auto Attendant-style message straight from Colatron Inc. (a bit of an in-joke for those in the know - me working in Telecoms) explaining that they may not get through to me. I think it works and I'll probably end up using it for something else too such as a promo.

Anyhow, enough rant, on with the track:-

Black Eyed Eric (Colatron Wants Your Soul)

Black Eyed Peas vs. Eric B & Rakim
(Let's Get Retarded vs. I Know You Got Soul)



MP3 Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?8hxfbj3wbhm

Be warned - it does chew up the bass!

Dedicated to Chris - I know you had soul