Coke Studio, Asian Vibes!

Liking this. A lot.



Sanj

Aloe Blacc fest!

Wow. Had a genuinely great evening in yesterday watching Aloe Blacc videos on YouTube with Lorna. Here are a couple of gems, but basically there's at least an hour and a half of amazing stuff to enjoy. Particularly check out the rest of the MADE sessions. The Billie Jean cover is the absolute pick but the other five parts are incredible as well. Needless to say Amazon are shipping me the record as I type this. Signed sealed delivered I love this guy.

 

 

Chris

A great day!

Had an amazing day today in the studio with Myles, Alan, Phil OS, Raksha and Daniel. Some of us just met for the first time, but I think by the time i left at 5 we had around 5 new songs written, so there was definitely something special going on.

The vibe is basically hip-hop/pop worship music and it's all about rap hooks, MPCs and fresh sounds. It's weird to realise in a way that there's basically no precedent for this, or at least not one that's been generally accepted by the mainstream church. But we've already found a wealth of ideas and plenty of common ground stylistically on which to build.

The vision is loose right now, but we're pumped about it nevertheless. I really think it's fascinating to explore an ancient tradition with fresh sounds and approaches. You realise that as much as we say it's not about genre, inevitably, the style has a huge impact on what happens, the way people receive what happens and how their attitudes are shaped by it all. I'm hopeful that we might discover some new things through this exploration, but it's very much a case of seeing how this evolves and takes shape over the coming weeks and months.

Exciting times!


Chris

Elusive songs

OK so I'm pretty excited currently about what's happening in Hi-Sonorous land. We had a great week last week. Worked on some new Tommy Eye tunes which are sounding amazing. Arranged some string parts. Chewed the fat with old friends over the bank holiday.

Also, we met up with Myles Dhillon and Alan Sampson in London on Wednesday and saw/heard the amazing work both of them are doing, musically and other. Got really inspired by them. It turns out we're all basically on the same page in wanting to do something together, so later on this week we'll be adjourning at the Squares to find out what that something sounds like.

At the risk of getting ahead of ourselves, we're also thinking about some filming as well, and the ideas are coming thick and fast. In many ways, so many of the usual things that scupper ideas like this are in place, or aren't issues. Like finances, space, equipment, time. What it comes down to are the songs, and the people. These are the two biggest factors in determining whether any of this is a success or not. And interestingly they're the things you can't really control.

Song writing is tough because it's so elusive. You can learn the craft, but you can't learn to control the creativity. Not really. The essence of a song, the bit that feels magical, the bit that makes you go "yes" is never something a writer can claim ownership of. It's a gift that's imparted - a seed that's sown in you, the writer, by something, or someone else. I like to think it's a bit of heaven on earth.

It's still a mystery to me. Which makes a deadline a very scary thing indeed. In fact a deadline is the sort of thing that is very likely to produce very mediocre, uninspired "craft" from a writer, rather than a bit of real magic.

Anyway, Friday is when all of this comes together, and by then we need to have some songs worth working on. So my thought for today is going to be to reflect on the best piece of song-writing advice I ever had, which actually did not come from another songwriter, but from an activist and political advisor called Jim Wallis, who said "if you want to tell the story, you have to be in it".

 

Oh man, this is so AMAZING!

 

No words. Best collab...ever.

Chris

 

Ghostpoet

Loving the simplicity of this tune. Ghostpoet's delivery is so hypnotic and evocative. Loving it!

 

Rush available to buy now!

Yes folks!

Very excited to announce that Tommy' first single "Rush" is now available to buy from iTunes! Please go there, download it and help Tom get into the charts this Sunday!!

Here's the man himself...




In other news, we've been doing some writing with Ebonie G. Holla! Here's a little vid we put together on that...




Good times!

Chris