Downtempo & Pop Albums
The Orphic Creative - Sans Vox
Sans Vox is my latest downtempo album, completed in 2016. After working for some years on other projects, Sans Vox was a return to the concept of my earlier downtempo albums Ambient and Calyx - providing the listener with chilled, yet intelligent soundscapes, but now with the benefit of many years of production experience and better music creation tools.
The music spans a range of genres, including trip-hop, ambient, liquid D&B, hip-hop and downtempo, although there is a general unifying feel to the tracks, many of which have a slightly darker hue. All of the tracks on the album are completely electronically produced, however I focused a lot on using realistic samples and modelling synths to create an "almost real" vibe, but with the benefit of using sequencing technology to warp and twist the sounds in unusual ways. The title "Sans Vox" is a nod to the completely instrumental nature of the album, my aim with these tracks being for them to be engaging enough on their own, without the need for additional vocals. |
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10:Past Dawn - Unpredictable10:Past Dawn is an electronic pop collaboration project which I worked on with lyricist Phil Collins between 2012 and 2015. During this period we both worked almost exclusively on creating original tracks for the project, in the end creating more than 2 albums worth of material, the best of which is showcased in these 14 tracks.
10:Past Dawn's style could be described most simply as electronic pop, although the music spans a diverse range of sub-genres such as Trip-Hop, Electro, House, Hip-Hop, Dubstep and Drum & Bass. Phil wrote much of the lyrical material and sang lead vocals, while I handled the production, instrumentation and sang backing vocals. Additionally, we collaborated with singer Hayley King on tracks Freedom and Trouble On The Streets. The mood of the tracks ranges from dark to light, but there is a general high-energy vibe connecting them all, most suited to club or party environments. Common elements include fat, punchy basslines and synths, and extensive use of effects and expansive sonic elements, |
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Orphic - CityscapesThis album represents a selection of my downtempo electronica work from between 2006 and 2012, although work on some tracks was started earlier than this.
Although not originally intended to be an album, the tracks do share some unity in their overall feel, based on the production techniques and equipment I was using at the time. The music spans a wider range of sub-genres than my previous albums, as I began to experiment with new ideas and techniques, some of which I was introduced to while studying Music Technology and Classical Composition at the London College of Music between 2006 and 2009. Two of the tracks, Vicious Rain and Alone, include vocals. Vicious Rain was in fact a uni assignment, although some of the lyrics and melody are from an earlier composition which was never finished. The album runs broadly in chronological order from beginning to end, with Mayfly and The Molecules being the earliest. The latter was actually started in 2004, but later refined. |
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RG - LondonscapesLondonscapes is a collection of my music created as a young adult during my first years in London, from 2002 to 2006. It was a heady time for me, during which I was becoming exposed to a wide range of different music, spending a lot of time clubbing, as well as meeting new people with differing personal and musical backgrounds.
As such, this album contains some large variations, including an early experiment with vocals. Some of the tracks echo back to my earlier albums made in South Africa, while others are clearly influenced by new music styles I was discovering, such as trip-hop and house. The technology I had at my disposal at this point was still quite rudimentary, however in the later years I did start picking up some hardware synthesizers and making use of some additional loop-based software and basic plugins.. The album still retains the concept of instrumental music as a soundscape, hence the name 'Londonscapes' |
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RG - CalyxCalyx was my second downtempo album, created when I was 17.
The material in this album is thematically similar to my first album, Ambient. However, by this time I had advanced somewhat in my knowledge of music production on computer, so these tracks have a more polished air and make use of some more advanced composition and production techniques. Calyx represents some of the last music I made before leaving South Africa to come to London, and essentially marks a watershed between my childhood and adult life. |
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RG - AmbientAmbient was my first full album of music, created when I was 16.
It contains some of my earliest explorations into downtempo music, largely inspired by artists such as as Jean Michel Jarre, Richard Clayderman and Andreas Vollenweider. This was some of the first music I made with the aid of a new family PC, using a MIDI sequencing program called Cakewalk. It was a pretty modest system, even for the day, but for me it was a whole new world, having previously been limited to what I could store in the internal memory of my keyboard, and record onto cassette tape. |
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