Reflecting on Mature Relationships

Hello and welcome to Tape Notes, the podcast that looks behind the scenes at the magic of recording and producing music. Every episode we'll be reuniting an artist and producer and talking through some of the highlights from their collaboration in the studio. So join us as we lift the lid on the creative process and the inner workings of music production to see what lies beneath . Hello, I'm John Kennedy and joining me for this episode of Tape Notes are Rufus DeSoul to talk about how they wrote, recorded and produced the album Inhale, exhale. Rufus de Sol are a three-piece Australian indie dance group consisting of Tyrone Lingfist, John George and James Hunt. The trio came together in 2010 with a shared passion for electronic music, drawing inspiration from iconic acts like Chemical Brothers and Roiksopp. Initially performing under the name Rufus, they released two EPs, Rufus in 2011 and Blue in 2012, before rebranding as Rufus to Soul. Their debut studio album, Atlas, arrived in Praised for their experimental blend of melodic and atmospheric sounds, the record reached number one on the Australian album charts. Their second record, Bloom, released three years later, continued their upward trajectory, topping the charts once again with notable tracks like Inner Bloom signalling the shift towards a richer, darker sound that would define their later musical style. Throughout their career, the trio has released five studio albums and garnered significant international acclaim. Their achievements include winning a Grammy for Best Dance Electronic Recording in 2022, embarking on global tours, and performing at renowned festivals such as Coachella and Lollapalooza. Their latest album, Inhale Exhale, released in 2024, digs into themes of personal transformation, love and emotional depth, all conveyed through their distinctive fusion of organic and electronic sounds. Today I'm at home in Morden South London and, I'm join ed by James and John from their Miami studio. And Tyler joins us from his home in San Diego. And what better way to start than by hearing something from the record? This is Music Is Better. This alliance song only yet children Music is better. It is Rufus deSol from the inhale-exhale album and I'm very pleased to say that I am connected to all of Rufus deSol. We've got Tyrone in San Diego. Hello Tyrone. Hey, how you doing? And then on the other side of the United States, we have James and John in Miami. Hello, how you doing? Hey there, happy to be here. So you're miles away from home in Australia. How long have you been residents of the US? We've lived here for almost eight years. We all moved to LA. We lived in a house together on Rose Avenue in Venice. And then we scattered across LA, different parts of LA and then then me and John moved out to Miami about eighteen months ago and um Ty moved down to Ancinitas, that's very close to San Diego. So that resulted in us figuring out how to write music toget Wow. So is inhale exhale an experiment in action then? You know, is it the result of this experiment? You on two different sides of of the United States actually creating and writing together in that way. Is that what happened? Yeah, very much so. We sort of uh knew going into this record it was gonna be different and uh we were gonna have to try and figure it out and at the start of the process I guess we were hoping that we would be able to be writing uh sort of separately like this a little bit more. But uh I guess we found the sweet spot in setting up these sort of two week uh studio sessions, say in the middle of the country in Austin or over in LA, and we would just uh you know get fully involved in the process and do two-week intensives and uh we'd start the songs from there and then we would come back and flesh them out more uh separately in our own studios. But it was definitely an experiment and we figured out this week's spot a little later on. Yeah. I like the idea that you met somewhere in the middle just to uh reacquaint yourselves with each other. Um that's excellent. So the first track that we're going to look at in depth is Pressure. So maybe we could have a blast of the master of pressure and then we'll find out how you created it. Perfect. We'll uh have a blast of the of the master . Call me down with mess me crawling thro and I'm waiting for him all in jail to calling You'll never break me down You'll never break me down Just a little taste of pressure by Rufus de Sol from Inhale Exhale. So that's how it ended up. How did it start? Yeah, I guess uh the way this song started was um you know we we've been discussing this concept of starting a track based around like a riff, like a massive riff, for a while, and we tried a few different approaches. Um, but basically, you know, having a song be built around just a a hook and the the hook being like baseline and however that's expressed if it's on a synth or you know a specific analog synth. So we tried that a few times, but we were in um LA so in one of these two week writing periods we had. And then I remember we were working on something else and Ty had um I'm not sure if you'd written it outside of the studio or if you were jamming on the piano, but Ty brought in this um just this riff, this bass line. Oh yeah, yeah. So while we were doing the like separate writing sessions, um the guys wrote a lot of material and I wrote a lot of material too. And so there was a lot of like offcuts in terms of like the production for the guys with a lot of the beats and a lot of almost song starter ideas, things that we could take into each session to start building and fleshing out a song pretty fast so that those two-week periods were really effective, essentially. And so this um bass line and the vocal melody, the starting, like pull me down, that um was written like while we were separate while I was just at home with the bass line and the bass sounded very different and the the vocals pretty similar but the lyrics aren't there. That's kind of like this mumble jumble idea and then kind of ends with you'll never break me down like the hook there. And so while we were in the session, you know, there was a handful of times where we'd be like, oh, what do we want to do today? Or we'd be, you know simmering on an idea and then one of us might bring a a piece like an idea for us to hash out on and this bass line and that vocal melody was one. I think there's a recording that I sent to James of like it's like an iPhone recording of me improvising the vocal melody, just finding it really in those initial moments. I found that really easy. It was like having a simple bass, like on a mini V or something, on a session, a looped uh beat or a hi-hat or something, and then I would kind of jam a vocal and just press record on my iPhone and see if anything would come. And yeah, there would be like, you know, most of it's all crap. But uh there's you know, there's a handful of cool stuff. Anyway, showing that baseline idea was we were like, all right, let's let's see where this kind of takes us. Here's the here's the little um voice recorder thing you sent me, Ty. It's like only down wigg ins the word stor my end ance for him Yeah. I think it's towards the end, Rick. Here's the break me down thing . I think it's coming. Yeah. Okay, yeah, so you'll never bring me down. I think it eventually gets to break me down. But it's one of those funny times, like it's feels funny listening back to it because it's like this vulnerable space in a studio where you're like, you know, you're in this place of excitement. It's like when we're writing in the studio, that's kind of where you go. You're like, whoa, and you're you're these kids, and I think your ego's yeah, kinda left at the door, which is nice, and you fantasize about this thing. So just hearing that snippet in terms of like the boop boop boop boop it's sounds so silly but in my head I'm hearing this big thing but really it sounds quite small and simple. I think I remember my wife coming in as well and I was like, oh hear this bass line. She's like, uh yeah, it's cool. Maybe you get over it after a while. But now she loves it. You know, it's just like the context for us, I think, is we can hear the ballpark of a big idea and I think we know when that's there, but initially maybe to someone else it'd be like, well I don't know what that is, you know. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. So we brought that idea in and then the guys kind of took it a lot further as well. Yeah. So how do you do that? How do you take that initial kernel of an idea and develop it into this big thing that ends up on the record. Yeah, I guess uh for this specific idea and also in general, I think on this record we were finding more interesting ways of getting texture out of sounds through satur ation and um whether that's utilizing, you know, uh me and John bought a bunch of outboard gear. So we got like the culture vulture and those kind of um, you know, things to run things through, but also um soft sense, like saturn is something we were using a lot, but essentially you know finding ways of getting character out of a sound by like distorting all the harmonics. So basically it was a very obvious like direction for this to go in for the production and what the production identity could be . Um so we tried a lot there's a there's a huge graveyard of ideas, basically of of just different ways that we were just trying to express that main baseline. And at the same time we're kind of building beats around it and you know we'd built a kind of library of of drums that we, you know, could pull in, especially because we only had two weeks to work on an idea. So that would help us to like get to the core of some kind of groove quicker referencing stuff that we DJ , but it kind of took two weeks. Like we're in the studio, we'd come back to it and try a different bass sound. So maybe I'll I'll play some of the I didn't make it. Um I can't remember what half of these are. That's a serum patch that we made. Uh we use the Profit Six lot in the studio and I really like drive using the drive on that especially when the resonance is up so that the harmonics just get you know crunched and and destroyed into obliteration and so I think a bunch of these are that like like this is That's another one. Not that. Um I think by the time we left the initial writing sessions we still hadn't found the kind of bass sound that we ended up with. But um that's definitely like utilizing those production springboards gives some momentum for us as Ty is generating more sort of lyrics and uh top lines. Me and John are like nerding out on that kind of stuff and and we all are, but I think that cre helps create momentum for us. And this song in particular is like an experiment in saturation and distortion and seeing how we could make it feel really aggressive, but also feel electronic and still tie into our larger body of work. Yeah. Yeah, because one of the things that always strikes me about Rufus de Sol is how unlike quite a few electronic artists, you know, it's about the songs and and it you're a very kind of song based band, I think. You know, and that's one of the reasons why people connect with you because they fall in love with these these songs and and the statements, the words and the messages that you're conveying lyrically as as much as the ideas that are there in the sound. I think that's what's really special about um the three of us, really, that I've grown more and more grateful for just the differen ces in us as three guys, you know, and our influences and our love of music. We have such a similar crossroads. Somewhere in the middle, there's a love we all share, you know, a consistent love of something. And then there's offshoots, you know, like whether you know it's alternative rock-based stuff that maybe I I really like listening to or I know John um huge on electronic uh like more club friendly tracks and started off DJing like when we'd finished school and like James as a real a whole versatile being a drummer growing up and learning jazz and rock, whatever you have, it's like a very wide scope of music that has influenced you. Um so you fast forward to us being in a band and I don't know why, but the cross section of those three people makes for yeah, a love of music and a love of songs and a love of DJ sets and more electronic uh experimental tracks and then more club dance ready numbers that, you know, follow a groove that maybe don't have a vocal. Maybe it's more about the the way that it makes your body move. So it feels nice to hear that you like uh that there's songs there because I think that is really important to us. Yeah. I'm glad you uh agree. And it yeah, it seems really important and really crucial. Um what happened next with pressure then? You know, after you were exploring all these different sounds and in the meantime, Tyrone was working on the words, you know, it I like the idea that you've got these defined roles that you can kind of get on with something. You know, like you meet up, you start writing together, then you all kind of know what you're gonna do when you separate and that you can concentrate on evolving something separately but bring it back together. Um yeah, exactly. We it's very cool that there's three of us and we can uh yeah, all work on stuff in parallel. Um, but I'd say the next thing was we kind of were building this beat up. Um and so there was a couple of loops that I generated on like flight, I think. Just like basically, you know, I really love texture in a beat and in general. So, like, you know, playing with electronic music and things that are synthesized, but counteracting it with just interesting samples and loops and stuff. So there was just definitely um you know this like marching vinyl kind of like eighth note hi-hat sample there was that there was these kind of low end tomes that um we were basically referencing some stuff we would DJ so you know utilizing this low end Tom to play off the kick . So we were basically just trying to build up a groove and then there's a few extra little like textural things like that. What's this thing? Oh yeah The is basically like a group in itself that's just like a white noise uh saturated against like a a sort of like 808 kick so it just like crunches really interestingly basically there's always like interesting kind of like points of texture that I really love that you know it's like simple but it gives the beat like a little bit more of a world and the ecosystem it lives in . And we tracked some live hats as well . So basically this we liked that this groove is it's very simple, it's very eighth node driven and it reminded that yeah there's a bunch of tracks that we were referencing that are in that vein. It's very simple, very driving. We tried some more 16-y hats, things that were busier, which we do on other tracks well. But for this, we like that it was a really simple kind of bed for the baseline to sort of move around and undulate around, and then it's uncluttered, it's like there's less space being utilized. You know, we try to make sure we don't overclutter stuff . And here comes the base. Yeah, exactly. And that's that's the final thing that we did. That in terms of the patch that the base that we used. And is this all done in Ableton? Is this so and kind of doing it live, experimenting as you go along, letting the track run and and adding things, subtracting things? Yeah, I think uh particularly if with this one we we knew about uh we spoke this actual sort of straight of feeling uh of the drums and uh yeah James did a bunch of experiments from the plane and me and James also had recorded a lot of like uh different things here at our studio in Miami in prep for sort of these sessions um which we could easily pull in different elements from. But I like that we sort of try and create like as much as we like to be free and jam and try a bunch of things, we also like to discuss, you know, maybe what the path forward for a track could be . And uh this sort of straight chugging thing seemed really on point. And I think that along with this we were trying to find some some largeness like down in the bottom end. So we ended up I think adding this uh sub sort of pump to really keep that body uh moving down below while st still having this huge riff uh on top. So basically it's just an eighth note like serum thing that we made as as a yeah, a pulse, like John was saying. And then as the bass line developed, these kind of like pitch bends uh were added. So we just tracked that to the eighth note base. So it's just locked. So like they both kind of drop off like that. But yeah. When we initially had that baseline and we were trying things, we didn't have those bends in there. And it sounded a little too robotic or it didn't have life. And like we were saying, like the us having some influence of rock or something like and us trying to emulate a big riff without it feeling like a guitar or a bass, but to be an echo of that, it's like when we just played it on the synth as it was without any bends, it just sounded a bit lifeless or it didn't have it didn't feel real. And so adding just that small thing like the bends on a synth just pushed it whether it was ten percent, five percent, twenty percent closer to a guitar or a bass, kind of made it feel more earthed. Yeah, no it's it's really good. I mean it gives it that kind of or more organic feel of of somebody actually playing that time and time again round and round. As you would if you were playing a more straightforward instrument than uh the sense that you're using. Yeah, exactly. Um I think another interesting thing with this track that it's kind of it was kind of serendifitous almost. It was when we were jamming on the idea and there's uh you'll never bring me down or break me down, whatever that lyric was. And then we do a lot of cross pollination. So we'll have like a vocal chop or like a beat in another track and then we'll just Frankenstein it into a the new track And we're hemorrhaging things from different ideas all the time. So, like an interesting thing was this chop that you pulled in, John pulled in that was from a track that didn't make it from the last record. And basically you it doesn't really it's hard to tell what it s says or sounds like, but in context, when John pulled it in it sounded like it was like down, it's like this thing. It's just this like chorus vocal chop thing. I think it's a splice, some splice thing that got chopped up and but then in the context it sounded like it was saying like break me down break me down we were like that's sick that's pretty sick. And uh at at the same time we'd been discussing like there'd been a few ideas that in parallel we'd been considering like recording a gospel choir for, you know, for like some more housey kind of vocals or some like nice choral moments. Um so this is one of those things that we then had a gospel choir sing in a really staccato way. We basically um me and John were back in Miami but Ty went into a studio with this gospel choir. But there were four of them or six of them, I think? Yeah, there were six singers. It was four girls and two guys. Um and they kind of tracked six songs with us. Mm-hmm. I mean we didn't know whether we were going to use any of it, but we were just trying and it was just like a you know, a half day in a studio with them and it was really cool to s to just hear these ideas that might be like little small snippets of samples or us mumbling a melody, you know, with an idea of a lyric for them to sing. It was cool to hear it come to life. And yeah. They definitely added a lot, just in terms of damn, I don't know. Yeah. You know, it's something that you can't we can't do. How would you direct them? And if you're basing it from a a little snippet of a chopped up sample, or m then do you write out a phrase for them to sing or do you play that chop and get them to replicate it or do you have to explain it in greater detail? In this case we knew we wanted to do break me down just because the the chop itself already sounded like that and the feeling that was in the sample was close enough to what we wanted to get. So we just knew that we were trying to get in the ballpark of whatever that was with these words. We weren't really trying to offer a a new feeling. This was probably less of a gamble in that we felt like we could achieve the sound of that sample with these words and yeah, that was basically the driving force. So we would just listen back briefly and then kind of direct or or you know ask for it to be more staccato. Or that one was quite easy for them to get. Yeah. Yeah. And then what do you do with the track? Do you use it both or do you just use the the gospel choir now? We tried a few different approaches. Like I think we tried layering the original thing with the gospel. Um there's obviously a lot of takes, so we tried having some more variation and letting the different takes progress after each other. But in the end, we kind of treated it like a sample and kind of um warped the timing of it a little bit so it still felt like the audio chop feeling of the original thing. Cause there's always this thing of uh, you know, an initial spark of an idea and then the more we deviate from it, a lot of the times we'll come back to whatever that initial magic was. And obviously in this case, we liked that there was an actual, you know, well-recorded gospel and there was size and scale in that and that they were saying these words that were more intentional. But at the same time , we kind of tried to match the sort of timing of it. So this is like the where it ended up. And so we had we'd we tweaked it sort of like fall off of the pitch and sort of like meticulously went through getting the timing right. Um I think when we're on a film clip shoot, I think we were playing with it on the laptop somewhere. But that's kind of the genesis of that thing , which feels like, you know, it adds a lot of energy to the track and it kind of wildness. And it ties it in, you know, there's like a homogeneity of tying it in with the rest of the record where we've peppered in different sort of gospel vocals and you know, um whatever that aesthetic is. So Yeah. Yeah. It's really effective. I mean across the whole of the album. You know, the backing vocals, the at times they are backing vocals, but they're they're they there're a a vocal presence that is there on the track that isn't tie or isn't necessarily tie immediately. You know, I sah I I did wonder, you know, is that a multiple of tie, you know, doing all these different things because it's such a great other element to the songs. Yeah, and I think we've like uh always enjoyed uh like Taran's obviously a wizard at um being able to create all these different harmonies and create and acquire himself. But we also uh enjoy being quite fluid with that, being able to fly in samples and get initial sparks and then elaborate on that or twist and turn that or whether it's me or James putting in some little idea that get Tyrant gets to resing or it ends up staying in the track itself, which will be the wilder the wilder samples. But I think that there's like a a real nice looseness um to how we appro ach that and and then in general I I love the fidelity of of having a real choir and uh having that mood um throughout the the record and we've done that in the past too so it feels nice. Yeah, definitely. And at what stage do you approach arranging the track and the arrangement of the track? No, because you're gathering all these different elements, you've got a lot of different things going on. You want to put it in some kind of order. Uh I think the arrangement came within that kind of like first two week block, uh to some degree, in terms of just fleshing out a structure. Um definitely because we had limited time in the studio and then we were gonna go away for how many weeks. We would make it definitely a a goal to finish some kind of structure and have a a vague mix down so that we could be playing it, sitting on it, ruminating on it, seeing how it sits, letting it sort of like simmer um instead of just leaving it as sort of like a unfinished loop. Um and I I also think the time pressure of having those two weak blocks and forcing us to get the idea done was a good thing. And I think we've we've always kind of operated this way, but um instead of leaving something as like a a loop or just like a verse chorus, if it feels like there's something potent in it, we do f try to flesh out the structure and see where it goes because the structure and the arrangement results in us adding elements that it sounds like it might need for like the final chorus or you know what's going to happen in the breakdown, you know, what would feel exciting. Do we do something that we haven't done before in a breakdown, or do we go with where the song's heading? Guess maybe that's what the listener will want. Um so we had a we had a a general arrangement , but then I'd say towards the end of the writing process of the album, we were in this back in the studio in LA, and then um I think we were just adding some more kind of colour and candy and sort of embellishing the aesthetic of the song. But around that period, there's a session, we were I think it was like 3 a.m. or something, we're in the studio, and then we were playing with I think the MS20, putting the Rezzo up on complete, just slamming the Rezzo up and then sort of just making these like alien kind of almost theremin noises, like you know, just that it's very wild and weird. And then um Ty jumped on the computer and we basically set up a single note MS20 patch for him and he was uh basically jamming on the idea of like creating a a melody out of the automation of the resonance and it just it was so uh it felt so exhilarating. We loved how like wild and kooky it was. And basically he was drawing it in manually and sometimes it wouldn't catch the note quite, like exactly. So there'd be this interesting like half note it's just very specific and I think the specificity of it made it more interesting than just drawing notes in on a sine wave or whatever. Yeah. So this is that And so when Ty was doing this he was listening to the track at the same time and just Yeah, yeah. Kind of colouring it in in a way. Yeah. Yeah exactly. Yeah, we uh we were just soloing the some of the chords and the lead , but you know, through that whole period there's a there's a build up. There's also this really interesting thing where we there was a a drum chamber, like a reverb chamber, sorry, in the studio. So we played the drums, the beat that we'd made through it and recorded it. B inack itself . So there's that going on . It was like a flange sixteenth night thing. Just al it was just elements of tension, I guess. Yeah, I think this wildness that we look playing to with this track obviously based around what was experiments in saturation and stuff, uh it created this wildness to the track. But I love the that with arrangement, it was always about this big build, a build of tension and then the pressure release. Um and uh I guess that's sort of what the initial spark was. And even Tyrone's vocals starting with this pre-chorus, you sort of vibe before it drops, and then it's goes into the first verse after that, and the second verse is almost in the breakdown. So it's a very uh felt pretty unique in the way that we just kept changing things up for ourselves and and building things differently. And then this wildness and this breakdown with everything starting to come together into this last little um experimentation too of us stretching a vocal just before the last drop was just us again just having fun with playing with things a little bit outside of the box. Yep. There's this um yeah, basically this climax moment like John was saying. And so with that, um, you know, we obviously want it to be it's very climactic, dramatic, and then we were also playing with uh I really like using texture mode on or tone mode I think. We're basically getting to we took Tyrant's vocal and we were just like It's almost like that old like jungle vocal Bing s the time stretch kind of effect, having it feel like Ty's voice is being like sucked into a blender and like destroyed and crunched and crushed. You know, just like stuttering . Uh we're playing with you know parallel processing of his voice. Um with like a kind of like almost Leslie like chorus to it and there's this in the background. With that time stretch to it as well. Yeah so there's just a lot of like little iterations of production experimentation to make it feel like there's life to it and it's you know not clean or sterile. There's like grit and life to it, I guess. Yeah, totally. And uh do you have input on that type? I mean do you trust these people to manipulate your Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's yeah, it's a cool Yeah, in the studio while we're together, there is a real beautiful trust that we've gotten better at as a band over the years in us , you know, focusing on the things that we love to focus on, whether I'm focusing on lyrics or the melody or something, uh, and the guys are focusing on like the aesthetic of the song or the beat or yeah, the structure or we're kind of fleshing things out, but there's always an awareness from each of us as to what is going on in the studio, and you're getting influenced by if a beat or if it's sixteenth hat , you know, it's gonna influence my choice of vocal melody or rhythm. And vice versa, if I'm singing something, it might influence, you know, a particular sound or a wing or so most of the things are happening within the studio and then when we step a like while we're together and then while we step away and we, you know, go our separate ways and the guys are fleshing out different ways of affecting things. Yeah, there's a there's a back and forth that happens. I'd say eighty percent of the time it's pretty much like, yeah, I really love it. And that could be from affecting the vocal or you know, and sometimes there's a pushback where it's like, oh, I can't understand what I'm saying here. Um I remember that with this one, it was the distorted vocal of like, cause I could take the pressure. That lyric wasn't there before and for me I was like, oh, I really feel like that's that gives the song a the identity for me. It's like it used to just be you'll never break me down. And so that was kind of like the finishing piece of the puzzle for me, but finding the middle ground, because what the guys were pushing for was really cool, like the driven vocal so that it felt a little more characteristic, it had a little more life and it wasn't maybe as on the nose where you're hearing the lyric. Yeah. So I love what they were pushing for and the middle ground, finding that where it's like you still have that texture and drive on the vocal, but you can still hear what's being said. So I don't know, there's I think there's always like a really cool push and pull between us and the middle ground of where we end up is always fun and nice and or it's something that we believe in this I mean with the this track, you know, there's a tension within the music, there's a tension almost within the words as well, you know, that it seems to be a a song about resilience and survival in a way and and that's kind of echoed a bit in in the way that the song builds and and climaxes. No, nothing will defeat you, people. Well said. Um we're conscious of the time, so we want to move on to our next song. Maybe we could um kind of have a blast of the ending of of pressure. It would be great to kinda round off in that way. You'll never break me down . Pressure. Rufus to soul. And the next song we're going to look at fromh inalehale ex is Fire Des ire . This episode is supported by Cube, the world's first member studio for artists, producers, and all-round creatives. With over 80 professional studios across four London locations, Cube gives you the space, tools and community to make great music and develop your career. And today I'm joined by Nicholas Schoeniger, co-founder of Cube to tell us more. Hi Nick, what does a Cube membership do for music makers? Hey John, so look, I mean with Cube membership you get access to a whole host of things. First of all, you get the studios. So you've got music production rooms, EJ studios, podcast studios, and content studios, all bookable through our app 24-7. You also get access to events ranging from networking to industry talks to hands-on workshops. We've got amazing co-working spaces that you can come and hang out in, bars where you can socialize, and really the whole ethos is to bring like-minded creatives together and inspire each other as well as have a professional space to work. All of this happens across our four London locations in Hackney, Elephant and Castle, Canary Wharf, and Acton. So if I'm a music maker and I've outgrown Super easy, just head over to the Cube website and apply for a membership. Application takes a couple of minutes. All we look for is a certain level of talent. You know, we're not looking at how many Instagram followers you've got. We just want to see that you're serious about your craft. And then you know in terms of once you come into the cube community, you're going to meet a whole host of people, whether it's people that are just starting out on their career but a super talented through to people that have got platinum cuts. Really we're about people that are always looking to up their skills and collaborate and be inspired by by people around them. And how does the membership work at Cube? What are the options? So we get that everyone's needs are different. So we have different membership tiers with varying studio hours included. It starts from £145 a month. And for the tape notes audience, you can double your studio time. Just use the code TAPENOTES 90 when you apply in the how you heard about us field. Then if you release a project made at Cube within the first ninety days, we'll even gift you your studio time back. Wow, that sounds like a great offer. Thanks, Nick. So if you're looking for professional studio space across London, head to the Cube dot com that's the QUBE dot com and don't forget to use the code Tape Notes ninety. Tees and Cs apply . The next song we're going to look at from Rufus DeSoul's Inhale Exhale is Fire Desire. So James and John, if you could play in the master so we get an idea of of how it ended up. my sp possi bly Fire Desire by Rufus DeSol from Inhale Exhale. So that's how it ended up. How did it begin? This has been a a long run in the making. We have a there's a shelf of songs and uh you know sometimes when we write like you know start a song on a record the writing process for a record will , you know, try to get it onto that record. And if it doesn't work out, or if we can't find the either the production execution or if it's lacking the right sort of release of a chorus, you know, then it doesn't make it and it goes on the shelf. So there's a healthy number of tracks still on the shelf. Some of them are from like 10 years ago. But because we believe in them, we'll try to sort of reapproach them on every record. So the initial um version of this started in twenty eighteen when we were living in Venice together. And yeah, basically it was there was always kind of this like broken beat identity to it. Um basically I think Ty went into the studio and there was some like I I'd been mucking around with some broken beat thing that was a bit sample y and left field and it wasn't really going to go anywhere in my mind. And then Ty came out and had generated this like really interesting idea. A lot of the lyrics were already done or the ideas were there that you know have still remain to this day. And a lot of the cool kind of just like choices . So this is the demo or the original version from 2018. Yes, this is it, right ? What am I supposed to do with you ? And take a walk you can take a walking on my head Interesting, so the music has changed quite a lot really. But the words are are there. Because it the words are interesting. I can't work out. Sometimes I listen to the song and it seems really dark you know, with his body lying on the floor. And um and then at other times it seems more much more um caring and loving. And I'm sure it's neither of those things or maybe it is. I don't know. So it maybe that was another time of your life, Ty . Well yeah, it was a different time. I yeah, I just met my now wife around that time, and I think that what I like about this song is that it does feel like those early days of a relationship where there is more like fire or yeah there's more passion there's more yeah you're in like a honeymoon phase where everything's exciting and I like that this song explores that my wife had introduced me to this book by Stan Tatkin. There's like a relationship guy in terms of a healthy relationship. And I think us being in a band, we'd we didn't really learn that necessarily as three guys in a band. You know, we w we would think about ourselves and each other and Rufus, the project that we you know, we would tour and that was all we needed to care about and look after. And so it it was for me at least a big learning process in learning how to be a good partner . And anyway, in that book, he he speaks about the importance of referencing yourself and your partner as the king and the queen . And I really love that one lyric at the end of the chorus where it's like, my empire turning upside down, um, hold me now. Like it could have been my world 's turning upside down or so it could have been something else, but I love that Empire alluded to like the yeah, the the royalty, like the it it has a regalness to it where it's like the king and queen and I don't know. I I love also the line of take a walk, you could take a walk through my head under my bed. Under my bed just felt like a little uncomfortable in a it's like that's what's what's under what's in your closet? What's under your bed? What's what are your little secrets? And just the excitement in those early days of relationship where it's like you really do want to know everything about this other person. You you're really curious, you and there's this you can't get enough of them. You know, it's there's like a yeah, an obsessive nature to it and yeah that that was where we were at in our relationship and that's also where we were at as a band. I think having just moved to LA we were living in Rose Avenue together in this house. We were all living in this place and the studio was there and yeah this particular song was I can't it was it was at night it was definitely nighttime when it came about so there is this seductive nature and yeah, maybe it teeth is on the line of creepy or but I do think it comes from a a a desirable place as opposed to like a detective uh you know in a film But it's interesting that it it stayed where it was. You know, that you put it to one side, that you might have been working on it and maybe it it came up as potential for a few different projects, but you didn't develop it in the way that you have now until now. Yeah it's interesting. Like uh I guess in reference to what we were talking about before about the initial spark of something and and whatever that spark is, if it it is melodically or if there's elements that came about initially. Interestingly, this one we came around in terms of utilizing like you know the winding lead that you know comes in, the gated nature of that, some of those things felt like um you they retained and then but then the identity was always kind of confused, I think, or or not confused,, but you know it was kind of not sure what it was. Um I'll play a few other just really short snippets of other things we tried. This is a version of it that I think we were going for like a more sort of afro drum programming four to the four thing . I want you to kiss me touch me I'll go forward a bit. So you know that that was that another iteration from twenty eighteen. Um again, you know, it was the drums being inspired by the rhythm, like the k yeah. But then that also felt like it didn't articulate the idea in the or represent it in the best way. So we kind of left it for that record. That was for Solace, our third record. Uh and then for our fourth record, Surrender, we re-attacked it. And from those sessions came this like one of my favorite breakdowns we've made I think is this like fire burning . This is the 2020 version, right? So it's like this OB6 patch that we use and it just has this really interesting life to it and the whatever the way it moves around I always have loved. I think we've always loved that. So that that element came from those sessions, but then the way it drops, you know, is like still I'll play it. So that was the drop we had for that. Again, yeah, I I think me and Ty were pushing for it more to go on that record. And I think maybe I was like trying to force it because I loved the song so much. But thankfully uh John didn't agree and we listened to that and I think it was a really good decision. Yeah, we have a good uh we have a good democracy here. So if someone's not really feeling something, like this got really close to going on the record. Um, it was getting in the mixing stage and uh close to mastering stage even. But I just didn't I wasn't feeling it fully and was just trying to follow my gut with that too. And I'm glad that we sort of, you know, put it on the shelf and everyone was okay with that to bring up for this next record. And then we really started to find what that um identity was and something that I think that maybe that uh still a a good version that was there just like also just didn't feel quite right amongst the rest of the songs that we had going for surrender to me. But I'm I'm I became much more satisfied with where we got the drum programming to and uh the feeling of the song. And yeah, this uh extra sample use that we had in the in the final version uh on the drops and stuff, so it started to really make sense to me a lot more and uh yeah, got a lot more happy with it. Yeah. Maybe you could illustrate that by playing the parts of of the new version, the current version. But it's interesting. I mean that's so that's like three albums in effect. It's kind of been a contender for for three albums, so it's quite a long time. But it's great that you stuck with it, you know, and it clearly meant a lot to you that you did stick with it, 'cause you could easily have just discarded it. Yeah, exactly. We uh we're believers in giving things many chances. Um, especially if we connect with the core of it and I think we all connected with the core of this idea in terms of the lyrical sort of direction, the top line, the chords that are in it, it feeling like uh brooding and dark, and also it being an opportunity for like a broken beat when we're predominantly referencing more forward of the floor drum programming sort of um references um in you know relation to stuff we play in our DJ sets and so it's always it feels like an interesting opportunity to break away from that to create some dynamic on the record, and that's what this felt like an exciting chance to do. Um, so basically, once we'd agreed on you know re-attacking it with a few references in mind, um basically we built me and John came back to Miami and we were building some of these uh drum elements up . So I'll saw the drums . This is one thing that I thought was interesting to show is that some of the initial elements that I was playing with before me and John sort of assembled all the these elements into the beat was um using a like Echo Boy this kind of like basically it's like a impulse with a few like little rim samples. And then basically, you know one thing that we love doing is kind of just running , you know, hitting record and then just generating tons of stuff that we can then chop later and and chopping things as audio, I think is really cool because then you're kind of committing, you're constantly committing. So that basically running that uh little like impulse thing into Echo Boy and then warping it, sort of like decapitating it a little bit. And then like swinging it to the swing of the track was one of the earliest things that I remember do ing and then it was like sort of building up like a mixture of MIDI shakers, some live kind of like more lush shakers, again like keeping everything really tight . I really wanted like an almond kind of break or a jungle think the think break, because this is a classic. Um and we haven't really used that in the track before. So that that was kind of the sort of basis and then we started building up some more of the crunched like off-beat hat s . Oh this is the rim . Basically we love the it it feeling kind of crunchy, the rims being pitched down and like emphasizing like the the note of the rim so it was really tonal and so then we we were playing with like this offbeat sort of feeling like really distorting things like crunching things committing to audio again, pitching down . But it being a very specific kind of like aesthetic of beat felt exciting to us . And then we played with a few different um kick patterns . We wanted it to be broken beat, but we also didn't want it to be cluttered or busy or complicated. So we ended up with that kind of pattern. There's like space in it to let the base kind of shine through . Yeah and I think uh having the focus on the offs here is really what helps bring it together in the record for me in the homogeneous having that homogeneous feeling throughout the record, uh, because it still feels like you're you're moving for even though it's this broken beat thing. Yeah, exactly . So that was kind of like the main elements of the beat being generated. Another thing that I really like in this track that is kind of an i identity with the production is things being studded. So we're using a lot of gating, especially for the bass, because it's held that's just the held base but then we have this um gate that's the extreme version of it so there's a bit of an attack on it so then using that really subtly so that it creates this subtle like womp um is something that kind of came as we were developing the idea of the track. How are you doing that? Are you using a particular plugin for that? I think um we have used Shaperbox quite a lot, but this one I think it was just a rim there's like a gate. We're basically uh sending a rim here it's this guy. Let me play it . It's just a transient that's to the swing of the track being received by the gate, this Ableton gate plug-in . There's a bit of an attack, bit of a hold. The floor is minus eight. So then it just like subtly moves and it's like with everything playing, you don't really notice it, but you kind of feel it, especially on like a a nice system like when we did we did a listening party in Sydney um and we played the album for like friends and family and a few fans and I think that's when I remember hearing the that womp properly for the first time and uh being like damn thats sound sick. So um we did it right we we got to enjoy it on like a really nice system. It sounds really good. And with that in mind, you know there's there's a few instances of sort of a gating in the track like uh the pads at the start it's like a layer of a choir and like this sort of like bendy sort of serum patch I think that we made Oh no, that's actually um uh Scarborough, which is by Telet one, who make these really sick boutique plugins we used a lot on this record that kind of emulate like very tapy a analogue sounding sort of already processed yeah like synth patches. So that's like a layer of that . But then again there's this like um use of the gate receiving like a swing and then just that's the extreme version of it. And sort of just dialing in and out with automation the floor of it so it just feels like it's breathing a little bit. That's just a way that we like to sort of add life to a track, I think. So yeah, there's just a bunch of instances of things being swung and sitting on the groove of the track. And this is an element from the original idea from twenty eighteen, yeah. That Ty um generated that is this like Moogue siren that I'll play for you guys . And I think it's been printed with processing and that sort of like Beats Mode Gate thing that tied . Uh you know, it's like multiple instances of being printed, baked in, affected, printed. I guess we've like rehashed it over the years. So we basically just sort of like put a reverb on it, distorted that, gated that, EQ'd it . So it's like there's just like five layers of processing that have occurred over the last six years that result in this whatever that sound is. But it's like really crunchy and it's sitting in the swing as well. I feel like everything's sort of glued together then for us with like the Yeah, excellent. interesting, isn't it that that kind of spirit of degradation to the sound quality of that just because you know, as you saved it and liked it and loved it and kept changing it, you know, that that almost brought a quality of its own. You know, as if you'd left it out in the rain had got a bit moldy, but you could have brought it back in and that's not a great analogy. That's a good analogy. Yeah, I think that like some of the exciting parts I guess of rehashing the song was definitely this drums and this new feeling uh and leaning into this uh swing a bit more and only keeping a couple of elements. And then I guess another element that started to really bring the drop together or uh after these chorus feels these post chorus sort of sample feels uh was another exciting thing we often are going through splice and um or even just uh looking through uh older dance tracks and um looking for inspiration, whether we just uh take a note or a feeling and and uh try and redo it ourselves in m lots of different ways. Yeah. Is there anything else we should hear from Fire Desire or should we move on to our our final track? Um I think you were about to play the sample um of the that we found the the the rain one. Yep. I think we were going through splicing through a bunch of different RB type feelings and it it definitely added something new and fresh for us I think. So this along with Deepard, this other this Middle Eastern whale. And then with the bass and drums, I guess it feels cool to hear it like that. So yeah, that was just a process of uh of chopping up someone else's you know um spliced R<unk>B vocal I guess. I think one cool thing that I really do appreciate about us and probably most musicians is that we don't really have a rule in terms of what should or shouldn't be in a song or how it comes to be. You know, like we use splice and ready -made things or vocal lines that exist there or we could , you know , grab a an AI extracted vocal from an existing song from the 70s, you know, just to spark an idea or see where it takes us. And you know, often we re-record or recreate the thing that might be very accessible. Like say that sample from splice is you know, anyone in the world can grab that and can use it. And yeah, I like that we were willing to just go, you know what, this is perfect. Let's not redo it, let's not recreate it, let's not change the words. This there's a magic in this. Whoever recorded it and made it, we should use this. And I I like that about us, that we're willing to try and grab anything from everywhere if it feels like it is the best for the song. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Whatever it takes, whatever works. That's right. And it's interesting, I think, as as people working within the world of electronic music and within the world of dance music, how now there's there are decades of dance music to reference and this constant evolution that is going on has kind of changed because where in the past it used to be right, we move on to the next thing and then we ditch that other thing, we move on to the next genre, uh, you know, as things mutate and change, whereas now you're allowed the freedom to reference many different things and and say if we take this album as an example, you know, you're referencing four to the floor house music, but with this it's a bit of broken beat. You can even see a nod to hip hop within some of those sample uses in in this track and and then when you're lit playing that section with rain, that sample, you know, that could be a burial tune or or something in a way. It has that kind of mood to it. And and you're you're referencing it all now. You know, that I think there's been a change in the last few years that that more holistic or broader sense of of history is being used all the time now. Yeah, I I think that um we we love, you know, and find very interesting the cyclical nature of electronic music and that, you know, things are coming back in a vogue at different points and uh we find ourselves referencing a lot of stuff that was predominant when we were, you know, kids probably, um, as well as stuff that's contemporary, referencing our own stuff. Um I fucking love burial. Huge fan of burial. Um so you know, that that kind of more interpretive type of electronic um music as well, which is itself interpreting dance music as well as actual dance music and the the entire spectr Yeah, yeah, it's great. I love the way that you bring that all together. Um we'll take a quick break, and the next song we're going to look at is Exhale . This episode is supported by the Masters in Songwriting programme at Trinity Lab on. With a Wright Produce Release Philosophy at its center, the course is designed to give you the knowledge and community to build a lasting and successful career in the industry. To tell us more about it, I'm joined by Dr. Tony Brisco, Music Production Module Leader for Popular Music at Trinity Laban. Hi Tony, thanks for speaking with us. Can you explain how Write Produce Release shapes the experience of the course. Hi John, thanks for having me. So write, produce, release is really at the heart of the MA in songwriting at Trinity Lab an. The idea is simple. Students don't just study songwriting in theory, they actually do it from start to finish. They write original material, developing skills in melody, harmonies and lyrics, then we move to production, building confidence with us in DAWs and shaping their tracks into something more polished and professional. And finally they release music , exploring identity and technology while also learning a practical side, such as, you know, the IP, building a brand, mapping a five-year career plan, all of that kind of stuff. So by the time they graduate, they're not just leaving with ideas , they leave with a finished portfolio and the confidence to stand behind that sound. And it's very flexible. This isn't a traditional full-time in-one room masters, is it? No, so it's it's it's the one thing we're really excited about is that the course is designed as an online first , which makes it ideal for working musicians and global students who can't relocate. Uh and then in the summer everyone comes together in London when intensive writing camp, modelling on the professional industry writing sessions. Amazing. Who do you think the masters is designed for? Well the good thing is that it's really for anybody who's serious about songwriting and want to build a sustainable career. We see emerging artists who want to build a credible portfolio. We also welcome working musicians who want to sharpen their production skills or better understand the business side, which is really, really important these days. So if you're driven, curious and ready to release music is a great fit. Thanks, Tony. It sounds fantastic. So if you're ready to deepen your craft, define your voice, and actually release music while you study, the songwriting masters at Trinity Lab an might be your next step. To find out more, head to Trinity Lar bin.ac.uk. That's Trinityla B A N dotac uk, and search for the MA in songwriting. The next song we're going to look at from Inhale Exhale by Rufus DeSoul is the closing track on the album. I guess um at one one half of the title of the album. We'll find out more about that in just a moment. Um so this is Exhale and James and John if you if you want to play the master that would be great. I'm not sure I will Things go back I can't pick shall have bad you said to you my sp irit of be also until we let's only to our shift I will You should know how to go out be Just a little taste then of exhale from inhale exhale by Rufus deSol. It's very easy to get lost in that track and uh forget to talk to you. I was really getting lost in the different sounds. Um I've got to ask th that there's sounds like a cowbell uh very, very low in the mix. Is that a cowbell? Yeah, you uh close. It's a Glock and Spiel. That was one of the um we can tell the story about how it was made, but um basically we're trying to find ways to create time without a beat because this for us was a different closing track. Um, you know, usually the closing track on our records will make more of a progressive or emoti ve, but still dance floor-influenced piece of music. And that's been the case for the last four records. So we decided to flip it on its head. And um we were all discussing, I think over lunch one day, like, let's go in and make something like completely different and beatless and it'd be like a piece of music that is defined by how much space there is in it and uh negative space. So with that in mind when we were generating stuff, this is a basically I'll just I'll just play it. It's a we liked it it kind of sounds like a a train bell, you know, it's like a train pulling in. But basically it is if I just turn this off . It's a Glockens feel pitched down like two octaves I think So push it down with some delay reverb hearing out some of the harmonics. But essentially, yeah, it's just like this . It feels like you're in a I don't know, some surrealist dream and there's like a train . Anyway. But there's a few instances of interesting pulse, so it's cool you picked up on that. Yeah, it's great. It's great. And uh there's yeah, there's layers of these things, these different sounds that are going on. So inhale, exhale, it's the title of the album. Inhale starts the album, exhale ends it. That's so they kind of bookend the record . Did you create those bits of music and then title the album? Were they created with the title in mind? Was it interlinked? Yeah, so this uh track uh had a working title of Daffodil for the rest of its life that we've known it. And uh we sort of created a lot of the project titles for the record. We like to do this every time we go into a record is to create a theme, I guess, rather than just having the A project A, project B. We have, you know, um different themes. Um we've had space. I think on Atlas we had different cities. And it just helps us, you know, sort of create some type of visual sometimes, or even just as easy as remembering what the which track is which. But uh, flowers was the theme on this on this record, some type of floral yeah, feature, and uh yeah, that's uh the track was also one of our like, you know, strongest uh tracks for a while there in the like it came in about in the middle of the record writing process. And we were pretty sure that this would be the perfect ending track as we'd like as we'd sort of set out to do. And then uh we went into uh this sort of process of um we had maybe like eighty percent, ninety percent of the record done and we wanted to do like a listening session and play the songs to some people um in LA and we use this uh opportunity of using uh a breathwork session in like what do you call it a sound healing um space in uh Venice in LA , um, has this like pu beautiful setup, uh, wooden floors. Um, people put down like uh yoga mats and have a pillow. Um, and you basically put on blindfolds and uh this teacher will take you through a breathwork session. So we did a Q<unk>A talking about the record. And uh we also then were to have these amazing speakers in this uh in this acoustically built built-out room. It's beautiful. So everyone was led through, I guess, this breathwork session, uh, which sort of fires your senses and and takes you into a different world whilst doing the breath work. And then we played back a few of the the songs includ ing uh this song Daffodil . Um and I think uh after leaving that session we'd spoken a lot about breath and uh we were still trying to come up with an album title and uh it sort of appeared um after that as inhale and exhale being yeah something we believe strongly in. We do breath work uh before we go on stage and that's been a big part of our lives for the last few years. So I think we even um once we had f sort of discussed this being the album title, we then went into writing an intro song for the whole album and it felt, you know, quite fitting to have that as in hail track. So that the whole album is I can be sort of this one big cycle of uh inhale and an exhale breath and and then back on again to repeat the whole album again if you want. So we sort of had a bit of fun playing into that and that's sort of how that uh exhale title came out. Yeah. Really, really interesting. Um and what kind of breath work? I mean that d so this probably could be a whole podcast and t so just breath work But uh how how do you do this or what what are you doing? And and say w before uh when you're on the stage, no, before you c take to the stage, no what how do you do it? I guess it depends on the day. Um like if we're you know, quite exhausted, which is frequently the case, then our trainer who comes on the road with us would lead us through like the like very short, like kind of almost hypervent ilating and then holding like holding the breath in, holding it out. We'll do a few rounds of that and it kind of like charges you up. Or if we're feeling like there's a lot of nervous energy, then we'll sort of do down regulating breath work where we're doing like box breathing. It's like four in, four hold, four out, four hold. There's a few different like techniques. Um I don't know the specific terminology of them, but basically it's like it's also a cool way to just like connect as a unit before we go on stage, especially for some of these, you know, these huge shows we've been lucky enough to play over the last few years. Um it's a way to connect and then also to like come into your own body again if you're in your head. I feel like we've performed the best we have sort of in our in the live shows because of that practice. And like, you know, then we have an ice bath set up when we finish the show. Um we all do ice bath and yeah, so we've implemented a lot of cool kind of practices into the way we tour. Yeah. Sounds amazing. Sounds amazing. And that that experience of of listening to the album in that uh situation you outlined, John, sounded amazing as well. No. Those were lucky people I think who got to listen to it in that way. Um, fantastic. Sounds like a really clever thing to do. You've got these these clever approaches to things with the the breathing and the listening, you know, a way of allowing ourselves to reassess in a different environment. Yeah. I think it's something that we've connected with uh over the years. We used to be a bit more of a uh you know, we used to do things quite differently back in the day when we started, and uh over time we realized what was um gonna make this sustainable for ourselves and and to reignite passion and stuff in the studio uh or be able to operate at a different level, um even if it's just uh you know as as better collaborators in the studio together, sort of these ideas of breath work and uh ice ballots and things like that is just a really you know quick way almost to re-center, to ground ourselves and to reconnect uh between each other. So it's something that we often uh do and it was really cool to to do that um as a sort of listening session focus group there was different people with some type of interest in the band there. And you know, I think that yeah, that place in particular, uh open in uh in Venice, uh like have have used our music throughout some of their breathworking sessions before and the Excellent. Sounds sounds fantastic. Um right, so where did it start with exhale or daffodil as it was known? Actually can't really rem I think we built it around the chords and vocal melody, essentially. We were trying to keep it really stripped back and just trying to highlight the vocal and I can't remember how the idea of doing using a vocoder came about, but somewhere in the studio that came about, it's like, okay, maybe if this vocal melody is sung through a vocoder, so that's the only time that you hear the chords to contextualize the the simple melody, the vocal. That was exciting to us. And I I guess like lyrically as well. I think the lyrics came out really fast. They were all written in that day. All the melodies were written in the that first day. It's very rare for us to finish a song in a day, but this was a case where it happened what two days, you know and all the the recording of the vocals, I think 90% of them are the things that are in there now . And I don't know, I I I think that the chorus came pretty quick, like till the end of my last breath, I'll be yours until I'm gone, or I I can't even remember what they are, but um I love that it was a blatant simple love song. I think in general we we love making you know love songs if you were to break it down to the simplicity of it. And I think one trick not tricky one thing I connect with in songs is when there's an air of doubt or like something that isn't like I love you screaming off the top of a mountaintop. There's yeah, when I connect with something like that, it's very rare and it's amazing when it's just an overt love song that is very positive . But the ones that I connect with most are the ones that have a bit more humanity or an air of doubt. So that knowing that we had the chorus that was closer to standing you know on a mountaintop screaming I love you, the first lyric felt really important . And it being like I don't know why I left you alone. I'm not sure I will. I like that it sets you off on a tone of like, what's this song gonna be about? It doesn't sound like it's a you know, it doesn't sound like everything is all perfect. There's imperfection. And I just thought I like that in terms of the lyric. That felt really important. And I think that that is something that we do a lot in our songs is to have a an air of doubt in terms of the words, even within a shorness. Because I feel like that's that feels true to life. It feels, you know, for us, a song , one of our prime goals is just for it to feel somewhat authentic or real . And yeah, I really like that. And it's hard to remember. I'm not as good at remembering , you know, how what came and when it came in terms of the development of the track, but I do know the melody and the lyric came pretty quick. Yeah, that's right. It it yeah, yeah. It was uh because we started this in Austin, I think it was November last year. And yeah, Ty basically I think we were working on some other track, maybe hit a a wall with it, and then Ty was jamming on something, he played it to us, and he he was playing it to us on the piano, the main chords and the vocal melody. And then yeah, I don't know when that idea came, but we decided to just basically play uh have the chord s only appear through the vocal so essentially what a vocoder is. So we having that and then at some point I think we use like a crude gate of like we had the super six is this synth that we were playing a lot with on this record that we love like it's so stereo and sounds so fat. But we just basically set like a really crude gate so there's like the bottom end to the voc oda. And we liked that um that left a lot of negative space for, you know wh,atever colour we wanted to play with or you know it being there's a lot of tension in that, like you went in the space between the vocals, especially at the start, 'cause there's no sounds yet, there's no pulse. So we liked that it was just like I don't know. It felt it felt like a a moment of like time standing still a little bit. We liked leaning into that. Um so that was the start of the idea. And then we kind of had fun with playing with like candy and um I kind of want to play one thing that I thought was interesting about the texture of the track, which is these like these like crystal bell things, which essentially is a basically it's a slate and ash plugin called Choreographs, which is a really sick uh contact plugin that we love. And so this thing I was jamming on was splitting up the scale into on different RPGOs playing at different rates . And then having each note having like a basically using um expression control in Ableton, so it's like a random input. So each note gets panned slightly differently so it's kind of dancing around the stereo field . You know and that just felt like a really interesting bed I guess. And having them all kind of open up as the as the track opens up it feels like it's sort of pillowing out. And we were playing with like these kind of like tension strings . And basically it just felt like interesting tension for us to be jamming on and as the track builds there's this like bass that we tracked on the MS2 0 . So we like that there's like a I guess like an undercarriage of rhythm as well and this thing is just you know it's a r like we love the MS20 we always have like the there's like that noise on the filter sounds so nice. We play with different kind of processing like using this um emulator of the culture vulture to kind of add some grit and sort of embellish the noise of it. And we like that there's a contrast of like prettiness with grit as well. So it kind of earths it a bit so not everything is just pretty. I thought that was cool. Yeah. And basically because there's so much negative space, we were able to like fill the space with interesting noise. So there's a bunch of stuff. To me it sounds a lot like like radiohead, like spinning plates kind of effects, everything being reversed. So we were like sending, you know, crash symbols through delays and then reversing that and printing it and then reversing that. You know, so it's super iterative committing, committing, committing like we were talking about before. It's just like layers of recording and processing and recording and processing. And then you get like really interesting results. Like whatever that is, it sounds very digital. Which I think's cool as well. It's like a cool choice because we're also going for the organic , very textual sounds, but then in contrast we're like I don't know, that feels like really radiohead to me as well, I think. And I think we liked that um like the aesthetic of that. And because there was so much negative space on the track, it was an interesting experiment to fill that space without overfilling it. Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever over overfill it? Do you ever think, oh no we've done too much. I think we do. Like inherently because there's three of us and we're all produc ing and riding at the same time. Sometimes things will layer out quickly, and um, you know, so it's then a good skill to be cutthroat and be like, is that serving the track? But you know, you it's not that's not always the case. I feel like we're usually pretty good at um listening to what the track needs and then we're all kind of on the same journey as to generating what that thing is. Or we like we do a thing called the Bass Wars when we're like trying to find the what the bass line of a track is and we're all in different sense, like no, I think it's this one, it's like a one eight D do do do do all right, that's cool, but I've got this like eighth note thing and so we're all kind of like battling but for with the same goal in mind of like finding the identity. So, you know, um it's not always that we're just like layering for the sake of layering, but yeah it has happened here and there. And um I think we're we've gotten better at and better at you know communicating and saying I think that thing maybe doesn't work, this doesn't work, this doesn't serve the track, or we should highlight this so that the space isn't just cluttered and uh you can hear the focus of things . Yeah. So I don't know. It's an ongoing thing. This is like the piano that I think we tracked in the studio in Austin that it's like a studio that Willie Nelson used to work in a bunch. So there's like all these there's a beautiful piano in there and like old accordions and heaps of like old guitars and memorabilia. And that's basically the initial chords that Ty played us. So we tracked them and they come in sort of towards the end of the track as it builds. Um yeah. I like that a lot of the track is building and there is like a tension that we had and the vocoders there all the way up until the last sort of lift and drop. You know, we didn't know where the song was going to end or what the structure was going to be. We knew that we didn't want it to go to a full beat or a drop, but we wanted it felt like it needed a release of some sort. And yeah, the last vocal melody felt like, oh, this is this is it. Like this feels like a lift of some sort. And I don't know if it was an intentional thing that we did or a happy mistake. But the vocoda isn't happening when I'm singing ah forever. Which when we listen to it now it's like it really is a release in that there's always this tension of these uh the vocoder going on when the vocal is so as soon as you take that away and replace it with a piano that's quite harmonious and isn't too cluttered and narrow and thick in terms of like the frequencies that it's taking up. It felt like a real liberating lift, which felt nice and lyrically, which was interesting, I think on the first night, the lyrics were something like, Till I'm in heaven , like I'm yours till I'm gone. And when we came in the next day, I think John was like, Yeah, I I don't connect with that particular like lyric, which was really fair. Like I think in my brain I wasn't thinking I think we as a band have not really sat specifically in any religion or anything. You know, I think we're spiritual guys and we, you know, have our own beliefs and and I love that. And maybe the word heaven was a little weighted in a way. And that made sense to me, but to me, I'm like, oh, well, what the hell's the solution going to be? And I like that we were throwing ideas around in our creative director , I think, was like, well, what about I'm forever? It was like, well, yeah, that sounds great, but what then? And then it was like a simple, I'm forever yours till I'm gone or till I'm done and it just felt so much better. It was so so much better than the thing that we had the night before. And no yeah, you I I would have not known that , you know, I wouldn't have found that answer at all by myself. And I love that we're a unit that challenges each other and you know, ideas can come from anyone down to you, know, our artistic directors in there with us vibing out or we have a videographer in there filming a bunch, you know, she'll, you know, if we ask her a question, she'll have an idea or something. It it's it's cool. And I'm really grateful that that's where we ended up because it is to me a more profound line, like a more simple and honest line, is maybe what I mean. Yeah. I think we should maybe have a blast of the ending with the piano and then we'll go to the questions that we ask everybody who comes on the podcast and we've got some uh patron questions as well to ask you. So uh maybe we could revisit that piano just ending. Yeah, just before we play the end, I'd just love to solo the piano in terms of it being a closing track and showing the kind of uh I feel like we've done this a few times. We like the idea of like crunching things into the abyss a little bit, and it's like things uh being uh dissipated into the void of space or something, as as being like the way the song closes out, so we like we have the piano but we're bringing up this Valhalla reverb on it and then this dynamic tube saturated so it's just becoming more crunched than crunched and we kind of did that with every element in the track. Towards the end it just becomes like this uh Yeah, it gets crunched and you almost hear like the it stuttering against itself and it felt like a natural way to close out the record, I guess. Yeah, it works really well. I love that. I was just gonna say that like the one other thing in just in terms of the lyrics that I found interesting is that I don't know, I feel like it I feel like the song for me is a real reflection of a more mature relationship too. Um you know, in terms of fire desire being the early days of like where there's uh passion and excitement you're in a honeymoon phase of a relationship i think you know i've been married for three years and in the relationship for seven or eight years somewhere around there uh with my wife and things do change uh you know like and you do it's nice to have those reminders of the fire desire like the track the feeling it's nice that we have that. And I don't know. I just really love the a newfound commitment in a relationship where you're really , yeah, you're committed to people. I'm committed to this one person for the rest of my life and I embrace their change. Like I embrace there's a line that's like you could go anywhere you want. I would love you still. And I I see that, you know, in my relationship and I I love that that feels special to me. It's a real deep commitment, you know, in terms of us having a kid. And just I I really love that. And I think for us as a band as well, just having we've undergone a lot of change, you know, as a unit. And I think we've been together for 14, 15 years. I think it is natural when you're in relationshi p with someone to have to embrace all of them like as they change, you know. I things look different for me, John and James, independently than what they did uh ten years ago. And with we look to each other and go, yeah, I I accept you. And I I feel that with my wife. And I think that that it's a subtle small thing, but I I love that this song for me leans into that more mature relationship and that deeper commitment of like, you know, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. Yeah. I I I just wanted to say that 'cause I I love when lyrics in a song come from a specific place, but they land in a place of more of a universal picture where it's not um it's not too specific to a listener, but the where it's coming from is a more specific source. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Um, let's hear the end of the song and then I'll ask you these these questions. Alright. Till that's how it's chance Taking us off into space possibly It is Rufus de Sol with exhale the, closing track to the Inhale Exhale album. And before I let you go, um, we have the regular questions we ask everybody who comes on take notes and also a couple of Patreon questions that I'm going to ask you now. So Stephen got in touch to say, what is the most exciting big two years of writing or a year and a half at least and uh we've just been on a break so I guess we're just coming in a little fresh but you know the biggest thing I've just had fun with over this record writing process is uh you know we used to be much more in the box um when we first started writing and then you know slowly over the albums we were able to start you know collecting more gear and um and yeah having more fun with sort of working with hardware so uh on this record I guess uh it was really fun to to lean into this more uh analogue and and particularly uh this different different playing with different distortion and like James was saying earlier in the interview , we have this uh outboard uh rack here that we had a lot of fun just crunching and whether things made it on the record or not, I think that it was fun to play with what's bringing out different harmonics and uh and being able to shape that. We have like a transient shaper and everything inside our box, inside our rack, sorry, and these guitar pedals to be able to send stuff to here in our studio. So just having fun with the the looseness of that and uh just recording takes has brought a lot of life back into the studio for us, for me at least. You know, as much as I love um being able to manipulate anything in the box, it's uh there's something fun and and lively about you know having that that rawness and uh and seeing what happens when you distort things and clip things and and have fun with that. Yeah, yeah, completely. Um and that in a way ties in to the next That is a good question because I think I think it's really easy to express emotions like uh maybe like more moody and darker or more spacious or you know not heavier but sort of more weighted emotions, at least in my for me, uh, and I feel like it's probably unanimous, but like through a synth, as in to what I'm saying is to express like joy or happiness through a synth, it's easy for it to sound cheesy, I think, um is, one thing we found, especially through, you know, even though we have this amazing array of synthesizers and the Prophet Six, the OB Six and like just ever ything that we're lucky enough to have, it's like it's really easy to make a sick, like cinematic, dark soundscape. It's like we could do that for days on end and we do that and like we'll spend hours just making like moody soundscapes, but to do it in a way that evokes joy, there's a sweet spot. And that's something I think we've found how to do, but there's it's easier to o overstep. So in terms of expressing through yeah, through gear and through toys. Yeah, that's probably my answer on that, I guess. Yeah. And to overcome it, is it trial and error? You just have to throw yourself at it and work your way through. Yeah, I believe so. I think it's yeah, it's trial and error. It's um yeah it's always iterative. It's like, you know, when something sticks, it it often it's a happy accident or it happens organically. Rarely do we like force it into existence. Every now and then we do, but like for the most part, if the thing works initially, then it's it you know, it's like being an antenna for the idea. And if we're an antenna and we receive the idea and it's sick and and captivating and the spark feels good, then we know there's something in that. And um yeah, so I guess trial and error, just you know, generating a lot. And then we'll you stumble upon the thing, I guess. So the first of our questions that we ask ever ybody is about tech and whether there's a piece of equipment or something that you can't live without it could be to do with this project or it could be just in general. Do either of any of you have a a particular attachment to something or uh have a particular value for something that you use to create? I mean just in general as a project, I think that we uh the most used piece of gear would be the Prophet Six. Uh we have like, I think we own about 10 of them with all the stage gear that we have uh as well. And then I think just me personally, I think that one of the biggest revol utionary plugins we've had uh has been Shaperbox and the way that you can manipulate and use things with that. There's a whole world uh of of things from side chaining to adding sounds uh to create better transients or or to make things pop through uh shape things in in different ways has been really fun . Um I think it's not a specific plugin, but I really love and have loved all of the soft since like the instruments from Slate and Ash. They have a really cool array of plugins that I've dipped my toes into like modular a few times and I've I've never dived in. I haven't we've had some time off over the last month, so I've been diving in but it again feels like a a dangerous wormhole to be entering but I feel like these plugins emulate the kind of like controlled chaos of you know modular systems or like you know the the that's something I I love in you know production is is like emulating some control chaos even if it's with LFOs or whatever. But these plugins I feel do it in a way that's really interesting and you know as opposed to with the Profit Six where we're dialing in patches and we're making exactly what what we want. It's like that's the classic thing of flicking through presets and you'll discover something really interesting like exhale. There's a few like the the little RPGOs in it, the the fluttering RPGOs are from one of their plugins and it inspired this like sort of part because it sounded so interesting. Yeah. Uh the other thing we hope to get from people is advice. No, so I mean you've been doing Rufus to Sol now as you were saying, Ty, for fourteen, fifteen years. You've become very successful. Have you learned something along the way that you would want to share with other people? Or maybe you know your success is born from somebody sharing some wisdom with you that you carry with you and that you could pass on. I well, I remember reading a gem from I don't know if it was the Oh R Rest in Peace, the Quincy Jones, by the way. But I think it was a quote from him, honestly. And it was just very simple. It's like if it moves you, then it will move someone else. And basically, I like in that hyper simplification that it is a reminder to listen to your own like internal barometer of taste. And while it's you know eternally uh helpful to be referencing other people's music when you start, which is definitely what we've done to you know, learn how to do specific things production wise or you know in terms of like chord progressions or whatever it is, the referencing is helpful, but uh the more you are just yourself or the more idiosyncrasies and unique sort of like choices that you would make, the more interesting I think the music is. And then the more if you listen to if you would want to listen to this piece of music, do you like it yourself? Um, as you start to filter in like the noise of uh, oh, this audience might not like it, this, you know, that becomes I think it becomes more overcomplicated. And we've learned time and time again that when we listen to our own tastes as creators, then we have more success in terms of making the thing that we want to make and that years down the track we'll still be very proud of and we still love. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Um thank you so much for giving us your time and for putting in the all that work to get the stems ready and be able to go through them and find those demos. You know that that is uh really really lovely of you to do that. It's been brilliant to talk to you about the new album Inhale Exhale. We should play one more song from it as a kind of outro track. I know that we had considered talking about the life uh one point Yeah, we'd love to um play that track. We uh that's another one that we started on a previous record. We started it in 2020, I think, when we started writing Surrender, our last record, and again we hadn't found the identity of it. We eventually found the ident identity of it in terms of like the breakbeat in that as well as having a similar kind of aesthetic to the almost burial-less crunch of Fire Desire. And you know, the we developed a lot of the music, pulled some samples in, but we didn't have a chorus vocal. So then we um started writing this record. Tyrone brought in this chorus vocal and the lyric um and it sort of tied the whole thing together and felt like it was a almost in terms of like the production assist a song to fire desire as being um songs that both offered something similar on the record but also very different. And um yeah we we love this one. We can't wait to play this live as well. We've been just imagining how this will sound in the live setting. So Yeah. Yeah, it's one of my favorites, I say, I think. Thank you all so much for your time. Really appreciate it. And here is the last selection then from Inhale Exhale. This is The Life by Rufus DeSol . Still met the sun lonely look what I've become the Thank you for listening and in particular thanks to all of you who have signed up to support us on Patreon. I'm just one part of the team that brings you take notes and it relies on your support. 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