Drumming and Production Philosophy

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 Take Notes is Jamie XX to talk about how he wrote, recorded, and produced the album In Waves. James Smith , better known as Jamie XX, is an English musician, record producer and DJ. Jamie's journey into music began as a member of the XX, formed in 2005 alongside Romy Croft and Oliver Sim when they were 15 years old. The group's debut album, XX, released in 2009, reached number one on the UK albums chart, achieved platinum certification, and won the Mercury Prize in 2010. Alongside the band, Jamie began to take on solo work , including remixing Gil Scott Heron's I New Here album, released as We're New Here in 2011. His debut solo album, In Colour, came out in 2015 and was much acclaimed. The record topped the UK alb ums chart and earned Grammy and Mercury Prize nominations, showcasing his ability to balance energy and atmospheres with dance music's emotional and physical pull. In 2024, Jamie released his highly anticipated second In Waves, a collection of tracks which capture the emotional highs and hazy afterglow of a night out, blending bliss, heartbreak, and introspection. Today I joined Jamie at his Soho stud It was a hot day so we had to have the windows open so you might catch some central London sounds in the background of our chat. But what better way to start than by hearing something from in waves? This is Wanna. It is wanna by Jamie XX, the opening track to the In Waves Album, and I'm very pleased to say that I'm sat in front of JVXX now. Hello Jamie, how are you doing? I'm good. It's great to be here. So thanks very much. You've invited us into your studio, which has an amazing location. So we're in Soho, we're eight floors up. We have an incredible view around us. We can see the the rooftops of London spread out. Um in the distance we can see the London Eye and Westminster. Um and I'm wondering is this where you made in waves? I made a lot of it in here, yeah. Um quite a bit of it kind of just on various planes and tour buses, but um a bulk of it here and in my home in in Hackney as well. Right. Because it's interesting listening to Wanna and and feeling quite blissful, really. Sat eight floors up with an amazing view outside, getting lost in the music. It's a wonderful thing. It seems quite a nice location to be. Yeah, it's it's great. I mean in Soho obviously you can walk out the door any time of day and it's vibey and there's something to inspire you. Plus this view. Um I spent so long just being in dark basements in London um not knowing what time it was and it just gets pretty grim so I when I could I I found this place and I always had dreamed of having a place with a view of London whether it would be where I live or my studio . And I'd always dreamed of living in Soho at some point, so this is actually the best of both because I think living in Soho would be a bit too mad. But if I just come here for work, it's perfect. Fantastic. So when did In Waves begin ? Well I kind of always had ide as after I finished In Color, which was now ten years ago. And I'd come home off tour and try and make stuff and it just never I think I was probably just too tired to be honest from all the touring and it never clicked until COVID happened and then I had uh all this time suddenly at home for the first time ever since I was a teenager. And um it took a couple of weeks of just sort of procrastinating. And then I really wanted to just start making music because it was fun, because I it felt like I used to feel when I was making music as a kid. And then in ways started happening. And some of the things I'm gonna play today are those first projects that kind of got the momentum going to finally be able to finish the second album. Excellent. Um, well, you're gonna dig deep. We're gonna look at three tracks from In Waves, and the first of them we're going to look at is Breather. So maybe if you could play us a blast of the master of Breather, and then we'll get digging. Okay . It is Breather by Jamie XX from in Waves. It's the first song we're going to look at. Is this the first song that started the album or the creative process for the album? I think I can't quite remember 'cause that's all a bit of a haze back then. But it was this alongside Daffodil um and a couple of other bits that all started to happen at the same time during uh COVID. Yeah. I'm sure it changes for each song, but what what came first? You know, i is it just a sound that inspires you? Is it a rhythm that you come across or create? Depends. Uh usually I have an idea about something and it turns out that the realisation of the idea is incredibly boring. But the journey that it then go I go on, if I let it kind of lead me somewhere different, can end up being very good. But this tra ck is one of the rare moments when I had an idea and it all fell into place exactly as I had hoped. I mean the main idea was that I needed a track to take me from 160 bpm to 120 bpm in a DJ set because it's easier to get up there and make you know the energy goes up but to bring the energy down is harder and it sometimes you lose the crowd a bit and I wanted to find a beautiful elegant way of doing that. So that main idea behind this track is this just simple synth that is just one note drone thing that is technically at 160 bpm . But if you were to put play that change the tempo but not change that stem to 120 then it syncopates it in a different way so currently it's on the one two three four and at one twenty it becomes syncopated yeah um so I wanted to do that and make this transition in the middle kind of the bit where you can't tell whether it's 160 or 100 twenty. Yeah. And it's all morphs and there's parts underneath um that are like bits of drums that are going at 160 and other bits of drums and synth that are going at 120 and it they all kind of glide over each other. Yeah. So that was the idea behind that. Yeah, yeah, really interesting idea. And it's a song of two halves because of that. No. And and it is interesting how it you know, that you wanted something that could be transitional and yet it becomes a thing of its own because of the voice and what the voice is saying as well. It takes on another kind of connotation in a way, which is really interesting. And also in contrast to the other songs on the album, it's a bit more techno in terms of the the sound palette. It's a slightly darker, a bit more gritty than some of the other more uplifting sounds and colours that you've got on there. Yeah. That that that was all that all kind of came just from experimenting, really. I had this um 808 uh So Jamie's just flung his thumb towards an eight oh eight. So we're surrounded in this amazing room. Two sides are just glass, and pointing towards the corner of those two glass walls is a desk which has a load of different pieces of equipment on it, uh keyboards and and synths and stuff. And then behind Jamie is another table with a whole load of other equipment as well. Um so you got the eight oh eight state sorry, not the eight to eight state, you got the eight oh eight out. Yeah, um and I just I just got this new distortion pedal uh which was not for putting drum machines through it but I gave it a go and it did this crazy compression thing if you just take the mast out of the 808 and like put the the kick drums up along with the rest of the drums. Depending on how loud the kick drum is, it really changes the sound of the drums over the top. So then that kind of became the basis for the sound of that more techno-y thing That's be turning up and down the base level so sometimes the snare will be have a lot more decay when the when the distortion is basically backed off. Yeah. So that's the beat you programmed in the A to Eight, but you're running it through the pedal and it's going all Yeah. It's just really fun to play around with that. I did a lot of that endlessly. Um at one point I thought that was going to be a big part of the sound of the album, but it ended up only really being part of this song in the end. Right. Yeah, 'cause I could see I mean my my my impression whenever I'm doing tape notes and hanging out with musicians and you know, I I could really see how you could get lost in a sound like that and that could take over for for days on end and you think, well this sounds amazing. Well why do I need anything else? Yeah totally and well what I discovered is actually because of all the distortion, it sounds really great on its own, but if you're trying to place it in a mix of a bunch of other stuff, it's quite hard for it to still give that same oomph. So either you'd have to make a whole track basically with the eight oh eight and the distortion or very carefully like place it, which is what ended up happening here and and I layered it with loads of other drums, just like this sort of thing. To to t kind of tone it down in a way. Yeah, exactly. And and like just I wanted to make it sort of as schizophrenic as possible. And you know, I was just listening to like a lot of the music that younger younger producers were making at the time and it was all such fast changes and things happening all the time and like sound design, crazy panning. And it made me really excited to try something like that. Yeah, yeah. So um there's these like I don't even remember how I did this. These are bounced out of something just like little sort of that might have been me on a C DJ, scratching back and forth on some snares that were originally programmed in . And then then just like little elements that come in for moments but then drop out . Just a regular kick to like beef it all up . And how do you work with these? Do you are you recording everything all at once? Are you editing afterwards? No, so like do you have a a pass where you're kind of fiddling with the C DJs and another pass, you know, doing this other stuff and listening back and thinking, oh well I could drop that out and it's usually non not planned and different every time I'll just sort of like get to a point where I've messed with something for long enough and if it's not sounding exactly as I want to, then I'll have an idea about what to do next to bring it up to the next level and it's just tweaking. Years of tweaking usually. Right. Which is why my project is such a mess and so huge. And like I don't know where anything is and nothing's labelled. But uh there's a method to the mad ness, I guess. So as you develop the song and you had that goal that there was going to be a transition and you go from one sixty to one twenty , um, it ends up being six minutes long. The transition is quite long. You know, that's quite it's about a minute or minute minute half or something. Um and you have this amazing voice as well speaking. So w when did all those decisions come about? Well so in lockdown as well, at the same time I was making this. My one of my best friends who works at Young, the record label, was living upstairs in my house and he like started us on this routine of doing a a yoga YouTube video every morning for our general health and mental health. And um I was I was just listening to this voice, being very calming every morning and um I was also imagining how it could transl ate into something more less wholesome I think could be referenced to many versions of being good to yourself, whether it's being out on a dance floor or being on a yoga mat. Um so it was kind of a bit of a tongue in cheek thing really and just like me messing around, not overthinking it, but I sampled the YouTube videos that we were doing, this one in particular, and then I used an AI tool to remove um all the yoga music behind it. And it kinda came out with this weird artifact underneath the voice that really added to the sound of the track and I I weaved it in the rest of the track. But it's got all these like only moment that truly exist . Just strange. Because the past is gone. Alien things. Yeah. And the future is uncertain. But have you already treated that voice to create that? Well that's the AI thing. That's kind of creating. It was a very primitive , I think, AI stem separator. Now they're really good and they sound much more crisp, but back then it le it left all these really weird like sort of sounds like a very bad MP3 underneath it, all these artifacts and then with reverb and mixing it in, um I thought they actually added a really cool element with all the other Cynthia bits. Yeah, yeah. So it was almost like a found sound in a way. No, it just happened to be there and inspired you to create some other bits that would match it or work with it. Exactly. But the actual voice itself, how on the original video, does the voice sound human? Uh it does sound human. Yes. Um I think I pitched this down. This is a s this is a b stem of it that I must have bounced out . This must be some of the original stuff. That was this moment. So it's just um this crystallizer thing, which I think a lot of people are using these days. This is your which is just a delay that also pitches it pitches the delay down. And it also has this very widening effect. Yeah. Um so that kind of made it into more of an alien voice as well. Yeah. And it's it's perfect. I mean the statements, the the words are are are really powerful. No and also they're quite hypnotic. And and it's interesting putting them with the beats because they help you transition as it were from one tempo to a to another. I mean it's really interesting. Obviously, we can't play the whole thing, um, but it would be good to kind of just illustrate so how the tempo stops and maybe talk through that section. Um Yeah. So um at the end of the far section, I always wanted it to go from being quite dark and driving into something suddenly beautiful because I love that feeling when I'm playing that sort of switch up the whole crowd sort of jerks in emotion. And I used the Oberheim eight voice over there to make these really lovely synths uh chords. It's like my favorite synth ever. Um, because you can tune every oscillator, there's sixteen different oscillators and they all go out of tune all the time. So by the time you've tuned it all, they're all slightly out of tune. And then when you try and play these chords they're all just a little bit wonky , just the right amount um and it's ends up sounding something like this . You can also pan them. So they the chords are like going from side to side and each note is panned in a slightly different place. Yeah . So that's the overheim. Because it it it sounds like a combination of strings or you know a variety of instrumentation. Yeah. That's liter I think it's just that synth with some reverb on it. Like no other effects. It's just a beautiful sounding thing . But it does take a long time to program . Right. But that's the same that I did gos h with. Um and it's just it's very versatile. You can kind of do anything, but it takes a while. Yeah. And by taking a while, are you saying a day or a few days? A few days, but also I try if I get something good, I'll try and make as like sound wise, I'll try and make as many things with it as possible because I know the next day if I've turned it off and turn it on again it'll be totally different. Right, yeah. And um so so you spend a few days kind of programming it and and tuning it, yeah, getting it right. And then an intense recording session using those sounds that you've you've created. Yeah. Um with this track in mind or just in general? I think I I think I'd made this I just played this in and recorded it a while before um and because it's not this track wasn't mel melodic before this point, um those chords that I'd played before informed what the key of it would be in basically. Yeah. Um so I had that and then I used this this synth, the Korg Delta that I got in Japan, which is an another weird synth where you can set it to a mode that when you take your finger off the note, it plays another note. Um and it then the note that it plays when it comes off is slightly different, especially if you're holding it in a chord. I never really understand quite what it's doing but it does something beautiful and it so I had this other synth line underneath the um so that's like on off on off and it creates these chords every time you press the letter or take it off . Chords that were quite unexpected that worked very well in tandem with the Oberheim chords and it has like a string element to it as well as a synth element. So you can have it just sound like all strings or all synth or both together. So that's also why it feels more stringy. Yeah . Um so yeah that that so change from 160 to that breakdown bit kind of goes from manic to lush quite quickly. So that's the Oberhang coming in, yeah. Be grateful for this present moment . And then I had this this this just logic um base plug-in, like one of the most basic things . Keeping the the sort of one sixty-ness of it under that, which then kinda turns into triplets when you start to lose what tempo it is And as it goes sub by and up top you kinda lose that as well. I I was always trying to mess with perception of like where where you're at in this part. Yeah. Yeah, because there are other percussive elements coming in occasionally as well, a little bit of hi hat sound or something like that. Um so it it's we haven't lost it completely. Yeah. Um and then how how long does that that passage last? Is um that's yeah it's probably about a minute. And then I've tried for ages to to make it the the drop into one twenty happen in a way that was very obvious, all the tricks that I was doing. But what worked best was just stopping everything and making like a classic like moment pause and everything coming in. So that's what I ended up doing. But I really tried so many things where I like you know I kept this drone thing going right up until the drop so everything made a lot more sense mathematically. Yeah. But sometimes music works better when it's not mathematical. Yeah. Yeah . And then I just built on all those sounds again, but in this new tempo but without changing the tempo of any of the synths that I played in, so they all syncopated differently to the first half. Yeah . And what's created that beat for this second section? It's a lot of the same elements. Um because I wanted the palette to be the same. So like I just chopped up some of the stuff that I was doing on the A to Eight. Right. And then turned it into one twenty ratherelevant. But again without like pitching it or speeding it up because that reduces the quality of it . And maybe maybe just like adding some more of these sort of glitchy drum things and chopping those up as well and then really subtle little hi-haty things that are also glitching . And to create the glitch effect, what do you do? Uh well this one is this like this is not how you're meant to use it. I had to record I used audio hijack to record log ic through my laptop back in, if you know what I mean. Because I was using a plugin in a way that you're not meant to use it. So I'll just make a new channel for the plugin . It's called XO . It's just a it's like a drum machine. But it's it's a really fun way of finding sounds because it's got this galaxy looking thing um of all the drum sounds and you can add new ones and it sort of places them next to each other, the ones that sound similar to each other. So you can look for drum sounds by um just scrolling through this galaxy like this. And if you land on the little area that you like, you can scroll around drum sounds that sound similar to each other. And zoom in to find more and it's like I don't know, it's a fun, quick, easy way to find drum sounds. But then what I did here on this track is record out of logic of me scrolling around but to a tempo . So it's still got rhythm but I'm basically using like thousands of drum sounds. Yeah. For a hi-hat But that was that's a very quiet little element that's only in the track for about fifteen seconds. But worth it. Yeah. Um and then I I just like build on the drum sounds and sort of layer them um with various different things like don't even remember what drum machine that's from, it's one of these guys but just like I spend a long time trying to get the groove right for everything and using sample delay to make the hi-hat or the kick or the snare just in the right position for the groove to be right rather than everything being perfectly on the grid. Um or I'll just play stuff in live using MPC or the IDA so that it has a more live slightly off kilter feel rather than everything just being drum machine. Yeah. And so a lot of experimentation really, trying things out. Yeah. Ditching them, trying something else. So over a long period of time. So how long do you think Breather would have taken? Well the initial idea took maybe two days. And that bit's so fun. But then like the building on the drum world and perfecting all those little elements and just like diving into the minutia of each bar, making sure something new is happening. That took like four years. Right. And how how often would you t return to it? No, uh 'cause you're doing other stuff as well. So did it become a chore or did it become something uh that you needed to just remember when you were in the right mood for it? Um it became a chore in moments, but when I was on the road, when the world opened up again after COVID and I was DJing a lot because I was excited to get back out there, I was testing all these tracks out and ever y time I'd play them I could tell a little bit more what I wanted to do next. So I was like diving into it after every gig almost and just making tiny changes to structure and drum sounds and levels of kicks so that it would just be slightly more impactful every gig. And that's kind of how I got to the point where I was ready to mix it. Right. So you were trying this track out in that way. Um and presumably just in a little section of you know see how they react. And and so initially the reaction was good in Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, especially with this one because it was I've made it basically as a tool to get from 160 to 120 so I knew I had a place for it um and it worked even in its earlier form where nothing sounded very good it did work as a tool um and so then I just yeah spent a long time perfecting the sound. Yeah. And then when did the voice come in? Was that there all along or Yeah, it was one of the initial things because it came from that lockdown period. So that idea of hey, I could use this and um and it and it it almost uh connected itself to to the this idea of of breather and and what it was meant to do. Totally. I I mean I I'd had feedback, you know, I play this to like friends and artists and the record label to get feedback and some people wanted me to take the voice out and I really tried I tried various versions, I tried playing out without the voice because I realized that if the voice is taken too seriously, it can become too like saccharin or sincere or something. I didn't want that. But in the end, because it was such a meaningful part of the making of this song and just the thought process behind the beginning of this song, I had to keep it in and I love it. Yeah, yeah. And this kind of relates so we have a whole load of questions from different people, uh some of our patrons who've got in touch and with questions to put to you. And th th this in a way seems relevant to uh Ronaldo Herrera's question which is are you more like a mix on the go guy or do you prefer selling the project to a mixing master engineer because each track sounds amazing? So it sounds like you're a mix on the go person. I'm very much a mix on the go guy. But my ear is not as good as the mixing engineers and I've worked with a few mixing engineers. The person I keep going back to now is David Rench, who's amaz ing. And his studio is right near where I live, and we know each other very well, and he knows exactly what I want. So I'll send him as good a mix as I can get and then he'll just tweak it so it sounds I mean he's probably not doing that much, but it makes it sound so much better. Much better than I could ever do. I wish that I could, but I kinda just get too buried in it and like, or I get too attached to like sort of the muddiness of something because it's just how I've heard it forever and I don't want to change it and then he'll just go and like do something very obvious and harsh and everything becomes clearer and I love that process because it's like somebody' sigsning off on something that I've spent a lot of time on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's been on the show. It's fascinating. Fascinating man. Yes. Um and I'm uh interested to know, having played around with Breather or any track for a period of time trying out in sets, when you get that master ed version, will you use that then in your sets or have you already moved on and you're now experimenting with some other ideas? Uh I will play the masters. Yeah, I mean it's so satisfying to have those um and Matt Colton does most of the masters he did in waves and he's so great as well everything sounds super tough. That's always a fun day being in the studio with him going through everything and just again elevating it is so satisfying. But I try to like when I'm DJing I try and play the bits that people want to hear, the new stuff and the old stuff, but also constantly like m doing remixes slash live mash up bootleg things of old tracks mixed with new tracks and tracks from other people so that's like fresh for me and fresh for other people and it's sort of teasing bits that people know. Yeah, yeah. Constantly evolving. Yeah. And keeps people excited and interested. What's he gonna do now? That's the plan. Excellent. Um we have two more songs to look at. So maybe we could hear uh another bit of breather uh near the end or something that we haven't heard yet, just to round things off. Okay . That is Breather then by Jamie XX. I'm gonna chuck in another question from one of our our patrons. Uh Lewis Brideson in Adelaide in Australia says I'd love to hear about how you approach writing, arranging and mixing your low end, your base kicks, eight oh eights always feel so perfectly deep and considered. Did working with Oliver on bass in the XX influence your approach to subs for the clubs? And I I mentioned this just because you mentioned using the A28 on that track. Um I always feel like I struggle with like mixing because I I guess I'm such a perfectionist about it and I think a lot of producers feel like other people's mixes sound better than their own, but I think it's mostly because they are just too in it on their own stuff. Um but I've had conversations with other people who I think are the best mixers out there and they f they feel the same way. So I'm very flattered that they like my sub base and stuff, but honestly I I I'm just like messing around with stuff and have a few little tricks here and there and really nice gear. I mean the drum machines that I use, mostly this IDA and the MPC 1000 . They just have like an extra little oomph that I don't know what it is, something to do with the way the attack hits . And it has like sort of an analog emulation. The MPC1000 does, and this has analog circuitry mixed with digital. But it just cuts through and then it's just sort of about how you EQ the rest of the track so that all the sub works with everything else. Fascinating. Right. We're gonna take a little break and we'll be back to look at daffod il . 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, DJ 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 my bedroom studio or maybe I'm someone who just needs access to a space with professional gear. How do I get involved? 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 are 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 membersership ti 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 TAPENOTES90 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.com. That's the qub e dot com, and don't forget to use the code TAPENOTES ninety. T's and Cs apply . The next one we're going to look at from In Waves by Jamie XX is Daffodil. But I must say, Jamie, I'm enjoying this eighth floor ambiance of being in Soho in the centre of London, and we can hear you know various different sounds from the street and and above us. I think we've had a plane go over as well. Yeah. What's it like kind of creating in that environment? Better than in a basement isolated from the world? Yes, I think so. Um I mean it's definitely not the ideal room for sound. Like I've had to put this cage around the speakers because of the mobile phone tiles. They were interfering with speakers. Wow. So that cut it out. Uh and then what's material made of? It's like copper wire . Wow. Um and then obviously the glass reflects partially. So I've I'm using this um sound reference sound ID reference software which you record different tones coming out the speakers of different parts of the room, and it will EQ the speakers so that it sounds a bit tighter. Plus all the noise from the streets, um and neighbours complaining and stuff like that, but it's a vibey place to work. And then when I go home to Hackney, I have a studio in the basement there, which sounds really tight. I can mix everything and it's just nice to have two different worlds that you can kind of do different things in. Yeah. Yeah, that's great, isn't it? Um, I have another question from Patreon. Leonardo Ramirez says, Hi Jamie, I'm a huge fan of you and the XX. How does it feel to be a pioneer of this very British sound that's trending in the current productions of artists like Skrillex or Fred again, though uh those very UK drums, but you had already incorporated them a decade before. How does it feel to be a fundamental piece of British House? Um really interesting perspective. I mean you probably don't feel that that is the case. Well yeah I don't know I like I spent so long making in waves that there was like this new generation of people making music and I guess people were saying some of it was inspired by what I did on In Color as well as a lot of other of my peers were doing it back in that era and I found it quite hard to deal with honestly, just because it was hard to work out where my place was in all of it and how to do something new if other people were doing stuff like I used to do, but also like stay true to my roots. So in the end I just um I managed to get to that headspace where I was just enjoying making music for the sake of it and new stuff ended up coming out anyway, new sounds as well as stuff that I just always loved like the garage shuffle in drums or whatever. And uh also I realised there's just there's room for everyone in all of it. Uh and dance music has always gone in waves of being extremely popular to underground and back and fort h um is part of what drives it on. So yeah, it's just always an exciting and fast moving genre. Yeah. And as long as you can find the things that are exciting you then you feel motivated and inspired to give it a go, as it were. Yeah, without the burden of of your past achievements. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Um we're gonna listen to Daffodil now, so maybe you could give us a blast of the master. Oh yeah, the master . It all started one summer night couple years back . It's crazy, it was beautiful female. All I remember is spit, spit is glow, sweetness that feel the end Came from a time for deal in your head I place the heads love , sweetness that feels Hey, I'm a God for deal in your head. I place this, spin, spin My heart blossomed with the look. Get it Deep into each of the dice Something was blowing and I was ready to fly I never even thought about it twice I said Let's go down. It is Daffodil by Jamie XX from In Waves, and it's interesting hearing that because in the context of the album, the tracks before that build up and a bit more up tempo, and this kind of takes it down, takes it more in an R and B direction slightly. But your own version of that. And it also involves some other collaborators. Yeah. So this was another one that was um very early in in terms of like me working out what the sound of the album was, spoken word and sampling soul records and just like my own collection really. Making music like I used to make when I was a kid. Um so I'd made this w like around the same time as I made Breather and it was all because I had a um BBC essential mix coming up, which was gonna go out during lockdown. So I had a bit of like a driving force as well to just make some new stuff, exclusive bits, because that's kind of what you do for the essential mix. And I made this basis of this quite quickly and was just texting friends if they would try vocals over it and one of the people I texted was Kelsey Lou, who I I'd worked on her album before and we'd just been really good friends for a long time. And so and she texted me back these voice notes, kind of telling the story of one of the night a night out that early on in our friendship. And I started pitching it and sort of fitting it to the track and that became the basis for the story of the track. And then I asked lots and lots of different people to come and collaborate on it. Only via text or email because it was still lockdown. But I think there's there's a version somewhere with like twenty different artists on it. Right. Um and it was again, it was just like years and years of trying to fit those puzzle pieces together and then stripping it back and doing it again, and there's one version where I'd like gone to Carnival and recorded lots of bits of like what people were saying and then fitted those in so it had like more of a carnival vibe and then that didn't quite feel right for the vibe. But yeah, lots of collabor ations and e experimenting with the vocals on this, but the basis of the track was done very fast again. Right. And uh when you reached out to those people, what did you ask from them? Just for them to speak? Well Or to sing. Because I had the this Kelsey Lu bit and the intro that says It all started. So is that from a record or is that No, that was just the beginning of the story really. Yeah. Because we'd we'd had this night out in London and I just asked them to like talk about their like dreamy either made up or real night out slash sunny day out in London going raving, dancing or you know, just having fun really. And people I guess 'cause it was lockdown still came back quite quickly with lots of th ings, and it was all people who I knew had a relationship with London as well. So like could quite easily draw upon these these things. And there's so many good verses that came in. Um I would love to finish that version at some point with all the people on it. Yeah, that would be amazing. Uh musically, what started it? So I was just listening to my records at home for pleas ure. Um and going through seven inches that I have, some of which I hadn't actually listened to because I just buy stuff all the time and like I'm record shopping sometimes things slip up past me. Um, and it's this JJ Barnes record . And it's not normally the sort of thing that I would sample because it's originally it's not a dance tempo . It's just a quite sweet soul song. But the lyrics and the vocal melody just got me and I went down to the studio after playing it on upstairs on my record player and sampled it straight in so it's got all the crackle on it from the record. Um Came from a daffodil in your hair. I pla ced it there 's the love of sweetness that feels so I just took the base out, really . And um I wanted to sample in a very basic, like sort of old school, like nineties hip hop, New York hip hop style way where like things just cut in and cut out a very obvious sampling, not like trying to weave it in like I would normally do, but with just harsh sort of brush like this is a sample and then out. Yeah. And I was also like weaving the sample in different ways to help the story . So after Kelsey Lew says something, I think this I can feel you. I can feel that happens because he's kind of responding to that. Yeah. And then there's another bit. Well I just chopped up the words to make sense of the story already. He's trying to I'm trying to get into say I was too. And then this bit. And then after I'd done all that work, like meandering her vocal with the sample, trying to make it like a boy-girl thing, but using the sample as my voice, I I guess. I came across the uh Astra Gilberto version of the same song, which I think was the original, and then the JJ Barnes was the cover. And it's the song origin ally called Daffodil. No it's called uh Touching You. Right. And I thought I'd never done the thing where I'd sampled two different versions of the same song. Yeah. And it would be a fun switch up. And also because the song is like a conversation or a story told by a boy and a girl to switch up the dynamic with this the sample going from male to female as well. So it suddenly switches. And the lovely sweetness that filled the air came from a devil deal in the hair you play And I just chopped it again, took out the base so there was room for all the other bits . And which um which purchase came first? The JJ Barnes version? It was the JJ Barnes version. Yeah. And that you just stumbled across while record shopping. Yeah, I think I must have got I was in Detroit well no Tokyo I think before. I was in Tokyo when COVID hit with my parents and I had a gig that night in a really sweaty club with loads of young people when my parents were in their 70s, and we all went to the club without any idea really what COVID was. And then the next day we all had to get on a flight home, end our trip. But they were fine, and I also picked up loads of great records. Right. And this was one of them. Right. So n didn't pick up COVID, but picked up some great records. So that was kinda handy. And this was one that you bought in a kind of a whole load of things. And then you you had the time because you were locked down to ha actually have a listen to these records. Yeah. And then that led you to Astrid Gilberto. Yes. Uh I mean obviously I'd I'd listened to her before but the that song I hadn't well maybe I hadn't ever noticed befor e. Um but I actually found a a bunch of other versions, uh covers of it. It seems like lots of people have covered it. But these are the two that I felt work best together. But you I mean you re invent it really. It it it's not as if you're doing or using it as I'm gonna do touching you in this new way. Yeah. You you create a whole new thing from it. Yeah. Well I tried. Yeah, well I I think you did. No, no question. Um Aaron Blackett got in touch to say, where do you find the inspiration for a track? But uh uh he's uh praising your sampling and um are there different ways that you might approach this? But it seems in a way it's kind of random Yeah. I mean I have like a very messy catalogue in my brain of all my records, which is a lot of records. And all the things that one day I want to sample , they're all up in there. And so like when I'm making music and something feels like it could fit, it usually just comes up in my mind and I'll go and get it out of the the record shelf. Right. Or I'll just rip it off YouTube. Sometimes that really works because of the way it's like sort of compressed on YouTube makes things fit nicely into a mix. Uh if you don't want it to be like super shiny. But yeah, it's all just sort of a jumble of things that kind of make their way to the surface when it's right. Yeah, yeah. Um Rafa also says what tools or effects do you reach for most when warping or recontextualizing a sample? You know, are there go-to processes that you would use? It's changed over the years . I used to be really like avid about not messing with the sound quality of a sample, especially if I'd recorded it in off final and I'd spent a long time making that sound good. I didn't want to then stretch it, time stretch it, or do anything to degrade the sound like that. Um so that would inform how I would sample things. But now I just started messing with things a lot more and I used this this time stretch thing on log ic, which is so simple. I mean I think actually with this track I didn't really use it. But if you turn it on it kind of it will it will sort of detect tempo and then you can stretch things out just by pulling these guys. Like super simple. And you can set it to different settings and it kind of has messes it up in different ways. But with Daffodil actually it's literally just I recorded the record in and did stuff over the top and tried to keep that the essence of what the record was. Yeah. And so we've heard some of the ingredients. What happened next? How did you build up this track? Um so I wanted it to be like a sharp change from like the lushness of the sample and the sweetness of the sample to this very stark drum beat, and it's literally just a logic base that again, a very , very basic um plug-in. I quite like using those logic ones that are like the earliest ones because they have sort of a rawness to them that some of the fancy new plugins lose. They're all a bit too sort of smooth. Uh and then like another just like a I think for this I used the basic drum sample on logic as well. When you start programming it , playing it like just on the keyboard, but you add gli de to the sampler it sort of changes the attack on the drums so it's basically like gliding up and down between hi hat and clap and kick . So the it's doing what it would do on a synth, except it's just making the every drum slightly bendy. And I think it sounds really nice. And I do that quite a lot to sort of give some sort of newness to old drum machine sounds. Um so it ends up sounding like this . It's kind of not very noticeable until you take it off and it can actually tell that what it's doing, but yeah. Um and then I just ran it through distortion and this thermal thing which adds um it's just like a bunch of sort of wideners and effect things that sometimes I use but I find often that actually when you're trying to mix something it kind of does too much and when I take it it into like a mixing session with David, say I'll do a stem with thermal on and with one without, because we can recreate it in a much more like natural way that's not messing with the audio too much. Right. So this is thermal on . And this is it off. It's basically making it louder with drive and this has a sub thing on but, I've taken all the bass out of it anyway. But I think it's probably also on the kick. Oh no, I took it off the kick because it made it too much for when I was mixing. But it does sound good if you're just listening in headphones . Um the other fun thing on this is the syn th thing that I made using uh morph S C as I think it's the Zy Zynaptic is the company that makes it. It's essentially a vocoder type thing, but you can run drums through it to trigger synths and vice versa and come up with lots of strange sounds. So this is if I turn it off, this synth is just a I think it's like a choral just like a very horrible sounding syn th doing a doing the chords . But playing something else through it, wherever instrument eight is on here, it turns it into this . Markedly different, I would say Yeah, it suddenly becomes beautiful and you can't tell what's happening . Uh it basically is just there's something triggering it poking it through every time. And like again this it just creates these artifacts that feel so organic and natural. And then I ran it through the space echo over there which just adds that spring reverb . I can't even remember what it's what is triggering it, but something on here is doing that. Whatever instrument eight is. And it's probably just another horrible sounding synth, but combined, yeah. They make that. Um and uh so I mean the different people listed as collaborating on this track are Kelsey Lou, John Glacier, Panda Bear, and they are they doing they're just providing spoken word sounds in effect or are the did anybody get involved in the music? Um everybody was just providing vocals. Yeah. But everybody that I chose for this final version did it in a different way. There were a lot of other people that sent voice notes of them speaking or like sort of semi-rapping, speaking rhythmically and rhyming but with enough space for me to chop it up. But the ones that ended up on here was so Kelsey Loo being the main source, Junglacier doing a verse as like you know essentially a wrapped verse and she sent various versions of that um that would fit differently and and you'd sent them the track? I'd sent them the track, yeah. Yeah. I think a very basic one without the astrid part on it. Right. Um just for them instrumental wise, so they can just do whatever they want. And she did this brilliant verse that I loved that is actually not in this project, because there's obviously a thousand versions of this project as well. But then Panda Bear sent his part, which was again totally different, and took it into a whole new world again. And I loved the idea that this track would just like sort of like the sample comes in and out so brashly, every new style would come in and out brashly and be unexpected. And so the combination of Lou , Johnla Gcier and Panda Bear together was like I felt like everything was different enough for it to make sense. Yeah. Are you able to play either of those? Yes. So the Panda Bear bit, he's so good at treating his vocals. Um he sent me a dry stem and a wet stem with uh all of the autotune stuff and the reverb um and I ended up just using his wet stem I think because it just he's got some special techniques that sound so good. There's someone through everyone . It's the dry stem that's still there? No, that's literally just the well. Yeah. There's actually a second part of the verse that he sent that is not in the track, but it's also really good and I wanted to put it in there, but under the shelf would have a step into the garden to hide into the shady place But uh yeah for for structure reasons I ended up just using that tiny section. Yeah it sounds like there needs to be well there,'s another version of this song with twenty different people. Yes. Um and maybe more verses and you know yeah, it's just twenty minute twenty minute tune. One day. Amazing. Yeah. I really hope so. And uh you mentioned with the panda bear that in a way you left it as it was. He to he he created a wet one that sounded magical, mm, use it as it is. Were you eqing the other ones, you know, to make them work with the track, to make them work the way you wanted them. Yeah, uh definitely. I mean I also tried that with him. I was in I was in a studio in uh LA which had a proper um reverb chamber like the old sixties sort of the hazelwood sound. Right. Which I love. And we ran the dry panda bear stuff through that room and spent ages EQing it and EQing out all of the little spikes that happen when you're bouncing stuff off of a a room. And it sounded cool, but it it the original just sounded bad to me, so I ended up using that. Yeah. I don't think I have that in the project. Yeah, there's another project somewhere with with that stuff. And then there's just so much other stuff in this project that I like piled in there that I don't know what it is. It's all muted. I'd just unmute something and see what it is. Oh yeah this case this is more of the so there's a part at the end of the song which is a sample of ASAP Rocky talking about his LSD trip um just from a documentary and there was another version of this where I'd used that sample all the way throughout as another voice like interacting with Kelsey Lee. And I woke up the next day and I s and I woke up the next day and I said, yo , I know what the answer is the latest. So that's like that's what's happening at the end of the track now on the final version. But in this version it seems to be somewhere in the middle. And did did ASAP Rocky actually release that? I just sampled it. It was a documentary on Netflix, I think um there's loads of good little bits about you know uh uh of people people's druggie experiences that are good for sampling on the documentary. But I'm thinking he's found the meaning of life there. Yeah we need the answer. Yes. Is there anything else in Daffodil that we should hear music wise? Um I mean it's pretty simple. The only other stuff is like just the switch up in the bass in in the middle section, there's like these drum fills that I think was that's just done on MPC and then the bass that switches up in that news section goes from that kinda crappy logic plugin to another crappy logic bug plugin that sounds it's like a double bass thing. But I th it reminds me of those uh early 2000s sort of DJ Lack and MC Neat Garage sounds, which I always loved . And then the other part, the only other part of this track is the piano that I wanted to sound like a sort of Dr. J M M esque thing. So originally it was just this crappy logic sampler piano, the most basic Yamaha piano, messed around with with an envelope and uh like just bringing up the end so that it it made it more extreme. Making it sound as unrealistic as possible . But it never quite fitted in the mix because it just with everything else in there it just didn't stand out so then I recorded a real piano over the top. Very quietly. Just for texture. Right. Well. Is that the piano that's in this apartment? Uh no, this was this is actually in LA. Right, right, right, right. Because it we should mention that you do have a piano up eight floors in a flattened soho. Amazing. So so yeah, again a production that was kind of made all over the world really. Yeah. Everything was on this album. Um I think of In Colour as being very London-based. Even when though I was on tour making it, I was thinking about London . And In Waves is so global, and I wasn't thinking about specifically London, I was thinking about everywhere because how was my whole life was just kind of being between places. Yeah. Fantastic. Right, let's um have a blast to the end of Daffodil or something just to uh round things up. I'll just play that hand a bear bit. I'll never forget that later. And the lovely sweetness. Too sweet to let go. But in reality, a flower to the nose. And I woke up the next day and I said, yo , I know what the instance of life is. I can feel you. I said But in reality . Brilliant. It is Daffodil by Jamie XX. We're gonna take another break and we'll be back to listen to life . This episode is supported by the Masters in Songwriting Programme at Trinity Larbon. With a right produced 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 Briscoe, Music Production Module Leader for Popular Music at Trinity Lab an. 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 using 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 master s, 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 Larban might be your next step. To find out more, head to trinitylarban.ac.uk. That's Trinity L A B A N.ac. uk and search for the MA in songwrit ing. The next song we're going to look at by Jamie XX from In Waves is Life. And if you could play us a Blaster the Master, that would be great, Jamie. You giving me life Shitty, pretty, wow You giving me life You giving me life Let's fuck it, tonight, you giving me life . Get it, look on back, you giving me life, life. It is life from In Waves featuring Robin. So how did Robin get involved, Jamie? Um I have been friends with Robin for years. Um first time I met her, she came to Brixton Academy when we as a band had hired Brixton for a week and we did a a week long festival in Brixton. We played every night in Brixton Academy and had different bands supporting, collaborating with us. I DJ'd for a whole day on the Sunday and we had like club nights going on in all the clubs in Brixton. And Robin came to perform a couple of songs in the middle of our set, and I think that was the first time we'd ever met her. All massive fans, obviously . And she was such a legend. She just hung out for the rest of the week. See, that wasn't the plan originally. Um, we'd hide this house by the church in Brixton that we were staying in. She came stayed with us, and we just became really good friends and over the years I've gone to stay at her house in LA or in Stockholm. She's come to stay at mine in London and we've worked together on various things for her record, honey. But I was kind of in my weird headspace of not being able to finish anything then. So none of that came out. But we created a good working relationship, and then I sent her this instrumental and she texted it back the vocal um within like less than twelve hours and it was like perfect. Amazing. Amazing. And that's what comes out of friendship I guess. Yeah. No, that trust as well. Um and the the song, how far down the line was the song readied? No, it had how evolved was it? I had evolved it quite a lot because I'd I'd originally made this as an instrumental just based around the sample, um because the sample's so strong. So that the sample is the brass hook. Yeah, the brass hook. And I'd like made various versions that were just more like roll ers that just you know the sample would filter in and out and more like in I was going for sort of those like early 2000s I beat the sort of French house things. But it felt a bit too maybe r r retro just to do that again. And I started messing around with different samples to create verses to vocal samples, but then it was all too sample heavy and like felt extremely busy . And I asked Rommy uh to do some stuff and she came in and did some verses, but nothing stuck. And I I don't know why I hadn't thought about Robin before. I I tried all this other stuff and then it was so instant with Robin . And I was I'd been playing in Pasha in Ibitha that night that I texted her the instrumental and then when I finished at six AM she had texted back and it was like sunrise in Ibiza perfect euphoric moment of hearing the track and being like,, oh this is like one of the final pieces of the puzzle. Yeah, amazing. Yeah. Such an uplifting track on the record. And to hear it in that context must have been fantastic. Yeah, it was great. Can you maybe build the track up and and show how you created it. Yeah, so well I'll start with this sample 'cause I was driving to Soho, listening to tunes in my car, and came across the sample which I hadn't heard before, or at least it's a quite a long track, the original . And I um heard it for the first time driving into Soho. And so by the time I got to Soho I knew what I was gonna do that day and I started chopping it up. But the original has all this amazing these amazing parts to it and I actually did an edit of it that I've been playing out which kind of leads into my version. But I'll play you a section of that because it kind of has all those bits in it that inspired me to make the track. So I've obviously looped the start here . It has these amazing horns. So who is the original bike? Uh Saroni ? So that's C-E-R-R-O-N-E- Yeah, I think that's A percent. Yeah, yeah He's obviously made some classics over the years. But this is uh it's a cover of House of the Rising Sun. Wow. But the lyrics and the vocals on it are horrible. And then there's this middle section which I've then chopped up and looped here as the extended version, which has this all these amazing horns. The rest of the ch song doesn't sound like this. Right. Yeah. And then this all this sounds like guitar as well. That's crazy. Wow, so that's your edited version of the bit that you liked basically. Yeah. So this is really fun because people have heard snippets of it when I'm playing it in this edit and they kinda get that life is coming. Right. But also there's all this weird stuff that sounds nothing like life. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's great . It's such a group performance, isn't it ? So that's the main phrase that I use. Yeah. So then I s when I came into the studio that day after hearing it for the first time, I just started looping little bits of it. But the thing that I wanted to do, I knew from the start was that hook . And I just started filtering it . Put a phaser on it, like they do in all those old classic French house tun es and just try to keep it as simple as possible and like chopped up the best part of each one to m simplify it. Yeah . And do you automate those phases? Do you tweak them the phases again ? Just basic logic one. Yeah. Um and I just make sure it's super slow and there's not that much resonance on it so that it's just doing a small amount to keep it moving. Uh and then uh sidechained it to a kick, which I don't normally do these days because it's so done, overdone over the years , but because I wanted to ref reference all that French house stuff, it was kind of the obvious move for this. And also the horns kind of sound like they're doing that anyway, just in the placement of the groove. So it lends lent itself well to that. So I kinda just had that on loop for ages and then w made a baseline for it and used a bunch of these old brakes that was off like a nineties um sample C D that I got off eBay . So things like this . And they're like, you know, they're C D quality, but that adds some kind of texture when you lay them all together . And then the thing that I did with the base that um was kind of an accident , I I turned the resonance up super high, like to the max, on this logic syn th. And then instead of using playing the bass in, I created the bass line by changing the cutoff of the filter. So it's basically a super uh resonant tone, really low down. So it creates all these laser sounds because as you're moving the cutoff automation , it goes up super high, much higher than you would on a keyboard. But then you have to find that exact note . I used a tuner just to do that. I mean they're kinda off anyway, because the sample's a little bit off. Yeah . But actually if I if I turn turn up the cutoff, it changes the tone, the note of it. And it kind of came came out with this really wide bass sound that I don't think I could have created with like a regular synth. Yeah. And it's so effective. It it really hits home and it's such a contrast to to the feel of the brass sample, you know, and that kind of drum sound that you might mentally associate with that. Yeah. It kind of lets you go off in another direction. Yeah. Oh well thanks. Um and so that was kind of the basis of it . Then um I used that bass for the verse as well. You giving me life shitty pretty wow you're giving me life. But it didn't quite work on its own without being backed up by the sample. So I came up with a base riff instead and that kind of became the the idea that there could be versus because now there's two hooky parts especially. Is this the other baseline? Yeah, this is the verse baseline. Yeah. Which is just using sort of a regular uh serum very used base plug-in. And I think that helped with Robin writing a vocal melody as well. Right. But that was the last bit I added, the verse instrumental parts. The second part that I added was chopping up the sample in a different way to make what was originally gonna be a verse which turned into the the bridge or the mid late so I chopped up the sample like this This is the same bit of the sample from the other section, it's just chopped in a different way and filtered. And then I had these really lovely warm synth sounds that I can't even remember how I made them from another project and that in combination with that sample made a really nice emotion. Kind of somewhere that's a lot warmer and and like brighter at the same time somehow And if you filter this right down it's it's quite emotional . So I was I was just playing with that a lot and that's sort of how I those three sections is how I sort of built the structure of the song. And do uh are those gated at all? Um how do you keep it all so rhythmic? It's it's just uh so for that that with synth thing I um I had just dragged it so that it all felt in groove enough with the sample. I tried to keep the groove of the s original playing on the sam ple as untouched as possible because it was so good already and then splice everything into that groove as closely as possible. But again a lot of it was just happy accidents. Yeah. The prequelus, even though it's the shortest part of the song, seems to have the most stuff in it, but this also just a tiny layer really adds to the emotion of that. So yeah, those are the really just the three building blocks of the song. And Robin came in and it all started to make sense. Yeah. I mean Robin's a writer and producer herself. Would she offer opinion or did she I mean I we started out by texting but then I went to Stockholm to work with her at her studio. She's got this amazing like it literally feels like a cave right in the middle of Stockholm with this guy, Klaus, who's who's her produ cer and has worked on all of her records and he's great, really, really good at what he does. And he was like he introduced actually this little part here in the second verse. It was his idea to add this Klaus pad Klaus pad I love that um and it's just you know again it's referencing all that French house type stuff. And it really it again it just elevated the track, just this one stamp, just took it again into that just referencing that world enough, I think. Yeah . It seems it for for me, it seems nice talking about that French house uh period because Soho was where I would come to buy a lot of those twelve inches on on Roulet or whatever, 'cause there were so many different dance shops around here that you would go from one to another and you know it there was such a a point where you know one new twelve inch would come out after another over Siri so you'd be kind of going there every few days to see what had come through now which is really exciting. That's good. Um what else is going on in in life? No, it's interesting because um the lyric is so powerful, isn't it? And r Robin's slant on it. No, and and but it she also adds in elements that um don't make it cheesy, if you know if I can use that phrase, because I I wouldn't denigrate anything she did. But you know, because she on the one hand, you know, you're giving me life, but then there's all these slightly darker elements or kind of surprising elements, you know. Yeah. Um, which are nice. Yeah, totally. I mean, she was the one who kind of wanted to highlight the sample as the chorus, rather than w rite something that fitted lyrically or rhythmically over the top. She tried doing that stuff and then she just she just thought that the horn sample was so good it like deserved its own space so we made the chorus just basically on the one, you giving me life, so that it left the rest of the chorus to breathe. And then the verses would be much more busy. And that was a great shout from her because there were versions I that'd had before where there was just so much going on 'cause I'd sort of overcooked it. Yeah. Um and and from that first voice note that she sent you, so you went to Stockholm for her to do her vocal properly. As it were. Well and yes, and also to write more stuff, uh like to write the pre-choruses 'cause at that point I think there were various versions of a chorus that she'd sent me, the verses were nailed in. She'd absolutely nailed that because that was kind of the bit that I'd left space for on the instrumental that I sent to her . And um then this pre-chorus thing I'd made in between her sending me that and me going to Stockholm and we tried lots of different ideas on that, and then what we landed on was really fun because it was essentially just us messing around in the studio and sort of she was like just reading off fun things that sh her and her friends would say, like in the club. There's probably a take here of us just like sitting there laughing. Um it was really fun. Is this the stuff? This is giving me life. Yes, all this stuff. You give me walk of shame. You give a me strong torso . You giving me you . After after those text I chopped them up and like pitched them and messed with the bits where she was laughing, but then You're giving me hi . If I take all that stuff off. You're giving me first kiss. And we were just sitting in there, like You're giving me work of shame. With it on loop, her coming up with all these different You're giving me lines Um and it was really fun. It was like just uh it was kind of towards the end of finishing all the vocals. Um You're giving me first kiss. Uh very cathartic way to end the session. Yeah. And was the track playing at the same time or is this more conversational? She was like sitting on the floor. Yeah. With just a a mic in the hand. And yeah, just we'd just like having conversations between whilst the track was going on and then she'd come up with more ones and it was a really nice, lovely moment. Um she's so good at everything and also so wise about like just the longevity of doing this job and what it takes and how it's sometimes difficult and she's definitely giving me a lot of really good advice. Yeah, that's great to have that person in your life in a way. And it's it's a great the way that you know you've been able to make these friends, no, over time and be able to call on them and you can help each other. It's it you're painting a picture of a lovely community here. No. Yeah, it's nice. I mean I I don't do that much collabor ating. So when I do it's really with people that I love like Roman Oliver or Robin or a few others like Kelsey Lou or the Avalanches that I, you know, grew up listening to because my I think what I do best is being on my own, like getting things right. So when I have to put myself out of my comfort zone it's gotta be for something that's really special. Yeah. What what else do we need to hear? It's uh d all those messy versions you said. Do you have any of those? I'm not saying you have to play that . I might do . There's a version with Romy. I don't think she'd want me to play. Yeah, sure. That's fair enough. Um we have some more questions from Patreon. We also have some questions that we ask everybody who comes on take notes. Um maybe we should have a a blast of the master of uh of the end of life, maybe just to round this up, um, and then we can get into some of those. Sure. What section should we hear? I did just find this old version. Let's see if it sounds any different. I don't know how old this version is. And I'm gonna This has a different vocal sample on it, right? So whose voice is that? Just a sample of a it's um temptations I think. Right. Wow . But then lots of different ideas, just me experimenting. Yeah. And that the sound, the synth sound is in there in the verse as well that ended up being the pre-chorus. Um yeah. It's interesting to hear that back from me as well. It's been a while. Yeah, amazing. A little window into your process uh as this whole thing is. Um right. Uh let me ask you some more questions. We had this nice one from Nathan M who says my son Julian has been playing drums for several years and recently began doing some production. He's wondering if Jamie plays drums at all these days and how being a drummer has influenced his approach to production. I do play drums. I have drums at home and I have uh tascam eight track wheel to re el to record the drums in, which really m makes them sound much better than just going straight in digitally. Especially if you drive it against a tape. So that's a real to real quarter inch tape that you're you're so y y you will sit at your drum kit and play and record it. Yeah. Right. And also the great thing about it is the tempo change on the tape, which tightens everything up. So as soon as you turn it up just a little bit, it makes you sound like a much better drummer. Right. And then you would play that into your laptop or whatever, record that and then maybe start chopping that up and and Yeah, exactly. Uh I've been working with the band on some new stuff and doing live drumming on it, uh, which is really fun because it's always been very electronic. So maybe adding some of that in there, who knows, it's early days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that would have been one of my questions about that hint of working with the band, you know, with the XX. Obviously we're we're excited about that prospect. That's brilliant. Um I'm not sure how to pronounce this person's name. Um Dr . D-R-E-U-X. So that's either Dr or D rew, I don't know. How do you usually go about finding vocal samples, thinking about all under one roof, raving, waited all night? I mean it sounds like you're searching all the time. Or just things just pop out. Yeah. I mean all under one with raving was a bit different because it was kinda based around Mark Lecky's uh Fearucci Made Me Hardcore piece of art and I went to meet Mark in the pub and just ask him about it and ask him if it was okay. And he was super inspiring, lovely dude. And so then I started building the world of samples in that song around the basis of that and actually some Right. But yeah, it was kind of I was drawing specifically much more specifically for that song than than most of the time. Yeah. Thilo, Tilo , Ac orn, your tracks are so versatile but always with a clear signature. How do you manage to create a common thread in your work? Is that something you think about? Which is an interesting thing because when we hear a Jamie XX track on the radio or at a club or you know, they are identifiable. Now and obviously you want to be identifiable. How do you make them identifiable? I really don't try. Maybe it's that same following that gut feeling, but whenever somebody says that to me, I find it I just can't understand it. But I'm glad that they are identifiable. But it's definitely I don't think it's something you can do with intention. I guess if you make music for as long as I have been now it kind of naturally becomes it all kind of sits in the same bubble maybe but I definitely don't set out with a specific sound. Yeah. But the artist is a human being and often their work will reflect their own individual humanity, I guess. Yeah, I suppose so. Um hello to Paolo Fallone who says when approaching producing a new idea, do you look at it more from an electronic music perspe producerctive or more of a band production perspective, is there a difference? Uh there is a difference. Mostly it's just about the people that are around you. Like if I'm with the band looking at producing it, I'm discussing it all in depth and telling them what I want to do because it's a lot easier than doing it and then them not liking it. So like I try and set out the sort of my vision for this piece of music and then we'll discuss it and I'll I'll show them what I mean and it will like be very democratic and a completely different way of making music to how I make music on my own, which is uh as you've seen, just kind of a mess that sometimes works out. Well a lot of hard work I would say. Yes. You know, experimentation and a lot of hard work and pursuing something, not giving up and maybe putting something to one side, leaving it for a while, letting some other things go on in your life and then coming back to it. Seems like an awful lot of hard work to me. Um Harry Hayes asks, I believe you are a fellow logic user. What are some of your favorite stock logic plugins and synths, if any? I use loads of the stock ones because that's kind of, you know, that's I learnt on logic or actually on garage band when I was really small. Um I still use all the old ones. The ES two synth I think is probably the best one. It's really good for making chords that you wouldn't make by playing using a keyboard because you just adjust these three different oscillators. Especially if you've just like written a very simple MIDI pattern with single notes, you can then create really interesting chords by changing the position of these oscillators for each note. And it just comes up with again like sort of unexpected fun ideas that wouldn't come out of the brain normally. Yeah. Um Charlie C asks, um I love to experiment with new plugins. I've been trying to dig into sound toys ones at the moment. Any tips or favourites that you use? Secrets you can show. They're always after the secrets, John. Yeah. Well, I think I've shown a couple of my secrets on this video . That morph um thing is really fun. You can get a lot of interesting texture out of it. It's specifically sound toy stuff. I use the crystallizer without the pitching quite a lot now because it has a very widening delay. But But I've noticed that especially in a lot of like tech house this sound has with when you pitch things up on the delay it has like crept into a lot of music and it's starting to sound quite generic. Which is what happens with all tech, is what happened with the 828. Like everything has its moment and then it things have to move on, but like the sound of a plugin or the sound of a drum machine become the sound of like a summer somet imes. Yeah. Um, and I try and avoid being on that bandwagon. Yeah. That kind of leads nicely into one of the questions that we ask everybody who comes on take notes, which is about tech and equipment and whether there's something that you couldn't live or work without, you know, something that's so dear to you. I mean it's I guess it's got to be the laptop. Does that count? Yeah, it does. Many people cite the laptop. I mean you mentioned the Oberheim earlier um as being your favourite. I mean I love all of the stuff in here, especially the Oberheim. So fun to play on . But like looking at logic is like I'm not looking at anything. It's literally like almost meditative for me because I can do everything without thinking about it, all the shortcuts, and make music in a way where it's not like I'm using a screen at all. It's just like a sort of a extended part of my brain. Yeah. Which is very useful. And I'm like very glad that I have that. I don't really want to switch to anything else. All this other stuff sounds lov ely and it's very fancy and you can make really l nice things on it. But I couldn't do any of it without having that connection with this. Yeah. Yeah. You just want to get it to make the sound and get the sound into logic. Um the other question we ask everybody is about advice, Jamie. Whether you have been given advice along the way, you mentioned the wisdom of Robin uh or you've learned some lessons that you would share with other people . Um yeah. I think that being aware that it's a difficult job and it's not meant to be fun all the time. In fact, quite a lot of the time it's not, even though it's perceived obviously it is a great job. It's a dream job. I'm very lucky to be able to do it. I sometimes found myself being like upset that I wasn't enjoying it. But as soon as you understand that you're not meant to be enjoying it all the time and there's sometimes really hard work, then the hard work becomes um manageable, uh and almost enjoyable in a way because it's just something that you gotta do. That's definitely what I learned in making this album. Like and working with Robin, she definitely imparted that advice was to kind of it's just be a bit more realistic about what it is. Yeah. And also do loads of gigs is my other advice. Just do as many gigs as you possibly can because I learned so much from doing that, especially the ones that weren't good. And that's both with the band and and solo. Mm-hmm. So just put yourself out there. Every situation will challenge you and create a response. Totally. And you'll meet people in the scene. And again, you'll have some bad experiences, but it will build into like making it much more rounded artist. Yeah, yeah, really interesting. And I guess you end up with that exchange, you get some information, some tips. Mm-hmm. No, and uh yeah, that's that's brilliant. Fascinating. Thank you so much, Jamie, for your time and for allowing us to come in to your space. No, it's quite a private space really, this studio. It's not like a normal studio where no there's there are other people who work in the studio. No, this is you know, your home or one of your homes really, you know, with your very private setup of all this equipment. Um and you know, it's uh a privilege and an honor to be able to come here and exciting too, 'cause it is a it's a thrill. I mean, even if you just lived here and it was just a bed and a couch, it would be a thrill to be able to to be eight floors up yeah in central London. Um and long may it continue to inspire you. Thanks so much. It's been a real pleasure talking about this stuff that I never talked to anybody about. So thanks. Thank you very much, Jamie. I think we should play one more song from In Waves. Um, your choice, what should we go for? You recently put out a deluxe version which featured other songs. Um were those songs w created at the same time, presumably that Yeah, they were created at the same time. Um but I wanted to make the album feel like an album that you want to listen to front to back and they didn't fit in that so they came out to Deluxe. Yeah. I guess um you can play Falling Together as the last track as the last track on the album. Yeah, featuring Una Doherty. Okay, excellent. Thank you so much, Jamie. Thanks. And here is Falling Together. It's Jamie XX , 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