Erykah Badu - "Southern Gul" (Nonagon remix)

The last couple of months have been marked by a series of transitions in my personal life, among them an aborted move to a new apartment that forced most of my studio gear into storage through April. Thanks to the kindness of friends, though, I've never been for want of a roof over my head, and I've managed to commandeer a corner of a living room table to put together a functional studio lite. Results below:

Erykah Badu - Southern Gul (Nonagon remix) by nonagon

Like all of my hip hop remixes, this is an entirely new instrumental written to the contours of the existing acapella. Unlike most of my remixes, however, major components of the instrumental for this track actually started out in another song, "Shadowless" which I wrote in collaboration with Angie and Adam Donkin a couple of years ago:

Nonagon - Shadowless by LoveTech2011Comp

It was during preparation for a show last year that I discovered that the Erykah Badu acapella worked well with the pads from Shadowless and the beat from another track I was working on. I've been playing versions of this remix live for many months since, so it seemed like a good project to formalize and release while the studio was in survival mode.

For anyone interested in the production side of the coin, here's an overview of the project in Ableton Live:

Special thanks to Exkclamation for the MP3 cover art!

"Ashra" Remix

A remix I created earlier this year for multi-instrumentalist and world-music maestro Goyopod has finally gone live with the release of his debut album. Have a listen, and if your interest is piqued be sure to check out the rest of the album.

Goyopod - Ashra (Nonagon remix) by nonagon

Dead Prez Remix

Just wrapped up a remix of the classic Dead Prez track "Hip Hop."

Dead Prez - Hip Hop (Nonagon remix) by nonagon

You can download a high-quality MP3 of the remix with the little down arrow on the right-hand side of the player widget.

The repeating synth bassline in the original track is so iconic that I decided to ditch it entirely to give myself a little more creative freedom. I went for a slower tempo (big surprise!), deep sub-bass and sparse, atmospheric production that opens up into edgier distorted synth lines in the last third. When I say "deep sub-bass" I really do mean it- the bassline in my version gets down to around 40Hz, meaning it'll vibrate your entire body on a proper club soundsystem, but will likely completely disappear on smaller speakers and most headphones.  You should've retired those iPod earbuds years ago anyway.

Dead Prez's lyrics on the original are fantastic, and were a big part of why I chose this song to remix, so instead of chopping them up I left them alone and instead tried to accentuate and emphasize the message of the original tune with my new instrumental backing.  Unfortunately, the only acappella I could find had all the PG-13 words chopped out, though on a positive note I guess this makes my remix more toddler friendly for all the hip parents out there (you know who you are).

For comparison, here's the original track in all of its (youtube compressed) glory:



And of course, for you loyal readers the instrumental version of my remix can be had right here:

Dead Prez - Hip Hop (Nonagon remix) Instrumental

Blackalicious Remix

Like the Missy Elliott remix I posted last week, I didn't start this track with a remix in mind.  I was in the process of preparing for a show when I happened upon the acappella and thought it fit with one of my unfinished songs.  You can hear the result below.

Blackalicious - Feel That Way (Nonagon remix) by nonagon

I ended up spending quite a bit of time on this one, working and re-working the vibe to try to get something that felt true to both my initial instrumental ideas and the spirit of the Blackalicious lyrics.  I decided pretty early on that I liked the lyrics too much to manipulate (and thus obscure) them, so apart from a few timing changes and adjustments to the length of some of the "choruses" the acappella is basically straight out of the original track.  Check it out:



The biggest struggle for me in developing this remix was figuring out how to work all my musical ideas in without overpowering the vocal.  I think I was at least marginally successfully on that front, but my instrumental-leanings are still pretty apparent in the second half of the track.

From a technical perspective I worked a lot with panning to keep musical elements from fighting for space with the dead-center vocal parts, and used EQ on most of the higher-register instruments to "scoop out" frequencies in the ranges dominated by the acappella to give it a little more breathing room.  The original acappella has a pretty tinny sound, so I EQ'd it as well to try to restore as much life as possible.  Overall I'm happy with the rough mix presented here, but I might actually prefer the instrumental version, which you can download free right here.

Blackalicious - Feel That Way (Nonagon remix) Instrumental

More projects wrapping up soon (I hope)- watch this space.

Missy Elliott Remix

Project "Finish All the Work I Started Over the Last Eighteen Months" has officially begun. Despite the lengthy title (albeit with a moderately pronounceable acronym: FAWISOLEM), this should mean a lot more public output from me in the last quarter(ish) of 2010.

To get things started, here's a little remix of "Lick Shots" by Missy Elliott I wrapped up today.  You can listen in the embedded player or download the track with the little arrow icon- or both!

Missy Elliott - Lick Shots (Nonagon remix) by nonagon

For reference, here's the original (produced by one of my heroes, Timbaland).



And, as a little bonus for those of you following the blog, here's my instrumental version:

Missy Elliott - Lick Shots (Nonagon remix) Instrumental

Inspired Flight Remix

After more than a month of what seemed like non-stop work getting ready for last Saturday's LoveTech performance (which went great, and of which footage will be posted here soon), I finally feel free to just relax for a moment. I decided to unwind by finally finishing up my entry for Inspired Flight's remix competition and submitting it one hour before the midnight deadline.

Inspired Flight - It Always Takes (Nonagon Remix) by nonagon

If you dig the vibe and are the voting type, you can drop my interpretation a +1 on the competition page here. Regardless of the outcome of the contest, though, I'm really happy with the way this one turned out. Hope you are too!

Evan Morris Remix

Back from beyond with a just-released remix of Evan Morris' chiptune powerhouse "Death Face."

Evan Morris - Death Face (Nonagon remix) by nonagon

Full remix album available here.
Original album "Vector Krush" available here.

Deadlines, Bless Them

I find this hard to fathom, but it's been about ten months since I last posted a new song here. I've been working hard the entire time, but since last June or so my focus has been on figuring out the P^3 and getting Days Away out the door. I've developed a sizable backlog of unfinished work during that time, some of which is "almost there," but I've largely succumbed to the desire to generate new material instead of sweating out the details to finish any of what I've started. Enter The Deadline.

A few months ago I read about the Tra la la blip project on the Ableton discussion forums. In their own words:

tra la la blip is an artist collective based on the far north coast of new south wales. (...) our first release is titled "soundbeam sessions volume 1" We did 100 copies, each 1 individually stamped by the musicians/artists. (...) soundbeam sessions is a compilation CD, all artist[s] on the CD have some form of intellectual and or physical disability. all the songs were created live during jam sessions at Multi Task human resource foundation in Lismore nsw. It is loop based electronic music created using multiple midi controllers and instruments like the tenori-on, soundbeam, kaossilator, microkorg, a macbook running ableton live software and a microphone.

While the concept alone strongly appeals to me, the best thing about TLLB is that their music is fantastic: sometimes playful, sometimes moody, melodic, and dare I say "deep." Thus, when artistic director and organizer Randolf Reimann posted an open invitation for remixes, I decided to get involved. And getting involved meant actually finishing something for the first time in almost a year.

I'm proud to present my finished remix of Indigo Caroline by Tra la la blip. The original TLLB track is somewhat unique in that it consists of just three components: a vocal track (participant Gaye singing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline") over Monolake's song "Indigo" layered with an original synth line. The result is haunting and atmospheric and right up my alley. My remix takes things in a very different direction, but (hopefully) without losing the spirit of the original. I hope you like it!

Indigo Caroline (Nonagon remix) by nonagon

P.S. I'm trying out Soundcloud streaming for the first time with this song. I'm going to hold off on making it downloadable until I get clearance from Randolf, as the track will be making its way onto the Tra la la blip remix CD to be released later this year.

New Remix Project

If you don't agree that this (already great) song is ripe for a gritty step-core workover I'll eat my hat:

In related news, the Nonagon feature on Socialush has gone live! Apparently I only post regularly when I can make narcissistic references to my accomplishments.

Or when I can embed pleasant videos of pleasant songs.

I guess half good ain't bad!