Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. This post is just to let you know I’ve released an EP containing 6 new songs. I call it: Head Space.
Your continued support means the world to me 🙂 Please consider buying the MP3 version from Bandcamp (at 10USD or more):
Or you can stream it on your favorite platform:
You can scroll to the bottom of this page to listen to my latest song, or read on through to get a sense of how I was inspired to make it.
I love Samba music. Years ago I was at a Venezuelan resort and heard an all percussion band play this style of music. (Although, from what I heard, Samba is typically from Brazil)
Here’s what a typical Samba beat sounds like:
Flash Forward to 2019, while watching Guillermo Del Toro’s movie ‘The Shape of Water’ I hear this little gem:
Carmen Miranda was a Brazilian (Portuguese Born) Singer and actress. She recorder this song in 1941 for her film ‘That Night in Rio’. The rhythm in this song is just so body-move inducing! I also love how she mimics the sounds of the bass drum and shakers using the words ‘Boom’ and ‘Chica’. To my ears, that’s an early form of beat boxing.
Now, about the track I made, well it had been sitting on my Hard drive for more than 2 years. Forgotten. I clicked on it by accident recently and thought it was nice.
I don’t remember much about it, but It’s definitely inspired by Brazilian samba rhythms and some of the words are surely inspired by Carmen’s song. I also remember I was in a creative head space when I made it, because I had just bought a new electronic instrument, the AKAI MPK mini controller and was making music while trying to figure out how to work the software that came with it.
I remember that I didn’t think this track was anything special. I probably thought it was too weird, like what style even is this? (I’d love to know you opinion on this if you have one, thks)
As far as lyrics go and what the song is about well, your guess is as good as mine on that one! 🙂 But it does seem to be about something light, festive even.
Thank you so much for your continued support 🙂
/RF
Have a listen to ‘Chika Pow Pow’ the latest single from Roxton Fone on Youtube:
The song is downloadable for a dollar on Bandcamp.
Also available for streaming on Spotify
Hello everyone! I’m happy to be writing a new blog post for the first time in a while. I was busy making this track and some others for a new album I call “Cruelty Free”
This track started out with the drum beat. Some of you might recognize the OP-1 synthesizer, from Teenage Engineering. I’ve used the stock drum sound called “Maple” (If I remember right).
Well, funny story: There was a blackout a while back where I live. I don’t have a cell phone and during blackouts, there is absolutely nothing to do. So, I pulled out my OP-1 (Because it runs on batteries) and worked out this drum beat out of pure boredom. The next day I thought wow, that’s not bad! So I recorded that, onto my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)
The Bass line is what Bob Ross would call a “Happy accident” in that it was not what I intended but just sorta happened. It’s played with a Keyboard controller through some Bass guitar VST on my computer. I had an idea in mind, but it just wasn’t working. Then I started moving the MIDI notes around with my mouse, pretty randomly I must say, played it back and thought, wow, I don’t know what I did, but I’m saving this, and won’t touch it ever again. Everything else came after that.
Visit my Spotify or Apple Music page for more music 🙂
I’m adding songs with a little bit of singing to my Soundcloud profile these days, because I’ve got this idea in my head that people would rather listen to that than instrumental music.
This one’s pretty simple, the whole lyrics are: “Hey Brother, you’re doing it on your own” repeated, looped and cut.
At first, the lyrics came out different, it was “Hey Mother, I’m doing it on my own” but I changed it because I didn’t want people to think I had “Mommy Issues” (Which I do, but I’m working on that, don’t worry) Now I know what you are thinking, you’re thinking: “You shouldn’t be worried about what people think” and you’d be right, except, I am worried (I’m working on that also, don’t fret)
I have no idea what style of music this is. I want to say Trip Hop? I’m not sure. All I can tell you, is that it was made with an instrument called: The Korg Electribe Sampler. I made a video a while back, using the same song structure and lyrics and it got liked a lot, if ever you are interested to see:
For example, when I was watching Davis Guggenheim‘s documentary it might get loud I heard Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin, Guitar) talking about one of his early influences as he put on a great track (IMO) by Link Wray, called “Rumble”:
Well, that was the first time I heard it, and I loved it immediately, so on it came into my regular rotation, like any other recent release.
Another example that happened years ago, was when I discovered the song “Born on The Bayou” from Creedence Clearwater Revival. I was watching Jean Claude Van Dam’s 1993 movie Hard Tagret when the song came on, during (If I remember correctly) a motorcycle chase scene. (Someone made a tribute video on Youtube)
To be honest, what immediately drew me to that song was the “Vibrato” (Or is is tremolo? I always mix those two up) effect on the guitar riff, but that’s a whole other post.
I became a die hard fan of CCR after I started researching their music a little bit more.
There are a lot of different ways to discover good music, no matter how old it is. You don’t have to (only) wait for your favorite band’s next album, or listen to the coolest radio station, or read the most current music blog. The world is full of (old) music you never heard of, look back sometimes, you’ll make new discoveries.
I made this! I’m not very good in evaluating what genre this or that song is. I just know what sounds good to me or not. When I submit a track to journalists (Music blog editors) through Submithub I have to carefully choose the blogs according to the genre that they prefer. That has been a problem for me ever since I started. So, I’m asking for your help on this one. Does this one fit any category you’re familiar with? Let me know in the comment section.
Roxton Fone 