For the next artist in our 2020 Top 10 List of Independent Electronic Music Producers, we go deep with Kaye, co-founder of the legendary Darker Than Wax independent label, and his Disco edits.
Building on the success of Vol. 1 and his highly played Bollywood edits, Vol. 2 features four cuts that have been lighting up dancefloors at Darker Than Wax parties for a minute now. ‘Gotta Keep’ and ‘Beat Goes On’ distill the indulgent sound of two disco classics into peak time weapons, while ‘Wu Tang Brought Me Here’ is a slow building injection of smooth soul. On the housier side of things, ‘Fuzz Wuz Redux’ sees Kaye revisiting a crucial Cosa Nostra track from the early days of the label. Essential cuts to add a touch of soul to any dancefloor.
What did you use to make this music?
As this release was all DJ edits, not much instrumentation was added on. I wanted to keep the main characteristics of the songs, while making it more friendly / easy for DJs to play in a set.
The main treatment I gave was to add my own drum tracks to beef up the low end to make it more playable alongside more modern electronic dance music. So for all the tracks (except Fuzz Wuz Redux), it was just a matter of cutting up the original track, re-ordering what I cut up, then slapping good old drum racks with my own programmed drums over it.
Fuzz Wuz isn't a DJ edit but had a lot of samples from different songs (I think 6?). I hardly use Ableton instruments, but this was one of the rare cases where I used the Operator for the bass.
The only other instrument was 2 instances of the Arturia B-3 V - one for the hook and one for the chords.
What inspired you to make this music?
I did a version 1 of Sam Pearl the year before, and the reception was extremely good. When we dropped the tracks at our events, the crowd always went nuts. So I thought it would be good to keep this going as a series. I also love updating "old" tunes for the modern dance floor.
It's hard to play old alongside new tunes in a DJ set because the approach to mixing and mastering then and now is like night and day. So by updating I mean making it more punchy with a heavier bottom end, so that it can at least match up closer to the loudness and bass heavy sounds of today.
What keeps you making music this year?
Well that's kind of a no brainer, because all my work this year went up in smoke. With all that time on your hands, why not work at improving your craft? So it wasn't just making more music, but concentrating on the stuff I never had the time nor interest to focus on before, like the audio engineering aspect of production.
Engineering is actually almost as important as the arrangement / beat making aspect of production, especially for electronic music. It's also a very nuanced skill that a lot of producers don't like to focus on, because it's an invisible process to your followers or social media connections. I mean, would you rather post a video of yourself making a beat, or EQ-ing a kick drum??
It's precisely because of this age of instant gratification and social engagement that audio engineering is a dying art, because it takes a long time to learn, even longer to master. I would argue this is the last thing up and coming producers will focus on.
About this blog series
This year, despite (or because?) all of the restrictions to our music scene, Singapore-based electronic musicians produced a LOT of interesting electronic music. This blog series is our non-scientific attempt to showcase some of our favourites from 2020. This list is not exhaustive and we reserve the right to add to it any time we like!
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