TN:186 Joy Anonymous

Introducing Joy Anonymous

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0:30This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro Plans. Hello, I'm John Kennedy.

1:06And joining me for this episode of Tape Notes are Joy Anonymous to talk about how they wrote, recorded, and produced a whole selection from their back catalogue. It was so great to talk to Hen and Lou all about how they are Joy Anonymous, how they create their music, how they spread their music. Such an amazing story from these incredible live sessions on the South Bank during the pandemic to DJing and touring the world and being part of an amazing team of friends, including Fred again. We went through some of their releases to date, but there is new music on the horizon,

1:37so keep an eye out for that. The full video episode is available to watch on the Tape Notes Patreon page and, as usual, gives a look into their logic sessions. There are some amazing plug-in and sampling demos in this episode, so if you're going to check one out, it's definitely worth having a look at. There's also plenty of extra content on the Tape Notes Patreon, so head over to patreon.com forward slash Tape Notes to check that out too. Thank you as well to our partners at Tape It for supporting the show. From those of you who aren't Tape It users, Tape It is the iPhone recording app designed specifically for musicians.

2:09It does an amazing job of helping you quickly get ideas down while keeping everything organised and easy to find, with features including recording from the lock screen, creating folders and mixtapes, searching by instrument, and, my favourite, layering new recordings on top of existing ideas. There's loads to explore. To try it for yourself, head to tape.it forward slash Tape Notes. But now, without further ado, it's time for some joy. Let's get started.

Forming the Duo

2:41Joy Anonymous are a London electronic and dance music duo comprising Henry Council and Louis Curran. The pair, who first met as children, formed Joy Anonymous in 2018 with the aim of spreading joy through music and live performance. Their career accelerated during the pandemic when their nightly Southbank pop-up shows gained widespread attention, with field recordings from many of these performances later featuring on their debut album, Human Again, released in 2021. Since then, they have released a second record, Cult Classics, in 2023,

3:12collaborated closely with artists including longtime friend, Fred Again, and continue to release new music, including their stripped-back Source versions. Their third record is set for release in the coming months. Today, I join Lou and Hen at Baltic Studios, and what better way to start than by hearing something from their back catalogue. This is Light in the Dark, Source version.

Light in the Dark Source Version

3:34Won't you comfort me, right in the dark, won't you comfort me, right in the dark, won't you come with me, right to the start, won't you comfort me, right in the dark. Won't you comfort me, right in the dark, won't you come with me, shine your light, won't you.

4:09it is joy anonymous with light in the dark the source version and i'm very pleased to say that i'm sat here at baltic studios with lou and hen who are joy anonymous playing the music hello hi john thanks for having us here man it's great to have you here very exciting and very exciting to listen to that on headphones in your company because it makes me feel as if i'm part

4:43of the process because i've been looking at your social media posts about how you create music and these wonderful little vignettes where you're you're sat together in some unusual place you've both got your laptops in front of you as you have today but then one of you picks up an instrument or wanders off and picks up a microphone and starts singing and it feels i felt then as if yeah i'm here with them they're gonna ask me to do something in a minute that translates in the room yeah it's got such a great vibe so i mean i guess this is a good point to start discussing this source version

5:17as opposed to the finished version or the seven inch version you've been describing them as yeah we kind of lazy lou and i actually quite a while ago we made these joy journals and initially they were just kind of sketches and demos and ideas that we were like making during lockdown and kind of just putting them out to friends and just like as this kind of diary entries and then i think as we were starting this album process you know like let's let's show our workings out really go back to this

5:47idea and we came up with this idea of source material kind of almost how you would do you know essays at school or whatever you didn't have to refer to the source and we kind of talk a lot about the tides and you know the source of water all these things there's all these like reference points in between and we started the album journey in this beautiful studio up in storn away which is an island off of um scotland and we kind of start with all these live instruments and building these loops and just kind of playing with no real intention just like let's just make ideas lou was on this loop

6:20station this 505 um rc505 roland loop station we had one mic in the middle of the room and we were just kind of literally there for i think a week or so just kind of making these random ideas ended up with what like a hundred of them or something like that if not more and lots of those and yeah and just kind of over the last kind of couple years we're just sampling them and making them into songs giving them to friends people coming up with ideas and as we toured we ended up making these kind of quote unquote the main versions or the seven inch versions yeah yeah because i was intrigued by that

6:54because do they get pressed up as seven inches i hopefully that's the idea yeah and i think a lot of it was born out of like we love the process of sampling things and recontextualizing pieces of music and we obviously have sampled some quite big records earlier on and yeah there were problems that come with that and can be quite long and more money to give away all these kind of things so i think it was kind of born out of let's create our own sample bank of source material that we can then draw in for and flip and recontextualize however we want knowing that it all started from us and that

7:29our kind of initial essence is is in there so yeah and it seems as if the source material has also taken on a life of its own because the album is going to have a companion source version and the main versions as well side by side yeah carilla we so we with the with the the kind of follow-up idea of sources was like we started building this live show which almost during the show we had these moments of kind of ambient beds where i'll sing a hook of one of the songs and then we'll go into

7:59the main version lou comes in with a drum machine and we wanted to just do that more and more showing that like at the core of these songs which might be considered dance music or whatever you want to frame it there's like real music at the heart of it whether it's people sampling old records or in ourselves sampling ourselves and building these songs like we come from that school of thought our favorite music is like songwriters and people who you know pour their heart into music and so i think we wanted to kind of yeah just be like let's just show it all i don't not just kind of oh yeah

8:31there's a tune that we sampled and it's fun to play like we really put our hearts into this um so yeah i wanted to kind of show that at every point that's a great great idea i think and the first song we're going to look at today is nobody ever so maybe if we could have a blast to the master of that and then we can find out how you made it of course

Making Nobody Ever

8:49nobody ever gonna love me like you nobody gonna hug kiss and caress me like you i wasn't even looking for you you were loving loving nobody ever did it like you you you you nobody ever gonna love me like you nobody gonna hug kiss and caress me like you i wasn't even look away love me like you

9:23i wasn't even looking for you you were loving nobody ever did it like you you you you if nobody ever Thank you.

10:06It is Nobody Ever by Joy Anonymous. So how did this one start? Well, this one started by a dear friend of ours who's now actually in the band and very much a part of the album process, a friend of ours called Pierre Danio Forney. He sent us this video of a friend of his just singing in his garden.

10:36So who is that? So this is Tamarabi, who's this amazing writer who Danio had made a bunch of music with and sent me this video. I was like, wow, kind of forgot about it. And then over Christmas this year, last year, I kind of came back to it and just started reharmonizing and recontextualizing him. I remember when you sent this to me, I live in New York, just for reference. So I was over there and Hen sent me the kind of first iteration of this song.

11:07And I was like, my first thought was, wow, I really love how you've treated the vocal and how you've pitched it or whatever you've processed it with to make it sound like that. And he was like, no, no, no, that was kind of as raw as that video you've just seen now. I mean, for those who can't see the video, so there's somebody sitting in front of a keyboard outside somewhere, playing the keys with one hand, holding the microphone with the other. So kind of responding to limitations. It's like, I can only play so many things.

11:38So many things, simple chord. And I initially, when I heard it, I was like, this sounds so like one of those ever long songs. I thought it was a cover that I just didn't know of. And he was like, no, I just, I wrote it as a kind of sound check, kind of almost making fun of himself. I was like, this is beautiful. And in the project, I basically not treated the vocal at all. Yeah, it's incredible. Even the chop he does with his own voice, it just felt so amazing. And then you took the vocal, isolated from his keys?

12:10Isolated from his keys and then kind of re-contextualized, kind of re-harmed the chords to give them a bit more emotion and kind of, yeah, how I felt the song should feel. Yeah, I guess we should hear that if you can. Yeah, of course. So this is Tamarabi's vocal by itself. Yeah, like those bits, I was like, I like those chops.

12:46I was like, no, no, no. He did it. Yeah, they did it live. That's great. And even to the point of, I mean, on that is a slight bit of EQ, very, very, almost non-existent tuning, to be honest, like it's to give it a bit of gloss, but not like very, very, you know, minimum amount. And then I just kind of re-contextualized with the chords. So if you hear now, it just gives it this kind of different emotion to me.

13:26Kind of feels maybe what he intended, but could only play with one hand. It's a great, great lyric as well. It's just, we're always looking, we love working with kind of these interesting voices and collaborating with amazing lyricists. And when this came in, I was like, oh, this is just, couldn't be more perfect for us. Just open goal stuff. Yeah. And particularly that, like, he's singing that in the garden. And it sounds like, again, I couldn't really believe, I still can't work out how it sounds so good in, just from a phone recording and him in the garden.

14:00Because it sounds like a old, like kind of seventies recording in its tone and texture. And then we brought Tamarabi out at Jazz Cafe. We did a three-show residency there earlier on in the year. And I think that was the first time we had actually met, me and him in person. And Soundcheck comes in and starts practicing and just sounds exactly how that sounded. I was like, wow, couldn't quite believe how it sounded. Where is Tamarabi based then? London. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, he came and performed at all. We did a Jazz Cafe residency beginning of the year and he played on all of them and was just, we then ended up writing more music and making a source version of this kind of off the back of that.

14:41Right. Okay. So that's interesting because in my head, the source versions come first. Yeah. But not necessarily. Not necessarily. Not always. Most of the time I'd say they do, but there's been a few reverse engineering kind of situations. Yeah. Which is like this one. I'll just quickly play a bit of The Bounce. It's just, this was then recorded in my house on the piano. And basically everything you hear is recorded off iPhone mics. So all those different elements, are they all being played at the same time or are they?

15:30Layered. Layered. Layered. Yeah. So I recorded kind of a basic kind of drum pattern on wooden table and again, but everything's iPhone. And then Tam and I, I played the piano while he sang and then we layered some BVs on top. Right. We tried to keep it very minimal. Yeah. And yeah. And so that was a, yeah, that was a strange one where the, again, the source kind of really came, kind of came from him. And then we made this dance song and then we came together and made like a more acoustic version. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. What else should we hear from the main version then?

16:02So there's quite a lot of, there's interesting kind of, Lou and I are always quite obsessed with drums. Like how, I don't know, if you listen to the mix of like the drums of Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust or they have these, like, we remember them as these massive drums that feel like these absolute, yeah, just world-class huge drums, but often they're quite small and quite kind of due to restrictions, kind of more restricted, like over compressed or whatever.

16:33And so I think we often are trying to like find our maybe modern version of those. And this is quite a good example of that, I think, where we've layered like things, for instance, if I show you here, like quite minimal groove patterns, like it kind of feels like kind of old house drums, but then you let layering elements like this bell glass, which again,

17:08it's kind of giving that like early Michael Jackson demo-y feeling. Yeah. And that is just a glass. And that is just a glass, yeah. We do a lot of sort of rings on glass and mix it into quite a few of our things. Yeah, that is, yeah.

17:28But yeah, so that's, the idea is to kind of like, particularly in this, I wanted it to knock, but not feel overpowering to the song. Yeah, it was about giving the Tam lots of space to just shine, really, wasn't it? Yeah. And then Lou and I kind of chatted about this, like, there's a section coming up where you've had this beautiful song and you're in the world and try not to get in his way too much. And then we kind of give it a little more weight and it becomes a little like touching. And then there's like kind of subtle techno drums that come in that give it its weight when

18:04you land here.

18:07Yeah. And so in that you have these kind of different kicks. We quite like doing that, I think, as well. If you start with a sample idea, suddenly it all comes out and you enter into more of a drop. Yeah. Kind of section, I think, is they do that in quite a few of our tunes, maybe. Yeah, they're contrasting. Yeah, it's nice. And at what point, is this all done in the same room?

18:39Is this all done in a session? I'm just thinking of Lou being in New York and you being in London. So do you get online together and work? Or is this why you go to these lovely exotic places? We have to meet up in a lovely place. Yeah, exactly. It's a combination of both. I think in this day and age, you know, working remotely is great and we can focus on different things and we do a lot of that and we'll chat every day about, you know, Bounce 10 and how that sounds different to Bounce 9 and what's going on with all of that.

19:10But yeah, this one was you and Tam started it and then we were doing a few bits back and forth to finish it. But yeah, it was kind of, this one happened super quick. This was a very fast one. Yeah. We were kind of, again, we'd started the year and a few shows are coming up, but Lou and I were just kind of making ideas apart just because, you know, it's Christmas time. And, you know, we're just kind of calling each other every day being like, oh, that's the thing. And then it just so happened that the next song we'll talk about came at kind of the same time and both parties then joined us at the Jazz Cafe and it just felt so synonymous.

19:41And it was very, yeah, a lovely, lovely coincidence really. Yeah. Yeah. But yes, these kind of, I just like the idea that we haven't tried to overproduce this one. It was very much like the song's beautiful. Let's try and make it so we can play it live and make it feel like it is reminiscent of some things, but it has, I feel like elements like the bass line that come in feel quite fresh and exciting compared to where it's just come from. Yeah. Like if you hear, I don't know, these kind of almost like dub basses that come in.

20:15And it's like techno, which is this kind of arpeggiated 808 with this amazing filter, which has come from actually a dub siren that I use a lot at the moment, which we now use live as well. Because you seem to mash up different dance genres, often in one track.

20:47Yeah. Yeah. No, subtly, but different elements. There's three or four different genres already in that song. I think it's just reflective of our tastes. You know, we love old music as much as we love new cutting edge dance music. And to find those, those lovely sweet spots where you can get it right without sounding too busy or like you're trying too hard or it's contrived. I think that's always an exciting thing that we try and look for. 100%. And not being bound. Like, you know, we often, when we're making music, you know, reflect, like refer to people

21:17like Andy Wetherill, who, you know, produced like Primal Scream, the Screamer Delicate album and things. It's someone who would come at a genre and not think about the genre too much. Just be like, what do I love? And like, I love this kind of drum sound because it feels alive. I love these sirens because I went to a rave once and I loved that sound. And I think Lou and I often do that. We kind of, oh yeah, it'd be mad if techno came in here. And you're like, we're not even, without even thinking it's techno. You know what I mean? We're not, we're not too genre specific. Yeah. We quite often like say to each other, like we imagine two separate artists and like,

21:51what would it be like if Mad Lib was producing a Blauan record now? Or like two of our favorite people that would never work together. Or like, what would George Harrison make with Fortet now? Or like these dream combinations for us. And yeah, that's quite a fun way of guiding and trying to find, trying to do something fresh, I guess. But yeah. Those are great ideas. But I guess, I mean, clearly part of the relationship is buzzing off each other, you know, using each other as soundboards because you'll trust the other person's opinion. It doesn't matter if you're in the same room necessarily, but anything you do,

22:24you want to run it by them and get their reaction. And then you may well start creating something on top of that or with that. A hundred percent. Spot on. Yeah, I feel like so much of our, yeah, the thing we want to do most is just get the other one gassed up or like, I can't wait to play you this thing I made because I feel like it's so you or like vice versa. Yeah, it all kind of stems from there, I think. I think that's actually just a point in general in music production. Like, I think if you get too wrapped up in, oh, I have to, you know,

22:56the amazing thing is I use 50 plugins on this thing and then you get lost in the idea of like, I want to just make something that feels fresh and exciting and not because it's impressive. You know what I mean? And I think there's, I think when we send things back and forth, I'll always ask, oh, Lou, where did that come from? He's like, I don't know, man, I was just making this thing. And you're like, that's amazing. Like that back and forth of like, I don't know, again, to reference Madlib again, like the beauty of maybe not always knowing the process and you're just kind of sampling these things and something comes out, Lou samples some storn away stuff that happened two years ago

23:30and I'd forgotten about it and vice versa. You're like, oh, that's where the excitement comes. Not because we designed the LFO to do this crazy thing. Like that to me is, it's fun. But I would prefer to hear like something that feels like, wow, that's just a song in the world I want to be in. Yeah. Which I hope we made in this. Yeah, definitely. What else should we hear? Um, yes. Okay. So else on this, there's a kind of, we tend to make a lot of, uh, my, I use my voice a lot

24:01as a synthesizer in this one. We used it in this kind of like, ended up making a horn sound, but this is like a lot of my voice kind of pitched in different ways. Where have you hear this? Where I have kind of like, what have I got on this at the moment? So that is Hen. That is Hen. Yeah. You're listening to Hen. Do you have the untreated? Yes. So if I take off. Original? This has quite a lot of, a lot of madness on it for probably too much for what it needs,

24:31but.

24:40So that's me almost completely gone. Yeah. With nothing else on it.

24:47There you go. That's completely clean.

24:56Slightly chopped, but that's basically my voice. And then I will add a series of kind of different tunings and tend to use a lot on here as a combination of like safari pedals and some sound toys stuff. We have micro shift, which I love. It's an amazing kind of spreader. The dirty dog safari plug-in, just great distortion, kind of automatically starts feeling just other, otherworldly.

25:26And then layering it again with like an octave.

25:31Who needs all those analog synthesizers? Exactly. Waste of time. You've got your voice and a few plug-ins. That's it. You're done. Sorted. Well, I think it kind of came from obviously sing a lot and do all these things, but like we would like be going through plug-in sounds and obviously you get fun ones, but we kept being like, well, no one can copy that. Like no matter, we can do all the plug-ins or what, like having human voice to it, it just can't be copied. So it's just a nice thing. Even if we do end up making it sound like a horn or whatever, it's just a nice thing to

26:05have that feeling that it is uniquely ours. Yeah. And we do that basically on every record to some degree, like whether it's recreating a bass sound or this, in this case, a horn sound. But then once it's all put together, it kind of sounds like this.

26:28Which, yeah, kind of trying to mimic a horn section and you then get this kind of nice layer that's behind, it's kind of just feeling like the song's progressing and reaffirming the harmony.

26:45So, yeah, that's kind of the, that's the synthesizer. It's got a name. It's got a name. That's brilliant. I love that. It's got a name. And do you only, I mean, I kind of know the answer to this, but you don't just work in the box, do you? No, no, no. Because the other side of it is you playing keys or whatever instruments to take. Your hand and recording those bits and just seeing where that takes you. A hundred percent. Like most of it comes, yeah, going back to the storm away time, it was, it was magic. Like we were, we were basically just playing with no intention every single day, waking

27:19up, having this loop station being like, right, make another one, make another one, make another one. And it's so freeing to be, I guess that's why we've loved the kind of source material into the main versions is because you're going from just absolute play and then going, right, right. Let's edit it and make it into something that's like, we'd be happy to play out in front of any size room or whatever. And it's a lovely process. Yeah. And so is it safe to assume that the main versions are going to be about using what's

27:50in the box, but also about what you're going to use them for? Yeah. Yeah. There's a purpose to the sound of those and that you're thinking about different kinds of rooms that they will be played in and they will be played in different ways, either performed live or by you or another DJ just playing them out and people going crazy. So they're designed as weapons to use those kind of terms that people love to use. They have different functions. I mean, we quite like the idea of the source album becoming what you put on when you get

28:24home after one of our live shows where you're hearing these versions and you could get home and put on the source and kind of kick back with a cup of tea and bathe in it. I can certainly hear that. I mean, having heard the source album on its own, I think it's going to have a life of its own. I think people will be loving that vibe in a big way. Okay. Well, if we've heard everything, maybe we should have a blast to the ending of that and then we can move on. Sure. Are those strings?

29:04Again, it's more, I think it's more, oh, there's a, there's more Henthesizer. Right. You have, you have like a high string. You have also, there's this kind of live piano take that's kind of subtly in there. If you hear this, in the last chorus, basically it's all balls to the wall and like, you know, it's the home run stage. Which is again, just recorded off the phone.

29:34And yes, you did hear a string. There's a kind of, there's like a pad kind of thing. Yeah. A silky, a silky string section on top.

29:47But it's in, I mean, we've talked about having multiple dance genres in one tune. We've heard kind of techno, we've heard sub bass. And then there's a piano house and a big disco with the strings. Yeah. Put it all together. Yeah. And kind of deceive everyone. But you just had a nice time. But yeah. And then it kind of, by the end, you're having all these different kind of chops and variations of the sample.

30:13So this is kind of giving that kind of almost music sounds better with you. Like the held like, dink, dink, that you'd have a music sound better with you. You have this kind of vocal, this subconscious, I think. Like, but it adds to the groove so much. Yeah.

30:39And I think that's often a point in our songs in general, but in music of like, the reason why we love putting so much into it is that you want all these subconscious things to be playing different parts of your brain. And you don't necessarily need to ever be aware of them. But they'll affect you. Like, without it, suddenly the groove starts feeling a bit empty. So it's not really feeling unique or whatever. It can start just being like, oh, that's just a nice house beat. Whereas the moment you start adding these little worlds and things, I think that's what makes you feel like this could be my favorite song ever.

31:10You know what I mean? Like the kind of atmospheres you put around them. Yeah. And it keeps us interested as well. Do you ever encounter problems using phones to record things? Um, I mean, only, only, I wouldn't say, I mean, maybe losing stuff. Yeah. That's about it. But I think that's almost kind of why we love it is that it has the texture and imperfection that some studio mics don't give you. And, um, I think we can often hear something in the background or something walking up the stairs and that's kind of in there a bit.

31:41Yeah. Yeah. I think we actually actively pursue those kind of imperfections as opposed to try and get rid of them or try and clean it up too much. So. Yeah. Yeah. And like with drums, hit the table drums on an iPhone, just smack. Always. Always. So, so great. It's just, as, as you're very aware, I'm sure a lot of people have spoken on this podcast about it, but the compressor on the iPhone is phenomenal. Punches well above its weight. Yeah.

32:08So yeah, we're, we're big advocates, but, um, that's not to say we never use lovely mics as well. Like in store in a way, actually we were sat around this beautiful, uh, kind of the exact Neumann, but it was this Omni, I think, I think U87, but it was, it was kind of like a Telefunken remake and we just had all the instruments live in the room and recording in Omni and it was just beautiful. So we're not against nice mics. It's just, it's just, it's, uh, I think like everything, it's not about, oh, you'll make

32:41a better record because you have the better equipment. It's about making your idea come across the best. And if that means that the best thing is a source, that's just Lou and I hitting pans and singing a, a mantra and we go, actually, you know what? We can't make that better. That goes out. That's a great way of getting your idea across or you painstakingly work on a record 48 bounces and this one has, this one got quite, I got quite in it on the mix. So there is quite a lot of alternatives in this one, this one has, this one has 21 alternatives

33:14and that means there's the, there's actually the club, have you got the kind of club? Oh yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a, there is another edit. Which I think we're, we might, we're going to put them out, I think in a couple weeks. This, this again was like Lou and I were kind of at the end of, we'd take the elements and go, I actually, it would be nice if there was a bit more weapon to it. I'll play you a section of it.

33:39This is when you turn up the techno dials or the, or the bass element. And sometimes when we play live, we'll mix into the, this version halfway through the original version and we actually did all three versions, didn't we? We did Source into 7-inch into Club Mix. Yeah, live. All in one kind of sitting. Yeah. Quite fun.

34:03But the song's still there. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. That's really exciting. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Great to hear all the, all the versions. Yeah. We just love this. You know, it's our favorite thing in the world to do ever. So we just, we just keep, we're like, oh, and this idea, let's do it again. And even if it's only for me and Lou to hear, that's, that's enough. Yeah. Obviously we want more people, but we do it, that's first, you know. Brilliant. Right.

34:33Well, that was Nobody Ever. We're going to take a quick break and the next song we're going to look at is Like You Used To. Amazing.

34:42Looks like the back to school list is back. You mean the list that comes with its own list. No teddy bears this year, no purple anything, no whatever we found last week. Which is why we're shopping at Walmart. Walmart? Glitter headphones to match your backpack, check. K-pop Demon Hunter's notebooks, check. And all the boring stuff that's somehow not boring. Oh, check out these folders and crayons starting at just 25 cents. Check, check. Okay. This is so my vibe. And check. Who knew? This back to school, check out the whole list for less at Walmart. Prices vary by location. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT.

35:15Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. The next song we're going to look at by Joy Anonymous is Like You Used To.

35:47But before we start that, I have a question for you from Jordan Plocker. So we get questions from our Patreons. And Jordan has said, excited to have Joy on. My question is, if they have any tips on the creative process side of things, meaning finishing songs and not getting so hung up on details, but also making sure you like what you've put out. That's my own biggest problem. LOL. Thank you. Thank you, Jordan. Great question. Very fair concerns. I mean, I think one of the things we started early on was getting out of our way with releasing.

36:19As in, like, that's why we kind of started the Joy Journals back in the day. It was like, if you stop putting releasing on this pedestal of, like, has to be the biggest single I've ever made, and it's going to get millions and millions of streams, and da-da-da-da, you hear it time and time again, producers, artists, whatever, say, I've got thousands of songs on my hard drive, but nothing comes out. And I think if you keep, that pedestal only gets bigger and more, like, daunting. And I think that's something we just tried to get rid of quite early on. Like, just stop, yeah, stop building the pedestal too high.

36:53And then, because then you get out of the way and you just start making decisions on what you feel is, like, right by you and what your artistic vision is, as opposed to what you think will become big or successful or whatever your metric of success is. I think once you can get out of your way and be, oh, I just want to make something that I can play my best mate and they're happy, and then suddenly that's probably going to be good enough to release. Like, that idea of, oh, I'm so gassed that my friends love it, people I respect,

37:23and my, like, your community, I think, is more important than, like, the people around you who you trust their opinions. Does it feel like you? Does it feel like you as an artist, a person? And if it doesn't, by that metric, it probably won't work by others, I'd say. Yeah, it's also easier said than done. It's not like we sort of mastered that and we never fall into those traps still. You know, when you're getting close to release time and especially this next song and things, I was like, you know, you start questioning if the hats are bright enough

37:56and, you know, we still fall into those traps. But it's, I guess, in our case, it's nice having two of us that can reassure and talk the other one down a little bit if we need to in those specific things. And I don't know if you think it sounds great. People are going to love it. We've played it live ten times. You know, it's good to go. I mean, maybe it is having that sounding board, somebody you can share. I was going to say, and we're lucky enough, obviously, with the DJ sets and things and touring a lot, we can try all things out a lot. And if we play Bounce One and we're like, oh, my God, the bass, you couldn't even hear the bass, tomorrow we'll turn the bass up

38:28and you can tweak on the road quite a lot. So we're very obviously lucky to be able to do that as well. Yeah, I think that is a huge point, the live reaction to something. You know, we can all sit in a studio and everyone go, oh, this is good. This feels great. And then you play it to a crowd of people and no one reacts or moves. You're like, well, that's way more real than us seeing, having a nice time, having a cup of tea, listening to nice speakers, you know. So I think we often are trying to find the quickest route from creation

38:58to playing in front of, it doesn't matter what size room it can be. You know, if you're starting, go and try a song out in an open mic night or if it's whether you're a starting DJ, put it in your first set and just try it, try things. And that's a way better metric of whether you should put it out or not. And another one we quite like doing or I quite like doing is if you're on the AUX or on the Bluetooth somewhere and you're playing like a playlist of other music, release music from other people to suddenly slip in a sort of sketch one idea

39:31that we've been working on and see if it turns any heads or clears the room or because that quite often it's a pleasant surprise where you kind of play a camming without telling people that you've just put on something and see people like, oh, that's nice. And you're like, okay, that's good. There's people who aren't even really listening kind of clocked something. Yeah. So that's another little thing maybe you could try just to see if other people are vibing with it. Yeah. Get it out of your just the media ecosystem quickly, I think. Yeah. It's a good rule to have.

40:02Like you used to. It's the next one we're going to look at.

Like You Used To With Motherboard

40:05Yeah.

Like You Used To With Motherboard

40:06Let's have a blast to the master. Oh, you got to do it inside of me. Oh, you got to do it inside of me. Oh, you got to do it inside of me. Oh, you got to do it inside of me. Oh, you got to do it inside of me. All day I've been pining

40:43For you to love me All night waiting For you to love me Like you Like you

41:21Joy Anonymous Like you used to with Motherboard Where did it all start? So this one started around similar-ish era to Nobody Ever This was kind of when I just moved to New York

41:52And we have a lot of great musical friends out there already So yeah, lots of cool people that we're getting introduced to And a good friend of ours, Tommy Champion Introduced me to Motherboard, a.k.a. Kyle Kidd And it was actually the first time we'd worked together And I'd just seen a little Instagram video of Kyle singing And similar to Tam And we did a song with Daniel Ponder a few years back When you hear these We're always on the look for these iconic voices And they're quite hard to find I think if you go out your way and find them

42:23These Tamarabi and Kyle sort of just came into our worlds And yeah, first song we ever made together was this And yeah, they've got this amazing gospel tone to their voice Obviously, and the lyrics I just thought were really striking And another one that came together pretty quick I think I had a bit of the beat already And then Tommy was playing chords Yeah, I've got the project here So I think the first thing was the loop vocal sample

42:57Which was from a longer vocal take And I just found that little bit And thought that's just really nice and hooky And felt intro-y And the drums are this great plugin called VSCO Lots of different layers of that

43:27And again, we wanted to kind of make it feel like that old classic vocal But also like new kind of heavy hitting club stuff as well And again, the vocal comes away like it did in the last one You get a dance section And then just nice space for the vocal to come back in

44:04And again, the vocal is really untreated I love always keeping vocals as kind of raw to the take as I can Yeah, just a bit of Decapitator, Crystallizer on there Nothing crazy Really wanted to let their voice sit on top Yeah, we tried to kind of keep auto-tune off original takes as much as possible Like when actually singing Because so often people

44:36Like Kyle has an amazing voice And so often people go into studios thinking I need auto-tune to sing When actually we can fix things later But like the actual first take You want it to put your heart into it Yeah And the bass on this is actually I only realised when I opened this up yesterday How hilarious the kind of bass is on this bit Something that I haven't done before or since Or kind of didn't even know how to do in a way So this bass you hear Is essentially from this

45:09I think what I was trying to do is open up the step sequencer But I ended up in session player Which is normally used for making sort of logic drums And you can choose different complexities and fills and things And somehow I genuinely think by mistake the bass ended up in here As you can see it's called acoustic drummer pop rock But is that So I was doing these different takes on this Where you just change the fill amount and fill complexity Like each eight or something

45:39So I think it was completely not what this is meant to be used for at all But it's a great sound I mean it's a great sound in itself It just kind of just does the job Yeah Just kind of holding it all together So yeah that's kind of the main bit of that And then like always we love us a good breakdown And this has got a special shout out to Tommy Champion Who was playing synths and bass on this

46:11Which I can show you now And that's just got Szechuan Saturator on it Which is this free thing Which we use a lot It just chubs everything up nicely So in that instance he's just kind of jamming along to what you're making at the time I think we'd probably kind of found the loop I think it was in this kind of form

46:46We love doing like long vocal takes And then just finding bits that work as hooks That was that And then Tommy Just to give it that human feeling again And feel instrument-y What were the chords made of? Chords were on one of those synths in Antenna I think it was Matriarch

47:17And he's a great modular synthesizer operator as well So he was This was through the Matriarch and his modular rack Wow That's really good These are all the Tommy chord parts It was amazing

47:47We actually had Tommy bring his modular to our Jazz Cafe shows When Carl came and performed this song And just having that madness on stage was just so fun and exciting And then I think all the drums are from VSCO which is this thing Which again ends up on quite a lot of our things Because it's such a hands-on Such an alive plug-in that you can just do it all in Again, long takes and then we'll find the bit that felt It's got just a great filter on it

48:20And the time-stretching thing is amazing And then kick Also brings a lot of random elements into a straighter drum pattern Yeah, and you can randomise the whole thing Which is great The more things that can add random happy accidents, the better Hours of fun, as you can see So yeah, VSCO is

48:52Yeah, I think there's three layers of VSCO in there And yeah Well, you've made that seem really simple, haven't you? You're just kind of like And then this happened And then Tommy turned up And he did his thing And then that's just it I mean, it kind of Is it really? That one was, yeah One session, it was all captured And then again, minimal bit of back A bit of finessing And we had some structure Yeah Like Lou sent a similar kind of thing to the Nobody Ever tune Like Lou kind of sent me a random WhatsApp

49:25Which often our WhatsApp is just basically Bunch of random audios That go back and forth to each other And I was like Wow, what's this vocal? And yeah It was this Not too far off what you're hearing now We structured it a bit more And like kind of gave it a bit more You know, not normal The flow that felt right to us But the main elements were all there And then we just wanted to make the last drop feel like Even more kind of euphoric So we ended up To help me Yeah, all Kyle's adlibs are amazing in that as well

50:07These are just layers of But it's interesting because you're clearly Even though you're working towards finishing the main version Or what might be the seven inch version You're also thinking

50:37We're going to do a club version And we're going to explore this in our source mode as well Because the source version of this is so completely different And it's just interesting that idea that In a way, I think we're all a bit programmed Right, you go We've got to get the definitive version You know, and that's what everybody's striving for Yet you are And yet you're not Because you want to get your main version And be happy with that But then it's just triggering further exploration, it seems

51:07Yeah, it's just trying to have fun with it And keep it fresh for us And just like, as fans of music What we'd love to exist, I think Is often where it starts And, you know We always talk about the Arctic Monkeys When Alex Turner When he did the submarine acoustic thing And we're like, oh, I'd love it If there was a whole Arctic Monkeys acoustic record Or things like that And we've often put in acoustic or source kind of music into our albums And we're like, oh, it'd be nice to just have Have that Have them both a bit more separate And, yeah It's a process we have actually done

51:39Through all our music making Like even with our first album, Human Again Was all kind of based around sampling These like ideas we'd had on the south bank of the River Thames And it kind of became the album And then as we made even our second album and stuff We always had this process of really like Deeping what we're sampling Deeping the songs we're writing into it Like we go very in As you can maybe see Yeah And so we're just like Let's just show people That's also why we were so happy to come on here today Yeah It's like We really just want to show the workings out

52:10Show that like There's a lot of care and heart Going into music in general And I think sometimes I don't know As a consumer We get lost in the beautiful world But sometimes forget How much is going into these elements Yeah Sometimes it's about Yeah Just presenting the final version As you said And that's all that matters And the TikTok cut down And get the drop right And I don't know As fans again The story of how things were made Is often so much more interesting And like You know Those Beatles anthology things

52:41Where they released all the studio outtakes And you can hear people talking And they start again And they'll change key mid-song Because they're working it out That's the stuff that I'm listening to Just sort of Frozen in my tracks That this is so amazing to hear So Just trying to do that And for the people that Really do appreciate it Hopefully it's interesting Yeah But it's also another way Of enjoying the song I mean that's why I'm keen Let's hear the source version And let's hear this club version Yeah Of course You've got the source one Yeah Because the source one Is really quite different

53:11It's super mellow Yeah So that was actually all of us In a house actually In New York That we lived in once When we first went there And Yeah We went back to that house And they've kind of made it A bit of a studio Set up now It's called Carriage House It's a beautiful Beautiful place Great friends And we all sat around Me, Hen Kyle and Tommy And Made it There and there Kind of one take One take Right Lots of iPhone mics A lot of table knocks And Again

53:42Tommy On the modular And the guitar And It just sounds great So did you say to Kyle Look Sing those words Yeah From what you used to And that we're going to play around with this Pretty much Yeah

54:13I think the original take Was like Nine Ten minutes long That we kind of Shortened down But we did I don't know Maybe two or three takes And Just let Kyle Kind of Sing this mantra All day I've been

54:44Pining So when you go into a room Are you pounding every table you see And thinking What does that sound like

55:14Almost every single time I mean It's almost without fail I think without realising Even in restaurants Yeah We're just constantly My friends are like Can you shut up We're trying to You just don't realise You don't get it Yeah Yeah Yeah And what's Tommy doing with his guitar there I mean that sounds amazing Yeah Going through his He's going through the module Right And basically I mean he's a wizard with it Yeah He'd have to explain that I think But we've been listening to a lot of Daruti column

55:44And Vinnie Riley Vinnie Riley Yeah Huge inspiration for us And Tommy kind of reminded me a bit of him anyway So I was asking him if he was a fan He said he'd never heard of him So we spent an afternoon in New York Listening to a lot of Daruti Which I think informed perhaps this guitar tone Yeah I think he was also using the module on Kyle If you hear that repeating Kyle vocal He had samples of Kyle in the modulator as well

56:17Yeah But fascinating And yeah And Daruti column was an immediate point of reference But it is interesting isn't it When people say Oh not heard that guy Yeah yeah Like you are Yeah it's amazing Yeah Because even though it looks a bit similar to me Yeah yeah It has a similar kind of frame Sort of scarecrow frame Elfin

56:48Yeah exactly Genuinely Honestly And with the name Tommy Champion as well But I love when people haven't People that sound like something I've never heard of it I'm like oh brilliant That's so It's just in there It's in the eco Yeah And then if we do a quick bit of the club edit Which I just got here Have you got the Yeah Yeah Yeah VSCO again And then this one The subs on this Were made with this thing

57:19Called Bloom bass And the bloom plugins Are all really really cool So there's two there And it's just such a fun Plugin Just super fun to use Getting so much Random energy Really random Like every key can be a whole different sound And So yeah

57:51They have loads of really really cool Things that are just so Hands on And super random And yeah So that's where the bass is coming from On that Better than that sort of Session pop drummer thing I think On the other one Oh They both have their merits They have their merits Yeah And then this is Yeah Just a Step effects Logic preset thing That's rude

58:27That's great VSCO again Some hand drums Yeah But you get the idea Yeah Similar thing It's a bit of a clubby Yeah It's great though The endless variables It seems Yeah And you're keen to explore them Yeah Which is brilliant I think we have We're fortunate to have So many like Outlets of where we can Perform music You know Whether it's our live show Whether it's DJing Whether it's Just releasing It's so nice To be able to go Alright tonight

58:59We're going to play this version And then tomorrow We're going to play a show With Kyle And it's just going to be Acoustic That's why we keep making All these versions We're like Oh I want to just be able to Perform all these different Versions of what we do And to surprise people You know People that know The main version Will then come and see us And then it drops Into the club version And it feels like A surprising change And yeah There's never an argument About which is better Or Which you value more I think it changes All the time Like there'll be a day

59:30Where you know Lil MS will be like God just listen to The source again And like I can't believe we made that And put it out You know Like all these different versions We kind of forget them In a way Because you're making so much And you're like This is now just out Cool we're moving on To the next thing And then suddenly It will come back round You're like Oh wow I'm so glad we We listened to our For ourselves Yeah And it doesn't seem as if There's one area Of expertise either You both dabble Yeah yeah yeah In all of this Yeah I mean I think I'm definitely From more of a DJ background Like I started DJing When I was at uni

1:00:01And that was Kind of my First foray Into making music And playing music Hem was kind of more Playing in bands And singing And writing lyrics Etc So I think you can Definitely hear The sort of marriage Of kind of DJ And song Coming through In our music All the time Yeah Exciting Well we're going to Continue this excitement We're going to take A quick break And the next song We're going to look at Is this one Yeah Yeah Yeah You know that moment Where you thought Everything was silent

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1:01:34That's better This episode Is brought to you By ChatGPT Hey It's Bill Simmons From the Bill Simmons Podcast Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way To use ChatGPT For bigger Multi-step projects And when you need More than just answers Give ChatGPT work Access to your apps And files And it can create Real work documents Like spreadsheets Slides And structured reports Get started at ChatGPT.com By selecting work mode

1:02:05Available on Plus and Pro plans The next one We're going to look at By Joy Anonymous Is this one So let's have a blast

Collaborating With Ezra Collective

1:02:13To the master

Collaborating With Ezra Collective

1:02:14Easy now Easy now Easy now Easy now Easy now Easy now Here we're my top But now Heave me now Straight to the part That I feed this one Music switching Even now Just easy now Easy now Here we're my top But now Heave me now Straight to the part That I feed this one Here we're the one Dem one Let's go.

1:03:06This one by Joy Anonymous. And I always think when I hear this, if you were to cite one song that puts the joy in Joy Anonymous, this has to be it. I mean, it just screams joy to me. It puts a massive smile on your face. Yeah. I mean, shout out to Ezra Collective and Stush, who are also featuring on that. Yeah. Quite a mad combination of people, actually. Now we're looking directly at it. Yeah. It's so good, though. I appreciate it. Yeah. It's so good. And obviously, Ezra Collective and Stush are fantastic artists.

1:03:39That whole combination of the three of you works so well. How did it come about? It was quite, yeah, again, quite a mad little process. We've been dear friends with the Ezra guys for a while. And we've, you know, performed with them. And we'd always been like, oh, we want to make some music. And weirdly kind of similar-ish time. We were maybe the summer just before Nobody Ever. And like he used to, we were kind of throwing ideas around.

1:04:09Lou and I knew we were going in with them. And I had this weird kind of my little vocal hook idea, which becomes... So that's you. That's me going, everybody, everybody, everybody, this is a situation.

1:04:28Yeah, a situation. Because Femi has like a DJ event he does called Situation. Yeah. I think that was... We were going to do a situation with him. So we were like, let's make a jingle situation. Let's make a situation anthem. Yeah. That, unfortunately, didn't happen. Will happen again, for sure. But started chopping that idea up. I think, yeah, it was just a whole take on me kind of just doing that. Situation. This one, the situation. This one, the situation. This one. This one. Basically, like Garage MC. Genius.

1:04:58And then chopped it up. And then Lou and I were kind of like throwing this idea around. And Lou had this, I think it was an old Miss Dynamite sample. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I'm not sure if it's still in here. But it was, we had this kind of old Miss Dynamite sample that we were kind of chopping around at the time. And I think it will be in one of these alternatives. Classic. Magic decides to freeze now. I mean, I've got this one that says Situation with Miss Dynamite Idea. Oh, yeah. There you go. It's not the project, but we might get a feel for it.

1:05:31Situation. You know what? And that's got Femi at the start. My favorite thing is when you're making a track or thinking of a track.

1:05:48So that was a Miss Dynamite from that. That was something I just put in. Unreleased Miss Dynamite. I don't think it's ever seen the light of day, but I feel like it needed a bit of that. Kind of, that kind of MC energy. Yeah, that female energy MC. Yeah. Unfortunately, couldn't get Miss Dynamite over the line on it. But fortunately, because Stush is, yeah, incredible. Stush kind of absolutely killed it. But it's interesting because, I mean, we've talked about this already, but this fusion

1:06:19of different dance styles in one song, you know, so I'm getting a bit of kind of UK garage, RIP groove or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then there's a Basement Jacks element too. 100%. You know, and then obviously with the Ezra Horns and the way that they think about dance music and then you chuck in the MC vibe and it's great. Yeah, thanks. It's very like, yeah, UK funky, carnival inspired. Yeah. Still sounds super England to me though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like very UK somehow.

1:06:50Yeah. I think, yeah, it's just another example of us trying to show our tastes and things and trying to just show different flavors of what inspires us. And one day it'll be this, one day it'll be a duty column. And, you know, I think it's just the way our tastes sort of comes out sometimes in these different forms. And the horn riff, I mean, was that sampled from one of their things or was that in the session that you were about to go into with them? Well, that actually came, I sang a voice note and then kind of recreated it so that they

1:07:22could hear a reference and then they play, so the horns you hear is them. Which I have here. Do you have your voice note? I don't need it. I'll find it for you. So that's them. That was the whole idea. That is so great.

1:07:53And I wish that they were in the room now or you could have caught their reaction. To that. Yeah. Were they like, oh, James picks up his trumpet. It was good. Right. Perfect. They're the sort of guys that you play them something once. They're like, sweet. Let's do it. And they do one take and they've all just nailed it. You're like. Absolutely. Yeah. That was perfect. Just phenomenal players. Yeah. So, I mean, now I guess we need to. So that's you. That's me. So here is them as a unit, which is a combination.

1:08:26And did they immediately do it as a unit? Yeah. So we had F.A. and James playing various levels of trumpet and sax. So they're doing different harmonies. And we actually were at the pool studio, that Maloco studio over near, what's that road? Bermondsey. Bermondsey way. Yeah. And yeah, we had a great day with them, recorded on a series of different mics. Like we had a set of Coles up there, U87. They have a beautiful, like the room sound there is amazing.

1:08:58This is the Coles room. And when you're working like that, I mean, because obviously, you know, you're thinking we're going to get raw ingredients here and we're going to take these away. But do you start introducing the beats at that point? Just do you want them to be vibing on that? They played very much along to a beat. So before them, I had this kind of replication.

1:09:25It actually was an AI horn that I'd made from that voice note. And then played keys along to it, which made this kind of synth version, which then they played along to that. Yeah. So they used that voice note. Again, it was the kind of scary time of trying that Suno thing for the first time. And I had a weird tummy feeling of how good it was at making stuff. But then I was like, okay, I have to look at this head on. And we made this synth out of it.

1:09:59That just took the voice note. And then I played some chords to it, et cetera. And then we took that out and they played the part and added actually this line, which makes it to me, I think. Which feels so Ezra to me. And then we built on top of that, this amazing breakdown, which there's a beautiful story

1:10:29to this. Because in the studio, Lou and I kind of got Femi to do this speech initially, which you heard when Lou was playing the earlier version. And he was just in the room speaking. And it was like, this is a really nice idea. It was kind of a bit like the mic was a bit too distorted and stuff. So it was like, it's nice. We can make it work. But I feel like we can get something better. And we actually played this song for the first time at Ali Pali when we were playing with Fred and Femi. And basically made this bounce in time.

1:11:03And Femi does this amazing speech just that happened to happen on the night. On the night, to the crowd. To the crowd, which is this. And he, I actually have the video here as well. Isn't it a beautiful privilege we get to dance together, family? He's such a great speaker there. He's just amazing. Let me see your eyes in the air real quickly. This is just him. Dwyer Anonymous and EZ.

1:11:28Everyone feeling good, yeah?

1:11:33I said, are you feeling good, yeah?

1:11:37Well then, from the front to the back. I need to see everything. And so, I was like, well, we have to put that on the record. And we put it on that night. And then we delivered it the next day. And it came out the day after. I was going to say, the turnaround was really quick. We played on the first day. Thursday. And then the last thing was out on the Saturday. Yeah. So on the Friday, that was put in. And then sort of sent it off to the Pals of B. Yeah. So on the night, you were playing the tune. Yeah. And then he was talking live on top of that.

1:12:07Yeah. Luckily, somebody was recording that. Yeah, yeah. Well, luckily, the whole set was recorded. The whole thing was being recorded. Yeah. And Jamie, who's an amazing sound guy, we need this tonight. And he got it over, bless him. And yeah. But the idea of it was already there. You were going to have something like that. Yeah. I mean, the first one, it was Femi at the start instead of in the middle. My favorite thing is when you're making a track or thinking of a track and you imagine when you drop the track.

1:12:38Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, around midnight, I want to hear you. Still great. Still absolutely brilliant. This would have absolutely done. I caught on that situation. Do you get me? Perfect. But because he was speaking to a crowd and you can hear the crowd in the background. It has this feeling of- It brings it in a different place. And also, Lou and I are constantly, this couldn't be more a case of we made a song, oh my God, it's just of the time. We want this to come out ASAP.

1:13:08And the fact that it happened Thursday night, came out Saturday, which is like, the satisfaction in that is immense. To be able to be like, okay, this music is alive. And the people who were there that night can hold on to that. As the world becomes more and more, I don't know, music feeling, can feel more disposable because there's so much coming out. We keep ruminating on this idea of like, if you can make it feel like it only happened that night and people can take it away with them, suddenly there's this new value back

1:13:40in music where it's like, oh my God, this is my song. Like, I was in that room. I'm going to show my kids. I'm going to show this because I was there and present. And I think that's like why we're trying to be so on it with the live show. We're recording all our shows and putting them out as live albums, all this stuff to make it feel like, oh, I can have value back to my music. And this can be more case in point of that where, you know, you're in this passionate moment where Femi's like speaking. Speaking, you have all these solos happening from Femi and James, like this beautiful build.

1:14:14And even the artwork was a photo of me from when we were DJing doing that. I think it's an iPhone photo. Yeah, yeah. Just go, right, that's the artwork. Get it up. Let's move. Yeah, it literally was. Yeah, lose hands. What was it? And it's interesting, isn't it? Because we discuss social media in general in quite negative terms, understandably. But I first saw a clip of that online because so many of those Ali Pali shows that Fred

1:14:45did were kind of instantly online or lots of sections were. It's like, whoa, that was amazing. And then the track's there. Yeah, yeah. Out in the world. So even if you weren't there, you could still feel as if you were there. 100%. Which is, I mean, that is a testament to the value of social media, I think, in a way. And also that, you know, this is where the whole technology, the recording technology and also your ongoing conversations with people. Because obviously, if you hadn't prepped the tune, if you hadn't had your session with them, if this idea hadn't been percolating for a long time, then Fred wouldn't have had

1:15:20that moment. And that was such a great moment within that show because each of those shows was different with a different cast. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Amazing. So true. And yeah, we're actually going on tour with Ezra in like Feb. Yeah. So going to get the band back together and maybe do some more. Do some more soon. Fantastic. And so, I mean, the live version of Joy Anonymous, as you've been talking about, what is that set up? And then how does that relate to the album and presenting the album, but also recording

1:15:51the album? Yeah. So the live set up is based around Lou is on this tractor controller, which it's quite a unique piece of kit because it's like 10 years old. I think it's called the S8. Yeah. And what is really great about it is it has stem separation faders as if it was on a DJ mixer. So I'm able to like mix stems of ours together from various back catalog pieces of our music and you can change the key and make it all sound really nice.

1:16:22And that was a real breakthrough for us instead of sort of just playing the backing track and singing over it. I can now loop sections and sit in things for long. We can communicate way more hands on the piano and vocals. We have a TR-1000, which is a very alive drum machine, which is an absolute beast. And I've been digging deeply into it. And then we have Danio, who is live sampling records onto an MPC and has this amazing also like guitar set up where he's using the 505, which is like the cornerstone to the source

1:16:54material. And he builds ambience and different kind of worlds on that. And it basically means by all these elements being very alive and free, like we can make calls in the moment to be like, oh, we made a tune yesterday. Let's put it into the show in some form. Maybe tonight Lou can take out the drums of this song that we usually play and make it a bit more minimal tonight. Like, you know, we just played in Poland at an opener festival and it was the first time we'd taken it.

1:17:24We'd mostly done it in kind of smaller rooms. We did a couple of shows at Jazz Cafe and a couple of shows in New York. And it was the first time we took it onto a bigger stage and people usually come to see us to DJ and suddenly, firstly, Lou and I weren't even the first on stage. Danio's on there making this ambience and everyone's kind of looking at this like, what's going on? And suddenly we come on and there's a lot more singing and what we really are, basically. We want it to kind of feel like almost like how Bon Iver and like McGee and Dijon, their shows feel, but a bit more sort of London, a bit more dance music, perhaps.

1:17:58We can turn the volume up a bit more. Yeah, we definitely still go hard. Yeah. Yeah. And we also still, you know, love DJing and do a lot of that still. And it's great to have both offerings, I think. Yeah. And that comes back to the songs. So like there's nobody ever and like it used to happen that way. Like we made these songs, tried them out live and we're like, wow, this is really great. We need to put these out. And that's how we want to keep going forward. I feel like now more than ever, our recording process and live process are sort of as close to each other as they've ever been.

1:18:30Whereas before, maybe it was making stuff more in the box and then kind of DJing it as live. Now it's, we're using the same equipment to record as we are to play live. So it feels good. It feels like we're our sort of strongest. We've sort of found out, we've kind of like, oh, this is what we kind of should have been doing all along. Um, and hopefully now we'll be able to put out loads of live albums and we're going to lean into that and kind of try and do this almost Grateful Dead feeling things where there's different live versions that only exist on the live albums and covers and different guests.

1:19:01And, um, yeah, so that's going to be coming soon as well. And even to the point, like Daniel will collect records in the town we're in that day and we sample. So like Daniel found this like rogue Polish hit that we then sampled and everyone was like, how do they know that? And, you know, like these little kind of Easter eggs that we hide in amongst it just to show how alive it is. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. And going back to this one, is there anything else that I was thinking of the, um, the brass recording because you started looking at the recording of that and the different mics

1:19:35that were used. Yeah. So in, in, we have, I mean, there's a, there's a lot of layers, which is why it kind of sounds so full, but you have, so this is, this is the solo section where you have both F.A. and James doing different layers of solos.

1:19:57It's just beautiful. And they, and they played, I mean, it's just, they're just amazing players. An absolute pleasure to, to work with them. Yeah. Just sitting in the room. Yeah. It was just, it was just, it was just an honor. But yeah, we have these, the, the room at pool sounds very nice and that's basically got no other reverbs on. There's an echo, but apart from that, that's the room recording. And then you have, which just is lovely to bathe in.

1:20:29This should have been the source version. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is there a source version? There isn't. No, no. Well, this, this, this sounds like the source version. Yeah. Tape note's exclusive. Yeah, exactly. It started here. Yeah. The realization. Obviously that could be it. The source could be, just be that with Femi talking. Yeah, real quickly. Yeah. Or even the original speech he made. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There you go. So he's producing now. I love it.

1:20:55He can be our source producer. Was there like Femi drums in the break? Yeah. I feel like he was doing solos and things. Yeah. So he was there that day. Did he do drums? We did different days, I think. We did one day with James and Effie and then we did Femi and TJ doing drums and bass. Right. So this is, this is, this is Femi's drum situation. Pardon the pun. But we, we kind of both, we all spoke together being like, we didn't want them to be, we didn't

1:21:35want the track to feel too much, just like a live band playing. So it's, it's kind of more used as an energy take and you, you feel the fills, but then as you can hear, they're kind of more, if I take off the processing, you can hear that they're more kind of filtered and you don't really get any low end, you're just getting the energy of the tops. Yeah. But you know, it is. It was a full kind of drum recording, but then by taking lows out using this plugin that I absolutely adore, ST4B is basically a transition shaper and then kind of changing some of the

1:22:10frequency, like frequency shifting some of the drums. So they feel a little alien, a little kind of. A little bit phasery. Yeah. And kind of, so they, they don't, you can feel them in the room, but they don't take up the space of like, even Femi was like, look, you might not even need my drums. He was like very much like, I want this tune just to bang. And we were like, yeah, but I like hearing your, your energy in there. So you hear like, that's when you start hearing the tops and other things that just kind of make it feel like that, kind of more UK funky, like this tune you can play in any club and

1:22:47it will, it will land.

1:22:52And that's where you're layering the kind of things that give it more. I like to think it's still, you're not noticing that it's very electronic drums, but it's just like sitting in there. So it feels, I think, I think that's always a goal we're trying to find. So it doesn't feel like it's just like, oh, this is just like a splice loop or whatever. This is like, we, we go in and on the placement of the drums. So they all still feel very alive. And so you're, you're really like, I think you could press play on that when you hear the sample and it just feels like, it feels carnival. It feels like this. Very basement jacks.

1:23:23Very basement jacks.

1:23:26That's just, that's just a lovely time. And in terms of that tempo and in terms of that pattern and had you suggested anything to Femi or? We'd spoken a lot about UK funky. This isn't, I would say this is not like strictly UK funky, but it has, we were going for that thing and it kind of came up with this energy. And once you then put Stush's vocal on and whatever it is, it's definitely UK.

1:23:52But it's an interesting tempo because I don't think I've necessarily heard that on Ezra's own records. It's not something that they've explored, even though they love that stuff and their club culture, knowledge is so strong. I mean, we've, we've, we've DJ with Femi a lot and speak about all this stuff. And, and I think, I think he particularly, I mean, they all are, but he's just like, I mean, Joe actually makes a lot of music, like in that kind of dub world. And like, they all do, they all touch those and all love to rave.

1:24:24And so it's all there. I think they just, I don't know, I guess sometimes you might be like, oh, we do, our thing is live, you know, musicianship. So that's sometimes hard to cross over into other genres. Yeah. Just, just honor that they trusted us to sort of dance it up a bit or yeah. Take them to that BPM. And yeah, really just nice. It works so well. And this is an interesting one in that, so there's no source version yet. This is actually potentially the only tune that there's kind of just one version. Yeah. There's not a club edit.

1:24:54There's not a source. I can see that ideas are kind of. Yeah. I always feel a bit ashamed that we've sort of let down. And there's no club one either. There's just the main version. This one happened so quick that it was just to get it out. They had like loads of other releases at the time. All our teams were like, this is mental. Crazy, yeah. We're like, it's got to be tomorrow. It has to be tomorrow. Otherwise it won't work. Because it's, yeah, it doesn't fit on their new album, which is on the way. Or your album. Is that? Yeah. So yeah, shout out all those people that got it over the line for us. Yeah, I see. It's a beautiful thing.

1:25:25Yeah. Is there anything else we should highlight from that? Or should we just have a blast of the ending? Yeah. I mean, I think those are the main production. I mean, you know, there's a lot of kind of interesting, like, these kind of dub sounds. Oh, this is the dub siren I was talking about earlier that I'm now obsessed with. I do a lot of takes. I've become quite the virtuosic dub siren player. And live in the show as well. And jumps all over the dub siren.

1:25:56So I've become, yeah, I'd like to say I'm virtuosic with it. But again, just adds a lot of the... Very Primal Scream. Very Primal Scream. Very kind of, you know, Caribbean sound class culture. Having had the privilege of having a little listen to the album, I'm hearing quite a lot of Primal Scream in there. And you mentioned Andrew Wetherill as well. It's really interesting. Oh, just that Scream of Delica album in general is just, yeah, we talk about that album a hell of a lot.

1:26:30Yeah, what he did to bring such a different energy to such a great band was just amazing. And I think that's kind of like, yeah, I think that's how we try and come out. Any music we make is just like, don't conform to the, you know, whatever rule there might be. And something beautiful comes out, I think. Yeah. Yeah, just trying to shout out your heroes again. Just like. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. So, yeah, that's the kind of... Well, let's have a blast at the ending. We'll go from Femi. Isn't it a beautiful privilege we get to dance together, family?

1:27:06Let me see your hands in the air real quickly.

1:27:10Try none of us and ease it.

1:27:14Everyone feeling good here? Let me see your hands in the air real quickly. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air.

Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air. Let me see your hands in the air.

1:27:46oh and there's a little bit of me singing in a month step but yeah and on the stush thing actually stush sent us that just remotely we didn't we didn't we weren't able to get in in time to do it all together but she killed it just sent the beat and again it was one of those kind of yeah that's perfect absolutely smashed it thank you that's done no notes that time so yeah just

1:28:17to shout out stush again the time she gets on that is amazing give her a little solo sorry if you don't want us just going back it's just amazing yeah shout out stush she killed it absolutely so iconic yeah this feels like an ever look like a

1:28:52a verse that's been around forever it's just amazing fantastic so good standalone banger yeah thanks man absolutely fantastic so exciting thank you so much for coming on but we're going

The Loop Station Setup

1:29:03to let you go but we have a couple more questions questions we ask everybody who comes on the show so the first is about tech is there a piece of tech that relates to this current project or in general that you couldn't live without or that is essential to what you're doing i mean i'd say the 505 is probably yeah the loop station loop station and we used it in a way i don't think either of us had ever seen it used before in terms of like yeah it kind of came a

1:29:34couple years ago and lude started basically just looping these live jams we were doing it just made this amazing feeling of like oh you can make these kind of worlds very quickly that feel like you're not looking in the box it's like it's a nice thing that we can take around with us everywhere yeah but it's not like you know we take laptops everywhere which is amazing but this is like oh we can just yeah we use it without a laptop and it's just got five channels you can overdub if you want the effects are great on it you can just layer it just works so quick you said it's like an 8 or a

1:30:0616 or a 32 and it's just super intuitive press overdub and it has internal memory so you can save i think 99 things within it and it's super light chuck it in the backpack and you've just got like after storn away i was like oh my god have i got all these in my backpack just and you can do live takes as if you're djing where you just have one on its own then you bring in another yeah i'll just quickly play you something that's um yeah great yeah there's some examples of that which is just like for instance this is just the loop station

1:30:38yeah and you can hear people like moving the chair a little bit and the creeks and stuff and they start looping and becoming yeah the world you're in they all get caught up in the loop little vocal ideas and that will be then at the end of the day we'll do takes where you'll just play

1:31:10like bring up bring up and down the faders this then actually made one of the you know we use this source on a lot of what's coming on the album amazing so many possibilities so honestly it's it's a very it opened up a whole new world for us because suddenly you're not like you know we can all make a thing sound kind of good quite quickly on logic or whatever but nothing kind of felt as alive as that you know you're so taken out of

1:31:43oh you know get plugins like we can do that later this is just you're out of your way we're just doing things playing with each other just going like oh wow suddenly you have this world and then we can sample it we can and we did actually do a live show where we did human again our first album i think it was the fifth anniversary of it or something so we played at earth hackney and uh we all had 505s for that one we've kind of changed it that was kind of just for that show so we all had 505s that were all linked all talking to each other yeah um and it was all like we were doing

1:32:14like the live table knocks and kind of recreating yeah recording stuff straight in and yeah i think they're it's a really fun piece of kit and it kind of yeah as hen said you don't really need to know that much about anything to have fun with it and just switch it on and it's recording and oh here we go it's the possibilities are pretty quick and was it getting scared on to open a door and don't know how to get a sound it's just so yeah particularly particularly for beginning producers it's something that just gets you out of and you can just start hitting things and making sounds i think it was

1:32:45originally made just for like guitarists to be able to have backing track and loop a couple layers and you know sing a songwriter kind of like how you know ed sheeran will do live um but we use it in a very different way which has been amazing yeah excellent the last question we ask everybody is whether they have any advice whether there's something they picked up on along the way somebody said something that you always carry with you or through your own experience you want to share what you've learned with other people well there's one one bit of advice i think we've definitely lived by and

1:33:21is to just all the ideas that come to you like just start doing like start doing the things put out the weird little weird remix that you thought won't do anything try and throw your first rave try it like we started we've been doing this for a little while now and we literally started like we'd be like okay we just want to put a show on with our best friends and like do a thing and then suddenly we put a remix out that got found by a producer who then you know got involved with us and you never know like you're in your in the center of the storm let's say and you never know what the

1:33:55like effects are around it like you could be doing one thing and thinking that it's not taking off you don't know who's talking about you around or someone might have heard your song and it inspired them and they'll reach come back around so the doing don't just kind of put these ideas out just start doing it's all it's all worth it it's like people that are afraid to start or whatever oh i probably shouldn't put a song out because it's probably not there so it probably won't find the right ears or whatever we've put stuff out weird soundcloud mixes and we were in australia and remember someone was like oh i loved episode three of your like radio one mashup

1:34:30series i was like really like the last 15 minutes i listened to every day and it's like wow like i didn't think anyone was thinking about that and it's yeah we've had so many examples of something that leads to something that then leads to something and yeah it's just you'll be amazed at once you get out your own way and start where it can kind of tumble on to yeah yeah take a camping battery outside and start making some tunes suddenly making tunes with ezra and stuff yeah yeah yeah yeah good a thought so exciting so many great ideas so good to speak to you thank you so much for

1:35:05coming in and sharing your world with us it's been really exciting thank you pleasure we should play one more song an outro piece to see us off into wherever we're going yeah we could even what should we go for she did it should you make me feel yeah i think well so that that bit of sauce we just played you is the sauce that made this next song which is joy don't know if we could you can say that title i think i think it's okay in this in in our world in our world joy shit you make me feel steady on um which is yeah kind of into the new album yeah um yeah fantastic thanks again

1:35:45so this is joy shit you make me feel joy anonymous from light in the dark

Closing Track and Outro

1:35:50thank you for listening and in particular thanks to all of you who have signed up to support us on patreon i'm just one part of the team that brings you take notes and it relies on your support access to patreon includes the full-length videos of new episodes where possible ad-free episodes and detailed gear lists among many other things if you'd like to join head to the link on our socials or website for pictures highlight clips and behind the scenes content head to our instagram or youtube channel and on discord you can join the growing take notes community

1:36:23once again thank you for listening until next time goodbye and you keep on bricking brick by brick and brick by brick you can't see all the tiny wins you achieve but still are you all right well are you all right i'm worried where you take it at night my friend my friend this time you can't protect oh when you feel hurt and you find grace in the time spent take flight when you need rest i know because i'm feeling it no strings and you know what i can tell you're giving them up again find peace when you show up oh i've been needing it

1:36:56looks like the back to school list is back you mean the list that comes with its own list no teddy bears this year no purple anything no whatever we found last week which is why we're shopping at walmart walmart glitter headphones to match your backpack check k-pop demon hunter's notebooks check and all the boring stuff that's somehow not boring oh check out these folders and crayons starting at just 25 cents check check okay this is so my vibe and check who knew this back to

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