Musical Collaboration
Isaac Lane CYD_ Estienne Rylle
Thank you everyone for the positive feedback on ‘Tea time’. I am glad I shared the teaser and you’re feeling it as a summer tune. That should be out on the 12th of August.
Today I wanted to continue from my last post highlighting the creative process. On my journey so far I have found collaboration is key to cultivating style.
I have felt that finding my sound is like experimenting with cooking (click that link later to see my fave musical chef). Maybe you have some idea of the main ingredients you will use, whether the dish will be sweet or savoury, but you experiment to discover the taste you want to achieve. Music is like that and picking who you collaborate with is like picking your spices. My chef dad is going to love that I am likening my art form to his.
There have been 3 producer artists that I have connected with the most. I want to share with you who these gems are and how we started creating together.
I first started making music with Isaac Lane in 2016 when we met at a local radio station, Radio Neo. I was part of the interviewing team for up and coming French bands, like L’Imperatrice and established artists, like Oxmo Puccino. I would spend my weekdays at open mics and hosting intimate music events. I thoroughly enjoyed creating space for music to be shared in. Yet it wasn’t until I was pushed by Isaac to sing on one of his tracks that I started songwriting and finding my own voice.
We challenged each other lyrically because he is a writer (published by the French equivalent of Penguin) and he honed in on all of our word use tentatively. My song writing was pruned with him in that season. He also brought out the jazz sound in my voice. I think our first song Undress me to life is a trophy for the jazz-electro pop style we were playing with.
In 2018 I met Chi, known as CYD at a cafe bar by Opera, Paris. I was singing an acapella version of ‘Dream a little dream’ for my friend’s instagram. She was sitting at a table next to us. She liked my voice. I liked her enthusiasm. We kept in touch and she started to send me her compositions. I would get words and melodies come to me and then send them back to her. We became musical Whatsapp pals until we decided to start recording our songs.
What strikes me most about Chi’s creative output is she dares with flare. She is an artist with a gusto for spinning electro vibrations into immersive almost filmic experiences. The textures of her compositions spark my creativity. I think it’s because she creates so visually with her sounds that I find images and stories very quickly. When I listen, I close my eyes and step into the world of her story and message and add my own bits. I sing what I see, a narrative unfolding or maybe a snapshot of an image. Sometimes I don’t sing but I speak the narrative.You can hear this at the beginning of Dusty day where I am singing the story of a girl waking up from death in a post apocalyptic world and then my voice becomes the girl singing.
Tapping into this improv, free flow style is from where I am able to grab what the theme of the song could be about. Once I have the rudiments of that first, second, third reaction to a composition I work on carving out the song. Sometimes I already have the theme and the words, like with Take me Higher.
The other exhilarating thing about Chi is that she is a graceful rule breaker. I think she may even want to disregard rules completely as if they don’t exist. Not in a rebellious way but more in a determined for freedom kind of way. I appreciate that eccentric confidence. Let’s embrace unruly art as well as all the neat stuff.
So back when I first started making music with her I was allowed to pour my words and notes onto her tracks with no judgement or limit. The more authentic and experimental I was, the more she spurred me on with her big smile and ‘keep going dear talia’. The typical form of verse, pre-chorus, verse chorus or binary ABAB wasn’t and isn’t enforced. This was ‘non-binary’ music at its best. One song we did called Waltz du Coeur sounds like my own musical soliloquy. I believe her encouragement really nurtured me. My confidence grew in that season of self discovery as a song writer.
Dusty day and Take me Higher have been our winners because we got to record and have those mixed at Joel Fajerman’s studio and the sound came out exquisitely neat. Delve into the CYD_ world on her stormy cloud of sounds soundcloud.com/chihone
Demos we worked on: HIM I AM FREE Fall into you
More recently, I have been partnering with Estienne Rylle who is founder, film maker and producer at Nuit Pure. I think I need to pause here to show you the depth and breadth of our bopping pop creation process. It’s deep.
Jokes. The key to our work was having fun as well as being intentional in prayer for inspiration for these tracks. We recorded all these songs in the basement of Temple du Marais and I could feel the beauty of that community welcoming me into its heart at a time when Covid lockdowns were still cropping up. Thankfully churches were excluded at this point so I was able to be there and get nourished by just being there.
Estienne has seen me through my personal highs and lows in the creative process. Highs like when we would be in the flow of creating, bouncing up and down because we nailed a recording. Lows like my mental slumps of frustration from not being able to hit the notes. With the patience of a pilgrim he has accompanied me to the more pop electro dance I am enjoying creating. I think understanding and kindness is so important in whatever partnership you form. It will bear good fruit if the root is good. Estienne encouraged me to direct my music video because he saw I had very clear visuals and ways I wanted to show this song on film. Feel your hope would not have been the stunner it is without him.
I am looking forward to many more collaborations like these and further cultivating the ones I have been blessed with already. Chi just got in touch about doing a Sister Sledge song cover on one of her atmospheric pop trap trip hop tracks. The combinations she comes up with are brilliant. When I asked her if I should practice the whole song or just parts she said ‘No rules My dear’ ♥♥♥!
And of course Tea time will be coming out next month which is a Nuit Pure records release.
I hope this has been interesting to read and helpful. I do get asked often where does my inspiration come from and what the process looks like. My main advice is to start with the core of what inspires you and sing about it. Tap into the uninhibited communication inside. Play with sounds and rhythms. No rules as Chi says (but then eventually do come to some kind of form if you don’t want to be as experimental and more pop) I have also done a fair bit of circle singing and that is brilliant for igniting improvisation and daring to play with musical notes, harmonies and rhythms without overthinking. Interested in knowing more? Click here: Circle singing
Anyone who wants to connect on songwriting and this creative process more message me. I’d love to hear what you are up to creatively, thoughts and questions.
Anyone looking to collaborate artistically defo get in touch. We can become musical Whatsapp pals 💌