#braincell harmonics

My music making has always been a release to me, a frustrating, maddening, beautiful release. I have not written a blog for years but I think it is time to do one. I have been thinking long and hard about my music project, why I do it, why I carry on making records and what is the point? Each time I make a new set of tracks I have the feeling that it is going to be my last, I say to myself each time I make the track list, 'the last track, that's it, Braincell Harmoncis is done'. But who am I kidding? I will come back, each record kicks my ass in someway but I think I like the pain.

So what's next? well, a new record obviously! I feel I have been on a roll, and my last 2 records have been some of the best work since my 'golden era' of Stanley had a lot of Boxes and Etiquette'. I would say Hardrive heart is also a late golden era record but I had to eat a whole lot of shit to get to that one! I think I have found my grove again and I know the secret sauce. What made Stanley, HHD heart etc good? I was writing about a theme and that theme was baked into the record. I doubled down on this with Sarah Carter and then again with Dinner in the Subburbs, light concept records that are about my bullshit but I attach to a concept or story arc.

I also feel I am having fun again with production, trying new things, not getting stuck in the process and letting myself make LOADS of tracks until I refine and make the final version. I used to make 10 tracks and use 8, now I make about 30-40 ideas that I throw away or refine, use elements and then take forward to the final list. Also, making a light concept helps me with pacing and then adding light and shade to records, as well as help the record have a overall sound.

My new record is not a concept of mine but an adaptation of the video game 'Firewatch'. The concept really hooks me in, I have played that game 3-4 times and each time I love it. I have to write about it. The overall theme is feeling conflicted, something I struggle with daily. New music is a long way away but that's okay, I want Dinner in the Suburbs to breathe, I feel that record is one of my best and I don't want to move on too quickly from it.

Go play Firewatch.

2011 was the best year of my life. I finally bit the bullet, got my shit together and embarked on a new joinery. I had to leave, not just my hometown but the UK. I graduated into a recession and there was nothing for me, I was willing to take any job but nothing was happening at all.  

The previous year, I released my first LP ‘Stanley had a lot of boxes’ to a bit of fanfare, a viral music video and a small fanbase that dug the sound. I did not wait for the dust to settle and carried on producing music right away. These days, I second guess myself and go from project to project analysing what went right and wrong. For Etiquette, I did not think that way, I had the hunger, and a few things to get off my chest. I was pretty tapped out, sick of my job, not being able to move forward during a recession and nursing a good amount of heartache. Looking back it was all these things combined that led to a record that I think is some of my best work. 

I think I was the happiest making music back then, I never saw it as my ticket out of there, just some relief. I was at the peak of my powers, making records that I think really define my sound. I was also involved in a synth pop band called ‘The Muskahounds’ that had a EP the same year. I had a whole lot of time on my hands and I dedicated myself fully, to making records. 

Etiquette, may not be everyones favourite Braincell record, but it might well be mine. ‘Run’ is my favourite song, for many reasons but mainly for how I made it. I remember looking at my computer at around 12am and just having a wave come over me, I booted it up and wrote and recorded the song in 3 hours (my neighbours probs hated me), a feat I have never been able to do again (been close). ‘The Right Track’ is bat shit crazy and is a collab my my buddy Vincent. I laughed so much making it, the lyrics are ridiculous.  ‘Haven't got my keys to the 4x4′ was added because we wanted a Craig David style lyric and the noise at the start is a genuine freak out from my old Casio Keys, me saying ‘shut up’ was all very true. We were also so high we forgot to put a baseline in the song and the vocals in places are panned to the left, for no reason other than being too baked.

Etiquette (stripped down version for copyright reasons) can be streamed now on all good streaming platforms. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/08PrbDaslKXtWcoSma4P4I?si=m4NgPXm3QUOO6i0zrQCNsw

It was 2009 In Manchester, when I put a record onto my turntable called ‘BBC Introduces, Pennies From Heaven Soundtrack’ and found ‘Make Hay While The Sun Shines’ by Billy Merrin. I was working on an LP of my music which was not going great. Then all of a sudden I had a wave of inspiration. I sampled the track into a beat, but got stuck on the lyrical content. I knew the beat was good, I also knew that this track had to be about my hometown of Church Stretton in Shropshire. After a few weeks mulling it over I called up my pal Will Betts who had previously provided me with some guitar from his own set of songs. As we were talking, the seed was planned. What if this was a stupid video featuring all of us being gangster farmers? The deal was set, this project had the green light. I called around people and set a date to film.

I got my friend from uni Chris Breen to come and run the camera which we did not return after a shared coursework project. I gave him the most detailed brief of ‘just point the camera and press record, we will do the rest’. Prior to filming, I had scouted locations and knew where I wanted to film. I managed to persuade a friend of mine who I worked with at CO-OP if I could use her partners farm for filming. We also persuaded local land lady Wendy who very willingly give up her beer garden at The Ragleth Inn, located in Little Stretton. The rest of the locations were just made up on the fly, shropshire is a beautiful location, so the background did a lot of the work for us. 

Filming

I remember driving up to meet Will and his brother Jon on the morning of the filming. At this point I felt sick with nerves, I just wanted to film and get it over with, the clouds were gathering and rain was predicted all day. A few weeks before we had all recorded the song and were keen to make the video. The lads were fully keen and into the concept. When I met them, all I saw were flannel shirts, jeans halfway up one leg, pitchforks, spades and a whole lot of 90’s hip-hop attitude all rolled together, It was perfect. The filming was everything it needed to be. We all fully committed to the flavor and let rip. No holding back, no surrender. All my prior concerns about the weather, not being able to pull it off or have enough time, evaporated.

Once filming wrapped I started editing all this stupid shit together. It took form, we all laughed and that was that. We had done it, made a video which we found funny. We laughed about how we were Shropshires ‘Goldie Lookin Chain’ and how if people in the town got to hear / see this they would not be best pleased as some of the stuff in the lyrics are not all roses about our hometown. We put the video up on YouTube and then washed our hands of it. Little did we know that some mad shit was brewing.

SY6 Rises

After its online release, I kept seeing it being shared on Facebook by friends etc. The usual narrative is that this happens and then it drops off a cliff. To our surprise, people found this thing funny as well. People seemed to be proud to see their hometown and shropshire laid out, claiming ‘I’m From the SY6’ and sharing it with pride. A couple of us went down to the local (Bucks head) thinking we were going to get some heat from the video but instead people loved it, we were small time celebs in Stretton. This all kept going and going, things took a life of their own. One evening I was sat around talking with a few of the boys and someone mentioned they knew a guy who knew a guy that could maybe get us to open for ‘Goldie Lookin Chain’ when they passed through Shrewsbury. Never going to happen, or so we thought. To our surprise...we did, we opened their show! That night I signed a pair of boobs, a task that is a lot harder than TV and film make it out to be. Things were nuts and funny as hell. We were not a band, we had one parody song. The thing is, I made music ‘for real’ and my back catalogue and new music had no DNA of SY6 at all, but to me this did not matter. 

Shropshire VS Yeo Valley

Six months after the release of the video, I was at work. I got a call from someone saying ‘did you see it’ I was like ‘no what? What you on about? - ‘They ripped you off?’. Turns out an advert from Yeo Valley Yogurts used the same gimmick as us, rapping farmers. A concept not exactly unique to us, we did not own that idea, so I thought nothing of it until more details came out. They had some shots lifted directly from our video, a lead guy in a red shirt (not as good looking obvs) and some of the same gags. I know it could have been a coincidence but to the conspiracy theorists out there, there is some evidence to suggest this was not the case. I had previously called up Muller dairy before the video was released, I wanted to check that we could used the Muller brand and also try and flog the video to them for marketing. They passed (but sent me  £10 voucher). 

Now, some people seemed to think that Yeo Valley and Muller were connected somehow, I have no idea, nor did I really care that much. However, people seemed to care a whole lot more than me. There was an online petition that was launched to take the Yeo Valley video down and a rumoured boycott. The Sun newspaper even called me up asking to cover the story because they got a tip off, Shropshire had our backs! None of this actually amounted to anything. One thing is, Muller is not even based in shropshire (probs one of the may reasons Muller passed on the video in the first place), so the Muller lyrics in the video are redundant, we did not know this and thought they were based in Shropshire. Dumbasses. 

Legacy 

As the years rolled on, people wanted more of the SY6. We did an ill advised 2nd video for a fruit and veg company which I am not a fan of and then left it as that. People wanted us to do something to mark the ten years. We kicked about the idea of doing something but to be honest I was never fully sold, it’s nice to dream about it but it wouldn't be the same. You need those careless times, and the vibe we all had when we all lived close, the gags were effortless to make, the tone was easy. I look back on this time foundly, I have a video of myself and my friends being idiots, that's all I wanted. 

In 2004 I met a chap called Seth. He was a cool Texas dude with a killer outlook on life and some CD’s full of amazing tracks. 

I was studying music tech at LIPA (Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts), and Seth was on my course. I don’t know how it happened but I seemed to find myself in the same group as him for all our project work. We formed a connection, we both made music (well every one did it was a music tech course) but we seemed to have the same outlook. Make music and have fun.

The difference was, he was amazing at what he did, a true visionary. His songs sat somewhere between Beck and some left field hip-hop. He was the man to know, the guy on campus but the best thing is, he did not know it. I am pretty sure he played gigs every night, he formed a scene and people were just drawn to him. 

LIPA started a radio station, so naturally I signed up. I wanted to make a show that was satire, like the day to day or something but I did not have the skill or whit to take this on by myself, so I enlisted Seth to riff off. The show was called Jurassic Friday, a 2 hour show full of just the tracks we liked. Seth followed Jurassic Friday with an hour of a solo show called ‘The Lost Friday’ (naturally).

Somewhere around the end of the first term, we started hanging out more. He started doing bigger live shows and I asked to be part of his chaotic on stage crew. Seth went by the stage name ‘Brother Machine’. He wrote and produced all the tracks himself but when we went live, he had a huge crew playing all sorts, from real instruments to cans and stuff like that. I first appeared by supporting him with some synth keys, I went by the name ‘Synthesiser Jay’ and really just played with the pitch bend on a few notes, added a filter sweep here and there, done, we were all drunk. I then played a few shows where I just hit play on some samples (I think I was demoted) and then just rocked out with everyone.

One show Seth gave me my own slot, my first solo gig as Braincell Harmonics. I was shit, supper shit. He talked me into it, and although I did not see it then he really did see something in my tracks. He gravitated towards the stranger ones, the tracks that were not trying to imitate anyone. This gave me the confidence to forge my own way and not be a copy cat, When we all parted ways, I made my first full record ‘Bedtime For Snugglypuss’ a pretty off the wall set of tracks that really got by on charm and not much else. It was this record that was a turning point for me. Without Seth, I would not be making music, I can say that now in all honesty. He shaped my music and made me take risks. I was confident to lean into my style and not shy away from it.

Last year, Seth sadly passed away. I had not spoken to him in many years. We did exchange a few messages over the time since leaving uni in 2005 but they were just bits and bobs. I sampled his guitar in a track called ‘Jack You Know’ on ‘Stanley Had A Lot of Boxes’ I remember asking if it was okay and he just said FUCK YEA. His passing really hit me, surprisingly hard in fact. I felt I lost something I could not articulate. I know he moved back to Texas and started his own studio and was a huge player in his local scene. I think I found comfort that he was out there, doing his thing and still contactable. I guess I held out hope that one day I would reach out and maybe, just maybe we would work together for real.   

The track ‘Thank You Seth’ samples one of his tracks as ‘Brother Machine’ called ‘So We Danced’. One of my favourite tracks of his. I have an old CD that I ripped and then just worked with the raw track. I wanted to pay homage to him and not over shadow with any of my own lyrics. The sample at the start ‘I guess we are ready when the beats are ready’ was aimed at me during one of our shows (where we were totally shit faced) and I did not play the beats in time.

Thank you Seth, you were a fucking legend. 

You can listen to ‘Thank You Seth’ right here https://soundcloud.com/braincellharmonics/thank-you-seth

The creative process is really annoying. I work in a way where I have to think of things passively, I cant just sit down and do stuff, I have to wait for the moment to hit me. This gets really tricky, my job relies on me being creative. My best work comes when I just kind of day dream about stuff and then it all kinda happens from there.

My personal project ‘Braincell Harmonics’ has always been my main creative outlet. I have been writing songs under the Braincell name for 15 years or so now. I love doing it, but as time goes on I find it harder and harder to meet my own lofty expectations. 

I have never been a singer / rapper, a good musician, or even a great producer. Somehow I manage to muddle along and make stuff that I am proud of. Some emo hip-hop that kinda works (somehow). Because I now have so much in my back catalog, I tend to compare myself to myself all the time. Like, oh I can’t make it like this because it sounds too much like my last stuff, or I need to make my next record sound like my old stuff because that is what people like.

I know I had a moment in time, a time when I was doing gigs and I have a small dedicated following. The same people would come to my shows and it was awesome. I also had a time when I made a track that landed on YouTube and people found out about my music though that. I found myself putting a record out online and people seemed to like it, then I made another and people liked that one, then I had a break and for me, things got less fluid.

Around the time of my breakout record ‘Stanley Had A Lot Of Boxes’ and then the follow up ‘Etiquette’ I seemed to be on a creative high, I was so well adapted to making music it felt so natural. As soon as I had time out, I kind of forgot what I needed to do and questions started to creep in. I made a few EPs’ that were okay but I don’t ever think of them as cannon, there were some good points and I was trying new things, the problem was I kept trying to imitate myself rather than just go with how I was feeling at the time which led to my favourite work in the first place.  

in 2016 I put out ‘Hard Drive Heart’ and for me it was the first time I was able to just say, fuck it, this one is for me. It felt very much like Etiquette in the way my mind set was. I  still really like HDD heart, It was pretty cathartic for me to get some stuff off my chest and be myself again. The ironic thing was, I forgot how fucking hard it was to make music that is more personal, and to let myself go a bit. 

My new record ‘The Inventor’s Son’ is some of my favourite work to date, I freaking love this record! I can honestly say that this album has been one of the hardest I have every made. Bogged down with indication, my own expectations and the inability to finish off tracks. I found myself in a pretty bad place early on with the record, to the point where I was about to not make anything at all. I said to myself ‘well, I made it this far, there are some good record out there, so leave it there’ - The problem was, I had some stories to tell and I really wanted to get them out.

I wrote about 40 tracks (some finished, most of them just scraps of beats and half baked song ideas). I also started making a 2nd EP alongside this one, which I decided against but folded some of the ideas into these tracks. There were moments of madness, but also moments of...fuck yea! I can do this. Like all of my best work, this album came together very late, the best tracks were written last, with one track written and submitted the same day, hardly mixed and left raw. I wanted to free myself of the pressure. Make a record for me and stop guessing what I sound like and just make honest tracks. 

I decided to re release my old (most popular) record ‘Stanley had A Lot of Boxes’ a month before the release of this new stuff. I almost did not do it, I did not want people to compare the work, but actually I found they shared the same DNA. They both had really hard production processes and they share the same kind of space. 

I had fun making this this new record. There were times where I could not focus and wanted the whole process to just be done with. I do feel that when it comes to anything that is good, it takes a bit more of you to make it. This is defiantly the case with these new tracks. For the first time, I day dreamed up some of these just walking around, I noted down lyrics on my phone when the mood took me and that is how this album was really made. Little by little it came together, hence the 3 years to make. 

Hard Drive Heart: One year on It’s been 12 months since I share my latest music. It was by far the hardest record I have ever written for multiple reasons. Baring down on me was indication and insecurity in my work. I had so many things going through my head during it’s lengthy production time and was taking it all too seriously as I know my music only really reaches friends and family but my life changed drastically twice during the writing and recording of this music and I was knocked all over the place when it came to what to write about. Do I tackle the subjects dead on? Do I ignore this stuff and make a concept record? How would I put what I was feeling into words without making the record too indulgent? How was I going to make this record relatable? Anyhow, its been 12 months and I still love this record. I think it is my favorite work so here is some notes on how each track came together and the thought behind them. 

 Former Lives

This track has been cited as people’s favorites which is cool because it is one of mine too. This beat was re written multiple times and was drastically different from what because the final cut. The main sample was always used but was pitched higher. As soon as I dropped the pitch I stripped the track back and used a sparse drum track and bass as the beats elements. I left it really late to write the lyrics, on the day or recording I wrote the track and also added all the finishing touches like the rising strings that made the whole thing pop. After about a year of banging my head against a wall with this one, it all came together in a day and because of that I love it. 

 Friends

This was the first beat and track I wrote and survived multiple culls. That guitar was a rare find and as soon as I used it I knew I had a winner. I can’t even remember making this one really as it all came together so quickly. I knew this whole record was going to be different so I needed a track that was a bit more throwback to some of my more hip-hop stuff but it kind of did not turn out that way and ended up taking on a really midnight vibe. I really hope people can relate to this track as it was supposed to resonate with my generation and anyone who have had multiple friendship groups that are now just online personas. 

Hardrive Heart

Yea so this one was freaking hard to make. I kept on writing the lyrics over and over again and much like all the other tracks on this record the lyrics just found themselves and came together one random evening in about 10 mins. The chorus was surprising easy to write. I made the auto tune lyrics as a guide track for a singer who was going to jump on it. The problem was I really liked the guide vocals and pressed on regardless, these vocals were recorded so sloppy and I really should have re done them because the quality sucked. The beat was stuck in limbo for ages and it was the chorus music that changed the most and kept giving me troubles, as soon as I found the chorus synth tone I was good to go. 

RunCode Lucy

This was one of the first versions of ‘Hardrive Heart’. I re discovered it by accident because I opened the wrong file. I just made a fade outro and uploaded it as the concept beat was. It was a lucky I opened the wrong file or this little treat would have been lost forever. 

Planes

This is based of a sample by the Delphinics. My main focus with this track to add some light into quite a melancholy record. The track is all about wanting to run away but then also being a bit jealous of the people who have done that but then realising we are all idiots and no one knows what they want. It turned out very melancholy but the beat was much lighter and a much needed break. My favourite lyric I have ever written is contained in this track… ‘The map in your bag will, tell me what’s happened, its really a map of, your heart of a fashion, because its got all the marks and tears and shows me a story of a life so bare’ 

Falling Sky

Man this track is my favourite I think, just because it was so much fun to write and the production was fun. The main production problems came with the use of multiple breaks and beats to make up the drum track. I enhanced all the kits with a unified custom played track to tie it all together and then as the track progressed in production I stripped the drums right back and kept the custom stuff. I am not a musician so I get pleased with simple things like how the bass and kick drum worked in harmony. This is a rare concept track and like I said, fun to write and get a different writing perspective. 

Village Hall

This track took me 1 hour from a blank project. I wanted to just write something and have it uploaded the same day, so when I was finalizing the record for upload I made a new track and uploaded it the same day. I had an idea of writing about a village hall but did not want to make another nostalgic filled Shropshire track so I just kept it to a few lines and repeated them. The beat was twisted from some breaks and the main guitar was cut spliced, reversed and messed with on the fly to get the melody.

We are broken

Watch the video right here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkPNzcN_sG4

I am a huge geek, so I tried to fit as  many geek references into my new music video as possible. Here is the lowdown on what I managed to sneak into my video (in no real order)

1. The Lost Numbers. In the original edit I gave these numbers much more focus but I had to chop the video to make it snappier so the numbers are relegated to the first and final act. 

2. Iron man. What inventor is not trying to make an iron man suit?

3. Back to the future. It is a video about time travel, the reference had to be there.

4.  Indiana Jones. I worked in a slight nod when i was hunting for the ‘space relic’. I was originally going to scoop the relic up with a Harry Tuffins bag. 

5. Nintendo numbers. One of the most famous game code cheats in history (Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right B, A, Start) which featured in man Konami games on Nintendo. Seemed obvious to me this would be the way to ‘jump levels’ i.e time travel! The Lost numbers are also in the time travel code. 

6. Darth Vader. This one is so silly, in Star Wars Episode 3 Darth gets his helmet placed on for the first time....I had a helmet to be placed on my head, so yea, why the hell not.