THE CHILL
SIR JOE
As I already mentioned on the Sir Joe Music page, I started composing and recording music in 1994, using an Ensoniq SQ1 workstation, a four-track Fostex recorder, a low-end microphone, and an effects unit.
The result? Around 50 demos in different styles, followed by about 30 more between 2000, when I made the transition from analogue to digital, and 2008.
Thanks to the technology available today, I finally have the opportunity to do justice to the most promising demos and present them in a professional form. The first result of this upgrade is The Chill: an album of 13 predominantly instrumental tracks in which, whenever vocals are present, understanding the lyrics is not necessary, since almost none of the words are sung in a specific language.
The title The Chill refers to chill-out music, although in this case slow, meditative tracks alternate with considerably faster, almost danceable ones. What all the tracks on the album have in common is their purpose: this is music you can listen to in the car, while washing the dishes, or while carrying out other activities. It makes you feel good because it is powerful enough to be felt, yet not so intrusive that it forces you to stop everything else and concentrate solely on listening to it.
THE CHILL - SIR JOE
The demo for this track was recorded in 2003, so it already belongs to my digital period.
It consisted mostly of sampled sounds, while the cavernous voice was actually saying, “Into the Light.”
Another track that originated in the first decade of this century, starting with sampled sounds.
I have absolutely no recollection of where I got the title from. It was probably the name of one of the main samples around which I built the whole track.
The demo, dating back to 2007, began with a Gregorian-style choir chanting “Agnus Dei”, which inspired the track’s title.
That part was removed from the final version to avoid making an already lengthy track even heavier. At 4 minutes and 19 seconds, it is the longest track on the album.
This is one of the first tracks I recorded on my Ensoniq keyboard, way back in 1994.
“Antes Que Seja Tarde” is part of the title of the closing track on Brazil, the outstanding 1987 album by The Manhattan Transfer.
Since this track also has a Brazilian feel, I decided to give it this title, even though it has nothing to do with the song mentioned above.
My favourite track on the album, with the new arrangement, which I think turned out really well.
Although the melodic sequence is identical to that of the original 1994 demo, the latter featured very Middle Eastern-sounding instruments, which inspired the title “Baghdad Party”. I decided to keep it for the final version.
I think the title says it all!
The demo dates back to 2002 and originated from a jumble of sampled sounds that I tried to give some kind of structure to.
When I realised there wasn’t much more I could do with it, I spontaneously said, “That’s enough, it’s fine as it is,” in italian, and decided to add the phrase to the track.
It eventually became the title too, written as a single word.
I don’t remember much about how the original demo came about, but I can say that the phrase recorded with the help of a vocoder was: “Come outside and play with me. Take your part in history.”
In the final version, as I already mentioned in the album’s introduction, the vocals no longer convey any specific language, and “history” somehow became “mistery”.
This track was created in 2004 while I was experimenting with a new version of Reason, the legendary digital audio workstation developed by what at the time was called Propellerhead.
The final version is very similar to the demo, but sounds considerably better.
Funny enough, the same can be said of this track: its demo was created around the same time and recorded on the same platform.
The most substantial difference between the demo and the album version is that, in the demo, I say “Hier kommt Gefahr, ich schlag” in German (a nonsensical phrase I came up with simply because I needed a vocal), whereas here you hear a female voice singing meaningless words.
Around 2005, I bought a virtual synth from a Russian developer whose name I can no longer remember. He was later hired by Image-Line to create instruments for their DAW, FL Studio.
Since we were on good terms, I created a track using only his synth, which he then used as a demo to showcase the product’s capabilities.
That track was, of course, “Zez and I”.
I’m a big fan of VirSyn products, and when they released Cantor in 2004 (one of the first virtual synthesizers to emulate the human voice) I was among the first to try it out.
The result was “Ich bin ein Reh”, another random phrase that I came up with on the spot. Here, it is presented in a more modern and almost dance-oriented version.
This is the only demo I produced after 2008. “Wit zu Wier”, originally titled “Zurück zu mir”, was created in 2014 as a synth-pop track sung entirely in German.
The version you hear here is fairly faithful to the original, with the usual reworking of the vocals that has made the words unintelligible.
Now let’s go back to 1995, right in the heart of the analogue era, when the Ensoniq SQ1 reigned supreme.
I’m very pleased with this new, more sophisticated and mature arrangement, which provides the perfect closing to an album I’m very proud of.