Smiles I’ve seen around the world

These are not easy times – there is Corona around the world.

If you are in need of comfort, or your heart is in need of warming, I have created this piece of music for you.

May it bring you comfort, and a little hope.

I’ve been putting together some tutorials to help other music producers finish more music so they can share it with the world.

You can find the first episode below. It’s part of a series to help turn a short loop of music into a complete production.

Ibiza, 2012

Club music – it’s the music that makes my heart beat the loudest.

It’s an immense experience actually being there – in a nightclub, and I’ve well and truly served my time.

I am immensely impressed by the scores of DJs who have been in the game since the start and are still just about rocking the scene. Carl Cox is a prize example. He’s now 57, and still playing to a few adoring crowds, and up until 2017 held a yearly residency at Space in Ibiza. Here he is in 2016, in a mighty impressive open-to-close set. (I bet no-one I direct to this video will watch it all the way through, but know that he – of course – played the music all the way through, continuously for 9 hours.)

I’ve also a soft spot for the portrayal of club scenes in movies, where they often manage to capture at least something of the vibe and atmosphere of being there. Here’s a good one from Collateral, scored by Paul Okenfold’s Ready Steady Go.

The inspiration for this week’s track was the infamous ‘disco scene’ from Basic Instinct. Here it is:

The track is Blue by LaTour.

So for the 26th week – half way through this year, I’m dusting off a track that I wrote over 20 years ago. It’s so old that I can’t even open the file anymore – I wrote it on software that no longer exists. But I still have the file, so I’ve dusted it off and remastered it.

For the technically curious, here is the original, which suffered from a few issues, including:

  • EQ curve way too smiley – too much bass and treble, with little life in the midrange.
  • A very dry breakdown section (I didn’t even have a reverb back then!)