Hi, everyone! If you have been keeping up with my Instagram for bazzreviews, you probably saw I was releasing an album! I am performing under the stage name MC HELEN KELLER, and the title of the project is called "WATER" (for her first word that she spelled with the hand sign language thingy). I really could not find a way to describe this album to you. It's basically an industrial Plunderphonics album. That's definitely not the most appealing genre for a lot of people, but I hope that you can get some enjoyment out of it. I'd like to talk a little bit about my process for making the album and the experience I had!
In terms of influences for "WATER", I was really trying to mimic a lot of the style of Eric Andre's side project from last year, BLARF. I think you can definitely see that in a lot of the tracks on this record. I was also really inspired of other prominent artists in the genre, including the Avalanches and Girl Talk.
As some of you musically informed people might already know, sampling other songs and making new ones out of them is the ethos of Plunderphonics. Across the project, I probably used roughly thirty-five to forty samples. There might be some you recognize, maybe some are completely new. I originally compiled a list of samples I thought would sound cool, and that method sufficed for the first couple of tracks. I then turned to digging through various playlists and random album generators to find more diverse samples to use. If any of you guys have seen Mass Appeal's "Rhythm Roulette" videos on YouTube, my process was somewhat similar to that. Listening to many of those tracks for the first time and picking out stuff from them produced fun results, and I'd say I'm more proud of those tracks than the ones with samples I had wanted to use originally.
I went absolutely crazy on this project, writing all seven tracks across four days. Keep in mind, as much as I love music, I went into this having very little production experience. I don't know how to chop samples or mix music super well, so that's why it sounds jank as all hell. I don't have FL, Ableton, or any of those crazy softwares, so it was just me screwing around in Audacity and Soundtrap. It was definitely tough to find the right chopping points and various parts for the first couple of songs, but by the sixth or seventh track that was written, I had gotten the hang of all those things. I would be interested to hear your predicted order in which I wrote the songs, because as a listener, it seems kind of easy to discern which ones were written first and ones that were written later.
Even if you haven't listened to this project, I'd love to hear some criticism. Go Fantano on my ass, I don't care. I will not be shy to admit that this is pretty bad and devoid of anything musical. My main goal was that I wanted to have fun with it and try something new. The experience was great, and who knows? Maybe I'll drop some more stuff soon!
In other news, today marks one and a half years of bazzreviews! Even though musicians, music venues, and music journalists have been impacted in some way by the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel like 2020 has been a pretty decent year so far! I've been able to interview some amazing people, and heard so many great records. I've been able to make due with the limitations of the current landscape, and it's gone swimmingly. I don't really have too many goals now, other than to stay productive with this blog. I also hope that I'll be able to cover some more concerts towards the end of the year, but time will tell if that is legally or medically allowed. If you've been a bazzreviews reader for quite some time, I just want to say thanks. I don't always get a voluminous number of views on posts or podcast episodes, but I appreciate you consistently tuning in! If you find it in your heart, please go buy some bazzreviews merchandise! I just updated the store with some new designs, and I think anyone could use something fire for their wardrobe. All self-promotion aside, here's to the rest of 2020! Stay safe, be strong, and keep making bazzreviews the BEST PLACE TO DISCOVER COOL MUSIC!
All the best-
BAZZ
To hear "WATER" go https://soundcloud.com/thebazz28/sets/mc-helen-keller-water-mixtape
