Kindred

À propos

Kindred: someone shares similar values, interests, or personality traits with you, often resulting in an instant, natural connection. This is my new song, Kindred! This one was a real challenge, despite only taking a few weeks to finish it once I started. I learned a lot about rhythm and restraint with this track, and I ended up going with a lot of simpler ideas rather than the more complex ones I usually do. This one explores falling in love, and the dorian scale it's in really helps solidify that feeling. I also broke the melody into two parts - the complex melody, which was in the bridge and evolved during the ending, and the simplified melody, which was there in the drops, just evolved throughout. I tried to match that concept through the song - where each section grows upon the last idea rather than creating an entirely new one. The sound design is deceivingly simple. It's just a gritty sub, a square pad for body, and three different leads at different octaves, panning, and volumes to take up audio space. Then, some old fashioned noise and ambiance to cover the high end, and a gate to glue everything together. Then, just a mid bass to round everything out. I went with triplet 16th notes, but on an 8th note groove, to really lean into the garage inspiration this track has. I also used the tape stop as another part of the groove, and used record scratches to accent certain points in the groove to keep things interesting. Overall, this song taught me a ton of production tricks, forced me to work with restraint, helped with broadening my ability to produce varying intensity, and overall helped me find my artistic identity.