May 7th 2023
If you knew me - personally knew me - you might have gotten the impression here and there that I’ve been living under a rock for a while. I’m admitting now: I 100% have! Why? Because I call myself a Lofi producer and just heard about Mac DeMarco [https://www.macdemarco.com/] for the first time at the beginning of May 2023. Weird, I know.
Mac DeMarco is, from what I understand, the royalty of Lofi. But when I started to listen to his music and researched how he record his music, it struck me as inherently different. You see, in my little Lofi bubble, Lofi producers sit in front of a DAW and destroy their sounds there. Or use the infamous SP-404 with it’s vinyl sim effect. Some producers might even put an old consumer cassette deck to colour their sounds. But Mac DeMarco? He is more of a die-hard Indie musician who tries to avoid digital to the point where it gets necessary in order to get it out onto the internet.
He doesn’t use samples but instead mics up a drum set. He mics up everything: bass, guitars, his voice. And all of that goes through an old, cheap mixer and onto tape, where sort of his magic happens. Especially by pitching his recordings by changing the tape speed. No drum machine. No bit crushing. All native, just really fu**ed up! And he doesn’t even rap, he just sings in good old Indie fashion.
And that got me wondering … How could I adapt what he does and build it into my workflow? Not just because I happen to be a guitarist too. I’ve been thinking about the drums, actually. His sound makes me want to record drums from VSTs that are supposed to sound “natural” and turn those into my kind of Lofi drums. It’s a little experiment. I guess, I’ll let you know, how it turns out. Maybe even for a beat tape. Or is anybody looking for Mac DeMarco type beats?
To wrap it all up, Lofi can be a lot of things. And all the ways are worth listening to me. But sometimes you get caught up in your old ways and then, it’s time for a change.
What’s your kind of Lofi? Is there a style or a set of instruments you prefer? Let me know in the comments!
April 17, 2023
Solving the problem of liking too many styles of music.
Last year I got into Deep, Minimal and Lofi House. A few weeks
ago I dug into the Liquid DnB rabbit hole. I expanded my
listening habits and discovered genres and sub-genres I
considered to be „cheap“ or „not as musical“ or – forgive me
for writing this, - „not real music“. Yes, the snobbish part of
me thinks and talks like my parents, to whom House music and
DnB would sound unnerving at best. But I have come to terms
with myself and admit that I like these styles of electronic
music. They’re not less expressive or easier to make. They’re
just a different approach to making music. Honestly, I was
struck how trippy dance music actually is. And when they get
mached up with solo jams, the better. Of course, my fascination
with those genres lead me to dabbling in them, trying to learn
the ins and outs. And I am still not shure what makes a great
dance track, when most of the techniques used are easily
explained. But I can tell you this: there is nothing easy about
it.
Me expanding my favourites lead me to a big problem – a problem
that already existed before, but just got worse. What do I do
with this newly-learned vocabulary to express myself? How do I
want to use House and DnB? Yes, this shouldn’t even be a
problem. Or should it? After all, we’ve all heard about choice
paralysis before. I cannot tell you how many times this has
happened to me, but every time I seem to have made a choice
style-wise, I wake up the next morning and will have changed my
mind, going through a déjà-vu moment, realizing that I am going
in circles and start stumbling at the edge of despair.
But this time was different. Thanks to my discovery of House
and DnB I got over my inner snob. You know, the one who wants
to make „real music“ that’s showing off a certain level of
craft and certainly is not dumb and just “boom-boom-boom”.
Whatever that means. Snobby is sitting in the corner now, not
snobbing but sobbing. Because I like electronic music. And I no
longer have a problem with making music under my artist name
that is some kind of EDM.
There is good and bad EDM (meaning EDM I like or don’t like),
as there is good and bad Rock music. Period. And I have found
my batch. Mina Koro will be pretty electronic. Guitar is still
my main instrument, and I would love to incorporate a less
traditional kind of guitar playing into my music, but as of
now, I have no idea how. On top of all of the aforementioned
advantages I don’t feel like I will have to try to recreate
something that is a thing of the past. Great Funk and Disco has
been done. There is no way I can add to the existing library
that will make it any better. But when it comes to electronic
music I get the fuzzy warm feeling that I have the chance of
adding to something contemporary. Being at the pulse of
time, as German me would say. Creating isn’t easy. But I feel
excited.