COSMIC JAZZ

Señor Badass - Another techno inspired tune. This is a good example of how Reason can inspired you to make something quite unexpected.

I was searching through the sound banks that I have and found this wicked bass that has an awesome delay and other layers to it. I was inspired to compose something with it as the base. I soon came up with some powerful-sounding progressions and decided to record. I recorded to mostly the same drum track that you hear, however the cymbal wasn't there initially. I then reworked the drums, I ended up being lazy and not write out the drums for the whole track, but rather used automation to change the drum parts. I felt that the drums work well as a constant.

I then found this cool little violin run in Reason, and added the ending to the violin run using a different violin sound. In addition, there is a track of strings, also from Reason that kind of plays a droning background role that a pad might be used for. After listening, I felt it could use another bass. So to keep it organic sounding, I found an upright bass within Reason and used that. I initially was going to use it just as a secondary droning tool, then I spontaneously ended up taking a solo when recording. It sounded really nice, but I didn't know how it would work within the structure of the whole song.

It was decided later upon trying to record the Vintage EP track from my RD-700SX, that the song would work better if there were a trading of solos between the bass and piano and that is what you hear.

To me initally, after recording the first bass track, this sounded like some badass mexican from a western, hence the title. The second thing I got after putting the whole thing together is that it reminds me of maybe primordial earth, like the first day the colonists from another planet set down on earth, this is how it feels. Warm, dark, earthy, moist and swampy like in the time of the dinosaurs. The solos can be like two aliens shooting the shit, maybe complaining about all the things they lost or miss but also their excitement about their new home and what they plan to do there. Or maybe they're just musicians and they decided to play this instead of unpack. "Fuck it, let's just play"

Espaço Brasileiro - Also known as Space Brasilian, I composed this on the fly. What you hear is the original experimentation. I started with the organ and the bass played to a samba drum track I created within Reason. Then came the droning pad, I forget the exact sound name but it is phased. Then came the cuica and keys, then vibes and lastly the pandeiro. Each was recorded while listening to the previous compilation using my RD-700SX and then simultaneously recorded as a whole. So the song ends up being just one track. I tried recreating the magic with multiple tracks within Reason afterward but decided that you really can't mess with perfection, or near perfection at least. So I just ended up mixing it a little bit in Reason and it was good to go.

It's entitled Espaço Brasileiro because it sounds to me like Brasilian journey music on an alien ship. Like if the people that occupy Brasil now were originally from another planet, this is what I imagine them listening to on the way over. It came about when I received a request from a friend in Brasil to make some Brasilian music. The request turned into a challenge and although it's no Jobim, I think it should stand up well to comparable modern samba acid jazz.