The Angel Blog | No Gravity… |
“Ultra Light” on the dark side… That’s where Supa Crucial is starting off 2010. The soulful single by The Angel featuring Jhelisa has been given the dnb treatment by LA’s own R.A.W. aka 6BLOCC as well as Dstar & Mason, part of Philly’s Gasm crew. These remixes will satisfy those who gravitate toward a beautiful, sultry vocal blended with dark bangin’ beats. Release date is Feb 16th, but you’ll find an early taster below…
I’ve concluded that it is because I’m not as interested in looking back, as I am really content to be living in the moment… enjoying the planning and divine inspiration that comes to me before I start new projects – with ideas flowing into my brain before I’m on a deadline or under the gun… This is the time that refills my creative space and gives me a really clear perspective on where I’m going to take the next set of projects, which are already in place for 2010. I’m not ready to divulge any details, but I’m ready to share my excitement, optimism and gratitude.
I’m also grateful for the many accomplishments and triumphs of friends and colleagues – graduations, album releases, completion of books written, first scripts written and shot for TV, directorial debuts, getting films green lit, having first screenplays optioned, learning new languages, having first art books published, finding new ways to heal themselves and others… all major leaps forward.
2009, for all it’s ups and downs has introduced me to some beautiful people, beautiful art, beautiful music, beautiful minds, beautiful opportunities… a beautiful way of looking at and doing things especially in the face of adversity.
In the spirit of sharing, here’s some positive magnetism going into 2010! Onward and upward…
The 2006/2007 TV season, had me on lockdown scoring a Fox primetime drama called, “Standoff”. My foray into outputting on average 30-35 minutes of original score on a weekly basis started here, and I would spend most of my waking hours mapping out, analyzing, feverishly writing and recording the score for each episode starring Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt. When you spend that much time watching someone’s performances, you start to feel like you know them… they become a very real part of your insular composer’s life for that time… and when in real life, they are so likable, you can’t help but root for them.
Just after scoring the pilot, but before getting into the flurry of episodes to come, Fox asked me if I would DJ their two day presentations for the TCA’s. This gave me a really intimate, first hand look into how new shows are pitched to national media by the networks, something I had had no previous knowledge of. This was also my first opportunity to meet some of the cast including, Ron, Rosemarie, Michael Cudlitz and Gina Torres.
The creator of the show, Craig Silverstein, cast Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt as our leads because of the great chemistry between them… Well, clearly that chemistry was very real and I couldn’t be happier for Ron and Rosemarie as they have just tied the knot.
Below is a photo of myself and Craig sitting in Matt (Ron) and Emily’s (Rosemarie’s) chairs at the FBI headquarter’s set of Standoff on the Fox lot.
After one of our spotting sessions, the AP, Brian Wankum and I visited the set, where Rosemarie enthusiastically told me that she and her friends thought the music on the show was really cool… in sharp contrast with most network shows. It’s rare to get feedback from a cast member since we’re usually so unconnected on projects; composer’s being holed up in the studio round the clock and far away from production and the cast… but that was good to hear so early on.
Thankfully, Craig had specifically hired me to do something different with the music, so the show would have it’s own voice. This allowed me the freedom to incorporate lots of contemporary flavors into the mix of traditional and non traditional score, including some drum ‘n bass, hip hop and soul every now and again, where appropriate… making it musically progressive for a US network show.
In terms of my creativity, I have a few favorite episodes, which are still available to watch on Hulu; “One Shot Stop”, “Borderline” and “Heroine”.
And thank you, Rosemarie… It was because I became such a fan that I watched and got hooked on “Mad Men”, from the very first episode.
It was a little over a year ago that Lucy Beer told me to “get on twitter” and “start your blog”… immediately I was resistant to both. First of all, I had no idea how twitter worked or what on earth it could be used for, and secondly, the idea of starting a blog felt like another responsibility that I already didn’t have enough time to do and then keep up with.
It took me a minute, but I must admit that I’m glad I did both. I’d forgotten how much I actually like to write. Though I don’t post more than a few times a month, I enjoy it.
Twitter was a bit mysterious to me. Everyone I knew was bearing their souls, photos, opinions, eating habits and more on facebook on a minute by minute basis and it didn’t appeal to me, so why twitter? The brevity, immediacy and lack of personal self-exploitation on twitter was way more interesting to me. So I started popping into twitter here and there and continue to do so, though not all day, every day, like some.
The unguarded stream of consciousness can be very revealing, and folks seem to let it all hang out both good and bad. However, I’ve discovered some very cool podcasters, bloggers and music enthusiasts who are now part of our extended Supa Crucial family… and it’s all been very organic. Kevin English and I started tweeting and dm’ing earlier this year. He tweeted about how much he dug “KiDULTHOOD” and the score, and that opened up a dialogue. More recently, Kevin (eleetmusic) asked if he could interview me for a magazine called Stay Thirsty and here is a link to that interview.
A blast from my past – “Gridlock’d” is coming to British TV this week… A couple of friends mentioned it because they were excited to see it advertised on the BBC. It’s airing on BBC One late night, Friday 9 Oct 2009 at 23:40.
“Gridlock’d” was the second feature film that I was involved in scoring. It was a real learning experience for me, not only technically and creatively, but politically. I had met with director, Vondie Curtis-Hall, the music supervisor and the producers of the film about creating a song for a pre-record, i.e. the song that was going to be performed on camera by Tim Roth, Tupac and Thandie Newton, but the timing was too tight, as I had already committed to being in NY just when they needed me.
Blue Note were flying me in to attend the release party for the album, “The New Groove: The Blue Note Remix Project Volume 1″. I had remixed Donald Byrd’s “Kofi” as the album opener and produced the only new song on the album for Jacky Terrasson as the album closer. It was my remix of “Kofi” feat Mystic that Vondie licensed for “Gridlock’d” and used in the scene where Tupac and Tim Roth are sitting on a bench, as they drift off into a flashback…
So there was no time for me to write and record a new song for them, in time to catch their shooting schedule. But as fate would have it, while I was in NY, I got a call from the music supervisor telling me that Vondie and the producers would like to talk to me about scoring the film… and that’s where things got political. I soon found out that the old “catch 22″ was in full effect. I had never scored an entire film before and Polygram weren’t keen on the idea of a first timer. Apparently, this wasn’t (and still isn’t) unusual, but it was definitely disappointing.
Over the coming weeks, the producers found a compromise that would suit the studio. They came back to me after hiring Stewart Copeland and asked if I would work on the film in addition to Stewart. I told them that as long as I would be working on my own scenes and cues that I was happy to do it. I was still learning, but I instinctively knew that it was important for me not to be perceived as Stewart’s helper, but to establish my arrival into the film composing world without standing in someone else’s shadow… and that’s how it came to be. Stewart was incredibly gracious and I have always been grateful to him for giving me a really nice mention as an up and coming composer in his interview on KCRW, around the time of the film’s release… something he really didn’t have to do.
With that little bit of background aside… The saddest part of the experience was learning of Tupac’s death the day after I was officially hired to work on the film.
It’s release day for “Ultra Light” and I’m steeped in projects that won’t see the light of day for a few months yet… from hard edged, grimey, dubstep infused tunes, to scoring a film that requires me to work in a very traditional palette of piano and strings, while talking to remixers about getting both dnb and dubstep remixes of tunes from my forthcoming album, which, by the way, has nothing to do with this exclusive single release featuring my partner in crime, Jhelisa. Many fingers in many pies, and why not? – living my musical life to the fullest 
I’m wearing lots of hats and trying to help the marketing gurus figure out which version of The Angel we are focusing on today… “Ultra Light” takes me full circle back to my downtempo chilled roots, so maybe today is about The Angel Classic, (if only I had the Coca Cola logo)… I was so deep into this tune, that I wound up doing two versions for the single… the main mix plus the “Sustenance” mix for ultra lightness!
Here’s a peek into a moment that helped create today’s focal point…
The two of us can be quite fierce, but we spent most of our time laughing and enjoying being in our own sistahood… This likkle clip of Jhelisa at LAX goes toward explaining why
And last but not least, a BIG SHOUT OUT to DJ Drez for a lovely remix!!
You can find all of us on twitter… come follow
www.twitter.com/supacrucial
www.twitter.com/nuflowa
www.twitter.com/djdrez
Nothing beats working with someone whose talent is so remarkable, so pervasive that you can feel it from light years away… Jhelisa is such an incredible spirit, not only a phenomenal vocalist, arranger, writer, producer… She’s a fireball of energy, a catalyst of intensity and a creative being like no one I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.
We go way back… In fact, Jhelisa and I were both living in London when I produced and recorded my very first album for Delicious Vinyl; the ill fated, never released, “A Message From The Angel…”, but that’s another story. I was singing back in those days, but never happily… The voice that I heard in my head, as I wrote and produced those songs, was way more soulful than I could ever manage and knowing my own limitations, I was keen to bring in guests to fulfill the potential that I felt I couldn’t reach on my own. When Jhelisa agreed to sing on a bunch of the songs I was in seventh heaven…
So that was then, and you’ll probably never get to hear any of that material for a million different reasons, however, earlier this year Jhelisa and I teamed up in LA and the first of two very different tracks are about to be released, “Ultra Light” by The Angel feat Jhelisa on September 22nd and “Words Like Daggers” as 60 Channels… But the icing on the cake is additional Jhelisa flavour on my upcoming instrumental album, “Xtra Sensory Goodness”. For a little extra background on Jhelisa, here’s a mention in this August’s Spin:
More info on “Ultra Light” in the coming weeks!!
It has been a unique experience to define the musical voice of this film because the score plays a lead character in many scenes, and I was asked to cover a range of intensity from very subtle to extremely dramatic. “Gaia” carries the audience completely, with very little dialogue… all to the credit of director, Jason Lehel, for taking his concept and executing it so well… sounds simple, but not easily achieved. If I sound impressed, it is because I genuinely am… and this is another reason why I felt compelled to work on this project.
Gaia TIFF Postcard links to TIFF Press Release
“Visions focuses on the innovative and is an exciting programme featuring the work of brazen newcomers and veteran filmmakers who are pushing the boundaries of contemporary cinema. It spotlights work that challenges our notion of mainstream cinema and explores experimental filmmaking techniques, new territory and technologies.” – TIFF
This category completely defines Jason Lehel’s process and his inclusion of upcoming talent and newcomers, like Emily Lape, who gives an outstanding lead performance alongside Ed Mendoza, Jerica Mendoza, Deswood Etsitty, Michael Pierce, Lisa Vachon and Cynthia Adkisson.
I’ve been scoring the independent feature “Gaia” over the past several months which has buried me knee deep in lush strings and organic atmospherics. This film is extremely moving, disturbing, enlightening and ultimately uplifting…. a big emotional journey. Scoring a film is like stepping into another world and living in some kind of parallel universe. You find yourself talking about characters as if they were people you actually know and interact with. You spend lots of time creating and solving puzzles, connecting the dots, creating emotional threads that link even the most disparate moments… and basically lose yourself in a pool of analysis.
Gaia Poster Image and Link To Official Website
Every project has it’s challenges and this one is no exception… This film has a very unique back story that I’ll talk about some more once it is released, but my own experiences working on it have also been quite unique and have required me to go to creative places that I have never been to before. The director, Jason Lehel, has taken not only the audience, but his entire cast and crew on a very deep journey.
Every director has their own take on how they would like to use music in their film and it is my job to first and foremost listen to every descriptive word used, every subtle shift, emotion, low and high that the director hopes to reach. I then listen to each piece of music temped, referenced and revered and start to filter it all through my own lens and find a way to create the individual voice of the film.
Taking a minute to reach back out of the cocoon, take a deep breath, let the so called real world know that I’m still here in the trenches already immersed in scoring the next film project, “Bedrooms”, while wearing the record company hat and prepping new releases. Next up is “Ultra Light” by The Angel feat. Jhelisa… more on this release very soon.