Tag: Out Of Focus

The Challenge

by micke

As easy as it is today, anybody can pile 40 channels or more onto their songs, making todays computer power and the huge pletoria of software heaven for every musician and producer.

However, sometimes the challenge lies in some limitations to enhance your creative process. Probably you heard of Peter Schmidt and Brian Enos deck of cards, “Oblique Strategies“, wich is one way to push your creativity into new directions.

One easy way is however to limit the amount of channels or instruments you’re going to use in a project.
This is how “the Challenge” was born.
It was between Out Of Focus, Carl Arsenic and me.

The Challenge was to make a song with at most three instruments and five drum sounds. OOF also wanted a song track; as a result you can hear me “sing” for the first time…oh, well.

After the challenge was set I realised that Carl had and huge advantage, with his history in several renowned punk bands… so here we are, after one thing and another finally you are agle to enjoy the results, all three in different styles.

You have links to OOF and Carls songs  above, here you have my contribution: one original version, and one produced by Assemblage 23/Tom Shear.

Listen, download, enjoy and comment!

 

 

 

Mixes of Out Of Focus out!

by micke

I had the great honour to mix and remix of Out Of Focus‘ song “Värdighet” (“Dignity” in Swedish – they also have a lot of songs in english, so check them out!).

First, we mixed the original version, totally separate from each other, with very different result as you can hear. A practical lesson in how much the mixing process and different mixing engineers can influence a piece.

Then I couldn’t resist to make some more, so the result was “Värdighet – andra låten på B-sidanmix” (second song on the B-side mix).

Also a pleasure to do and, as those remembering physical records,  those B-side songs or remixes could be quite freely arranged or really out there, so hence the name, and – as you can guess – I did it quite in a spontaneous way.
I highly recommend it to you music makers out there, as it gives you a feeling of total freedom! 🙂

Also, there is a dance remix on the way…expect more news soon.
EDIT: I forgot to post it, you can listen/download the dance mix here.

 

Out Of Focus is two very talented musicians who has worked together since the 80s, and it was a real pleasure to do this with them. Their style could  perhaps be described as pop in 80’s arrangements but modern sounds, and the lyrics… are they dark humour or unhappiness for real?