In my 10+ years of producing music, I’ve come across a lot of interesting people. Even though I credit myself as being self-taught in everything from the basics to more advanced techniques, I did get some (a lot) of help along the way, from my peers. Some of them went on to do amazing things, and some remain hidden secrets of the deep underground music world. (TL;DR)
One person, in particular, who taught me quite a bit about mixing sound, compression and how to derive quality out of my productions was a guy named Phoakis. He doesn’t go by this alias anymore, clearly he has closed that chapter (as I once did too, when I felt I had matured enough, musically). One day, hanging out on Internet DJ, like we used to “back in the day”, he posted an amazing track which I still have a hard time getting out of my head. Then, he disappeared… musically anyway, he was still around on MySpace and Facebook but decided to delete all of his projects, much to my dismay.
For several years I prodded him to keep writing music, come up with something new, release on our new label (AVR) which we were just starting to grow. He kept saying he is busy with this and that and I had all but thought he was done with music for good. Then, out of nowhere, two weeks ago I get a message in my inbox, it’s from Soulwig and it’s asking me to check out a new project he just finished, and “check on the mix”. I could barely believe it, so I rushed to check it out and–to say I was not disappointed would be quite an understatement.
What I found was a near perfect deep house track, much in the same vein as his previous projects but a more refined, mature version. From compression to atmosphere to vocal effect usage, this track is embodies the underground deep house vibe. Since I’d first listened to it, I have been totally addicted, playing it on repeat (if fact I listen to it now as I write this up), analyzing it trying to capture the secret of what it means to make a good dance track, what it takes to create something which inspires.
This track is not released anywhere, and you’d be hard-pressed to stumble upon it yourself, so I present it to you, as a gift. You now have the chance to listen to this track for the first time. Savor the experience: turn off the lights, turn it up on your system or in your headphones, let your imagination take you where it will and… just enjoy.
TL;DR My friend and mentor writes amazing music and you should listen to it.