Vibrant Shapes
Updated: Jun 1, 2020
Vibrant Shapes is my first track to be born and completed during lockdown. I wanted to write a track that I felt encapsulated the vibe and instrumentation of my Distant Voices EP, but develop on the ideas and move towards a sightly darker palette, in preparation for I'm planning to release in the future.
The song started with the chord progression but really came alive when I dropped in the vocal samples. They did take some tweaking and pitching but once they were in I knew I had something. Originally the drop section was a half time, more orchestral sound but I decided I wanted to have a consistent 4/4 drum rhythm the whole way through to make it more danceable. I also moved away for the epic sound to instead make something more intimate and closer sounding.
As I continued to write the song I realised I was making something that could sound at home in an electronic setting but could also be played by a live band. I focused on this idea and added more 'real' elements including myself playing in the bass guitar, piano and some of the drums. I intentionally left a few timing mistakes in the track to really exaggerate the live band idea.
Quite early on I added the middle drop/breakdown section as I knew there needed to be a new section to break up the song and keep it interesting. The most difficult bit of the whole song was actually the intro and deciding how the song would start. I tried loads of different ideas and arrangements but eventually settled on how it is in the song now with the reversed vocal sample.
With the song done I moved onto the artwork, and I was clear on what I wanted right from the beginning. I took a bunch of flowers in my house, photographed them and messed around with the colours until I found a palette that I thought looked good and represented the vibrant shapes in the song.
I love the track, it's the best mix & master I've done to date, and I made the style of song I set out to. I'm looking forward to playing it live as part of a set and maybe even with a live band one day when lockdown is over!
Newah x