Sooo here we are August 2020! What a year it has been. I wont go into what we have all had to endure and live through over the last 7 months and with the utmost love and respect some more so than others.
At the start of the year I was interviewed by the fantastic Imran Mirza at Blue In Green Radio.Com and I got my mojo back working it out on my keys. I also had rising UK soul man Andrae Bentley in the lab for some songwriting for his planned project. During the same time I received news of being nominated for a GroundBreakin Award in the Best Soul EP Category. All seemed to be going beautifully until this thing that seemed to be so far away, turned up on our doorstep and throughout the rest of the world causing a global lockdown.
Whilst many artists carried on turning up the heat and pushing stuff out I didn't feel that passion. I had to take stock of many things about not just the world and us but about the whole meaning and purpose of life.
Due to the lockdown no studio session at The Vibezlab took place and the vocalists I had in mind had no home studios or means of recording safely so the intended projects had to be put on ice.
When I finally acclimatized to the status quo my intention was to become more present or active musically. I would watch Don-E on his fabulous late night 'live' facebook watch parties cranking out all his latest pre-released work. And that really began to put things back into perspective. Another thing was the influence of the radio. I think within a week of the lockdown I had to switch the radio off from all my regular talk show stations because everything was saturated with the pandemic.
I stumbled on The Soul Of London radio station and I was so astounded by the output of incredible indie soul releases from here in the UK and the US and the world. The quality seemed to have gone up this year and I began to feel left behind, lazy and frustrated.
I couldn't call artists in to record and I couldn't send songs to them because they didn't self record and couldn't go anywhere else to record. Then the light went on for an instrumental project I had in mind for some time. It was going to be different from my previous releases but just touching the tip of the iceberg in the future plans I aim to bring to the public down the line. The project I am talking about is called X-Perimental Mass, and was one of the most exciting things I done as a musician because it broke the mould of what I had previously done. This was my first full out instrumental project and it was left field taking in influences from drum n bass, electro-funk, electronica latin and soul flavours and more.
I contacted talented US percussionist to the elite the fantastic JoVia Armstrong to drop some fire on two tracks 'Afro Head Charge' and 'Soul Suite' and I had a track that Vicky Flint had already laid some trumpet on called 'Mi Colombiana'. Everything just seemed to move as if by magic from the recording to my mixdown to sending the tracks off for mastering by my main man Andy LeVien at RMS Studios.
I decided to release through Bandcamp and that was going to be the one stop shop but then I decided to put out a digital release to make it more accessible to those who only buy/stream through a particular outlet.
The response was a welcome one and it has given me the green light to now begin to bring the full quota of PVibez to the world. I am still the soul man and proud to be but the eclectic nature doesn't have to just manifest as sub influences in stuff I produce. I have now opened the door for that eclectic nature to dictate on its own terms and bring forth another dimension to this musical journey.
Speak to you all soon!