Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Dusting off the ol' Drum & Bass shelf

While going through some files on an old hard drive this morning I found a hand full of tunes I had worked on back in my D&B days. None of them were ever released and they were played in clubs less than a hand full of times. The original session files have long been lost on a failed hard drive somewhere and I figure why let all those hours of hard work go to waste. Those that new me back in the early part of this decade might get a kick out of these tunes. Enjoy!

Joe Shockley & New Republic - Why you gotta do me like that?


The 1st tune goes back to 2002 and is one of the last I worked on with New Republic, mainly it was Wade and my self on this tune and truly it was me obsessively trying to come up with something as catchy as Zinc's "Ska" and "138 Trek" and was heavily influenced by the sound DJ's Marky and Patife were pushing at the time... all in one song. As a group New Republic had already released a 12" with Break Beat Science and were working on a Latin/Brazilian influenced Single/EP for another label before the group started to implode and eventually fell apart.  Listening back to it now the song feels rushed in some parts and long in others, the drums don't punch through enough and you can barely hear the bass on my MacBook speakers, but overall it's a fun song. Good Times.

Joe Shockley - What You Want


"What You Want" written in 2003, is the 1st tune I worked on after leaving New Republic and you can tell I was a bit angry at the time. Prior to working on this tune most of the songs I worked on were mostly liquid funk inspired and upbeat.  This was a total 180 from that vibe and was a very literal response to the feedback I was getting from the crowd.

Joe Shockley - Other Life


"Other Life" also written in 2003, represents the most fun I ever had making a D&B tune. I just threw my self into it for a week and had a lot of fun programming drums, finding all the samples and coming up with an obnoxious bass line/lead synth. It was also the shortest and most concise D&B tune I had done at the time and I loved how it didn't have an atmospheric "drop" and then repeat section.  "Other Life" is also the last D&B tune I did as I stepped away from Drum & Bass all together, got back behind the drum kit and eventually started playing with Marqui Adora.

Posted via email from Joe Shockley's Data & Sound

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