Business End : December 2002
Business EndBusiness EndPeople + Opinion : Recording / Mixing Business End enables you to have your demo reviewed by a panel of producers, songwriters, musicians and managers. If you want your demo to be heard by them then please mark it 'Business End' and write on the outside of the package the style of music that best describes your work. This month's industry panel is drawn from the MPG (Music Producer's Guild).
Felix Cemmell (FC): "Considering this guy has been writing ambient music for television documentaries I think this could be a lot better. He has really tried to take it to the dance floor but he's not doing it in the right way because it's half dance, half ambient, and it doesn't gel. He should stick with one or the other and create more of a mood. Some of it was quite weird really."
Haydn Bendall (HB): "I thought it was really dull. There was no passion, no soul, no musicianship and I don't see the point. I found this irritating because it seemed to be so pastiche. I get the feeling that this guy thinks its all so easy. You can tell he hasn't sweated over this and there has been no soul searching. I think he's thrown it together and said 'this is a track' without asking himself if it's a good sound, groove or nice melody. It almost displays an arrogance that he thinks he can get away with it. I'm surprised he even sent it in, it was so banal and bland. His letter explains that he writes lots of stuff for the BBC but I get the feeling it is not like this." Matthew Hiscock (MH): "It was house music so I wanted to like it, but it sounds like he hasn't bought a record since 1992. There is nothing there that couldn't have come directly off a sample CD and that bothered me most. I was reading a previous Business End in which Ian Caple spoke about a chap who used a vocal sample just because it was an American accent, and that's what this sounds like. If he was in Boston making this track he wouldn't get away with it. Maybe Primal Scream got away with it but there is no good reason to have that vocal in there."
HB: "This sounded like young people who have just learnt to play together as a band but haven't developed a style of playing or song writing, so I think they have a long way to go. I didn't object to their material or what they were doing, but I didn't hear any stand-out ideas. They should carry on playing because at the moment they haven't developed enough of an identity to make much comment."
FC: "I don't know what the Italian market is like but this is not suitable for the UK market. It was quite bouncy in places, and it created a lot of clappy joyful images and positive melodies, but for our market they need to tone down the bouncy upbeat bits." AE: "I think its very brave to send an Italian language demo to a magazine to be reviewed by English-speaking people, with the high probability that non of us speak Italian. But it's limited because we can't make comment on song construction if we can't understand the language. Musically I found it quite dated, as if it had been done 10 years ago. Some of the sounds were quite uninspiring, and it wasn't particularly well thought out. I don't think they know what they are trying to achieve. As Felix pointed out, it is never going to work in the British market."
FC: "It's good that they've done this just in time for the '80s revival but it's just a shame they've picked the wrong part of the '80s! In the third track I thought they were trying to sound like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, but doing it very badly. It was very unoriginal and done very poorly too. He could have put much more emotion in the vocals, or even made them deliberately more monotone, but there didn't seem to be much emotive strength in the vocals. I liked the song title 'My Name Is Lindsay Carcass', and I think it was their strongest song so it was a good idea to start with that."
AE: "This is very commercially limited and it is pitching itself into that whole '80s electro dance thing. There are some elements of that period which work well, and the Richard X production of the Sugababes' 'Freak Like Me' based on Gary Numan's 'Are Friends Electric?' was quite an inspirational marriage of two songs — and it produced something new. Feline Dream is so retro that they are closing the commercial doors on themselves because there is no market for it unless there is a huge '80s revival. "I think there are certain instruments which give you a very particular sound which you can't escape. They have a list of very old synths including a Sequential Circuits Pro One and Korg Polysix, and drum machines like the Roland CR78 and TR808 — so I think that's why they sound like Ultravox. They have a Clavinet D6 and Rickenbacker bass which aren't generally recognised as instruments that define the sound from that period, but I still reckon they have gone out to deliberately buy retro '80s gear because it's quite rare to find a working Jupiter 4." HB: "I'm not sure if they are trying to emulate some other style or not, but I like the sense of humour and the lyrical figures. It sounds like fun, and I enjoyed the enthusiasm in the last track. It's not something I'd want to work with and I don't necessarily think it's great music, but I'd like to hear an album or some tracks of theirs that are well produced." After working as a piano tuner for Steinway & Sons, Haydn Bendall was employed at Abbey Road Studios for over 17 years, including 10 as senior engineer. In addition to working with artists such as Fleetwood Mac, George Martin, Elton John, Damon Albarn and Hans Zimmer, Haydn has collaborated on several musicals with Eric Woolfson and has made extensive recordings with all the major London orchestras. Today, Haydn is a partner of the UK production company DAT Productions. Andy East, a former engineer/session player, is Managing director of a London-based Artist Management/Consultancy company called Hip-Hop Cow. He regularly attends and chairs industry panels and seminars for a number of clients, including The British Academy of Songwriters & Composers (BACS). He is also a consultant for several labels in Europe and the UK. Andy is Chairman of The Music Producers Guild. Felix Cemmell is a graduate in Music Industry Management and Studio Production from the Buckinghamshire Chilterns University. She is also a mentee in the new Music Industry Mentoring Scheme. As an active MPG member, Felix is involved in expanding the membership and contributing to the website. She is currently a reviewer and contributor to The Wire magazine. Matthew Hiscock has worked in nearly every sector of the music industry including production, engineering, retail, radio, record companies, and in countless bands, and on both sides of the Atlantic. He now works in the Membership department of the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters. He also makes records under the monikers of the Electric Bootleg Soundsystem and The Sevens. Published in SOS December 2002 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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