Loud Sounds 14
Cover photo: Amy Jay – Monster cover art
"Loud Sounds" are some of the best new tracks we've found. We are coming back with the fourteenth installment of the series.
Knife Girl – Whisper
Whisper is a highly infectious bedroom funk jam featuring Knife Girl's trademark androgynous vocals. The song is a cover version of a trance-meets-acid-meets-hyperpop tune by Himera and JEL: The Digital Dream Girl. It retains the ethereal, out-of-this-world quality of the original, but adds a homely feel to it. You can tell the band had fun in the studio!
Whisper is a highly infectious bedroom funk jam featuring Knife Girl's trademark androgynous vocals. The song is a cover version of a trance-meets-acid-meets-hyperpop tune by Himera and JEL: The Digital Dream Girl. It retains the ethereal, out-of-this-world quality of the original, but adds a homely feel to it. You can tell the band had fun in the studio!
Knife Girl
The song originally came about with me in my home studio recording a little funky instrumental by myself, inspired by Evans Pyramid. I'd been listening to Whisper by Himera and JEL: The Digital Dream Girl (now Atta), and I started humming the vocal on top of the beat I made. We started playing that cover I made with a band I was playing with at the time and so we ended up recording the cover with the band at the (actual) studio when we were recording my debut album. This song is a lot of fun for me, I feel like the crowd always really digs it when we play this live. Now if only the rest of the music we recorded at the studio would get released…
WEIRDO – KALEIDOSCOPE
WEIRDO is back with a pop ballad. KALEIDOSCOPE is set to WEIRDO's recognizable cold alt-R&B beat and showcases Josh Cristopher's undeniable vocal talent. We are glad to get a taste of WEIRDO's pop side, because the word on the street is that Josh is heading more towards leftfield vibe next year.
WEIRDO is back with a pop ballad. KALEIDOSCOPE is set to WEIRDO's recognizable cold alt-R&B beat and showcases Josh Cristopher's undeniable vocal talent. We are glad to get a taste of WEIRDO's pop side, because the word on the street is that Josh is heading more towards leftfield vibe next year.
WEIRDO
I tried to channel my inner Adele into a pop ballad, and ended up with this. I wrote the initial song in 2010, and it was called VDK SDA LME, weirdly. I re-wrote and produced this version with two friends, Jan van der Toorn and Tiggy Hawke. I'm happy with the simplicity and mainsteam feel it has, and glad my vocal can sit at the front.
Not a lot of people know I have some pipes, and I rarely show them off in such an emotional way, but this was recorded in one take and obviously came from the right place... 2022, I'm moving away from my sad pop vibes. I'm over that shit now.
Not a lot of people know I have some pipes, and I rarely show them off in such an emotional way, but this was recorded in one take and obviously came from the right place... 2022, I'm moving away from my sad pop vibes. I'm over that shit now.
Amy Jay – Monster
Amy Jay's Monster is a disarmingly honest song about anxiety. Or, to be more precise, two disarmingly honest songs about anxiety woven into one.
The first part of "Monster" takes no prisoners. It starts with the words "Set another timer again". You instantly understand it's not going to be a comfortable listen. But the song is so beautiful and honest that you can't turn away, like you can't take your eyes off a burning building. The sound of the ticking clock, synth textures and out-of-control synth lead in the first part are perfect expressions of a constant inner struggle of a person dealing with anxiety.
The second part seems to bring a feeling of comfort. Or at least an illusion of comfort realitic enough for the song to be played on repeat, setting timer after timer with the narrator in the first part and learning how to deal with it in the second.
Amy Jay's Monster is a disarmingly honest song about anxiety. Or, to be more precise, two disarmingly honest songs about anxiety woven into one.
The first part of "Monster" takes no prisoners. It starts with the words "Set another timer again". You instantly understand it's not going to be a comfortable listen. But the song is so beautiful and honest that you can't turn away, like you can't take your eyes off a burning building. The sound of the ticking clock, synth textures and out-of-control synth lead in the first part are perfect expressions of a constant inner struggle of a person dealing with anxiety.
The second part seems to bring a feeling of comfort. Or at least an illusion of comfort realitic enough for the song to be played on repeat, setting timer after timer with the narrator in the first part and learning how to deal with it in the second.
Amy Jay
I wrote these two songs around the same time but only had what felt like an unfinished form. When deciding for tracks on the album, I really loved these but every time I tried to add more it didn't fit. So I merged them together and it just worked. It's not conventional but it also portrays so much more metaphorically being a double song. When it came to recording, I brought phone demos of guitar and vocals to my producer, Jonathan Seale, and he brought it to life, adding synth-y elements to evoke that feeling of uneasiness in a way the guitar couldn't.
The first half of the song addresses my social anxiety around performing, how it is a true love/hate relationship. I struggle with small talk, with being the center of attention, with stage presence and post-show chatter. The second half of the song dredges up internal anxiety literally about anxiety. Meta anxiety haha. It's around wanting the noise to disappear, to be put to bed, realizing I can't control it, accepting that it's all I know and maybe in some sick way I want my stress to stick around for comfort, feeling both powerless and responsible at the same time. The song starts to uncover the complexities of my neurotic nature that I could spend infinite albums writing about but having two sides explored here sandwiched in between ambiguous ambient space felt like a complete expression nugget of this idea.
The first half of the song addresses my social anxiety around performing, how it is a true love/hate relationship. I struggle with small talk, with being the center of attention, with stage presence and post-show chatter. The second half of the song dredges up internal anxiety literally about anxiety. Meta anxiety haha. It's around wanting the noise to disappear, to be put to bed, realizing I can't control it, accepting that it's all I know and maybe in some sick way I want my stress to stick around for comfort, feeling both powerless and responsible at the same time. The song starts to uncover the complexities of my neurotic nature that I could spend infinite albums writing about but having two sides explored here sandwiched in between ambiguous ambient space felt like a complete expression nugget of this idea.