About the Remix : Yet another remix opportunity I was given by Realworld Records.
Once I downloaded the music stems from the Realworld Remixed site, I got to work on the mix.
First I listened to the original to get an idea on what to add or improve.
My first thoughts were to add a rocking drum track, as it didn’t have one, so I fired up EZ Drummer and programmed some beats. I loaded all the audio into Logic Pro Studio 9 and looked at how the mix sounded.
I re-EQed the vocals; re-amplified the guitars; brought the bowed Ritti instrument forward; re-balanced the vocals and added a bass line.
I worked on this track as if I were working with the artists in the studio at Realworld in Box, England.
About the artist:
London-born Justin Adams and Gambia’s Juldeh Camara mix bouisterous rock and African music. Think Bruce Springsteen filtered through West Africa.
“Tell No Lies” is the new sound of Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara. The sound of a nation with no borders, a place that needs no passport, no visa. This is where the deep roots of African music nourish the raw electric groove of rock and roll, where Gnawa spirit rhythms come up against Chicago distortion, where snaky N’awlins rhythm has a West London howl, and a Sahel Wail.
Juldeh Camara is an African Master Musician, taught to play by his blind father, who himself was taught directly by the djinn. Playing the ritti, a one-stringed fiddle and West African ancestor of the violin, he participated as a griot (a West African poet, praise singer and repository of oral tradition) in traditional Fula society.
Justin Adams has been at the cutting edge of world music alchemy since the 1990’s with Jah Wobble, Robert Plant (Adams co-wrote The Mighty Rearranger), Natacha Atlas, The Festival of the Desert, Tinariwen (producing their first and third albums), LO?JO.
More info about the artist, here: www.realworldrecords.com/release/533/tell-no-lies/