Sunday Best

Nik Furious: Sunday Best: Sunday Best

Saturday, August 10th, 2013

The title track of the mixtape! Sunday Best is a mellow instrumental remix of the underground funk classic, Chance With You by Brother To Brother.

I was turned onto Chance With You by WEFUNK Radio, a weekly mix-show from Montreal. The DJs of WEFUNK produce incredible blends of soul, funk, hip hop, and jazz. Even better, they've been archiving their shows since 2001 and there are some real gems in there. I can't recommend WEFUNK enough.

I originally released Sunday Best as a YouTube video a little over two years ago. It was a spontaneous creation, something I made early one Sunday morning when I couldn't sleep.

The track was accompanied by an original digital painting that was my visual interpretation of the song.

As for the beat itself, I chopped up my favorite parts of Chance With You and looped them together into a version that I currently enjoy even more than the original. I hope you do too!

Nik Furious: Sunday Best: Station

Sunday, August 4th, 2013

Station is the kind of song I make for myself because I just don't have enough like it in my music library.

As a teen, I'd go home from school and head straight to the basement to record songs with my 4-track. That's where I fell in love with the sound of percussion and bass stripped of any guitar, piano, or other more melodic instruments on top. 

Named after the highly evolved and inventive monster from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Station is the perfect example of this passion.

First, I constructed a digital drumbeat that excited me with its possibilities. It's not exactly what you hear here, but close. Then I made a super-long loop out of the beat and recorded myself jamming a bassline over it. I started chopping it up, slicing out my favorite moments and building new patterns.

But when it came time to add other instruments, I bristled at the thought. Here I had a tight, funky beat led by the raw melody of the bass and carried by the complexity of the drums. I didn't want any other sounds.

Granted, I recognize that the final product may seem a bit incomplete to most. That's why I've put this 100% original song on a mixtape and not one of my albums.

As for the name, it's very fitting because I often feel like a scientist or a sonic engineer when I'm making music. Station from Bogus Journey is a fantastic example of what it feels like to be an underground musician working on a lo-fi setup at home -- a misunderstood, grotesque inventor assembling disparate and unlikely parts together to conjure up a new unexpected creation.

Nik Furious: Sunday Best: Remix Da Bass

Tuesday, July 9th, 2013

Years ago I had a music podcast called the Beatcast and I couldn't have stopped posting episodes at a worse time.

See, I was in the middle of something called Building Da Beat. The idea was to construct an instrumental song from the ground up and share each step of the process with the listeners. 

First I posted the drums. Then I added bass. Then I added some guitar. Then I changed the guitar. Then I stopped posting new Beatcasts. 

I didn't quit making the Beatcast because of Building Da Beat. If anything, it was a last gasp effort to rekindle my excitement for the Beatcast. Obviously, it didn't work.

Here's a close up of the Cort bass that I played on this track.

But something odd happened after I lost interest in Building Da Beat... I fell in love with a remixed version of Da Bass!!! Still unhappy with Da Guitar, I'd produced a stripped-down version that only featured electric guitar at the end of the track. This was the version I planned to use for Building Da Synth.

But the synth performance never happened in a timely manner. And so the unused version of the track sat around, waiting for some melody. But even without strong melodic components, I found myself listening to Da Bass all of the time.

Eventually Remix Da Bass became the foundation of Da Bounce, a synth-packed song included on my forthcoming album, 7 Star Sky Flash Kick. But to me, Remix Da Bass still stands on its own as a raw rhythmic jam with a lot of punch and progression.