[OUANEM] an album by glia and friends

I’m very happy to share this collection of 12 songs and would be glad to discuss how it was made and why it exists :slight_smile: feel free to ask any questions (it’s also available on streaming sites like spotify, as a cassette, and 10" lathe cut vinyl)

There are some very special moments captured here as the album recordings span the first year of my sons life and the craziness of remote collaboration with friends during pandemic lockdown.

Hope you enjoy some tracks!

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I love this record. This is absolutely a glia work, but writ large. On a grand scale. You found collaborators who could sense and execute your singular style of impressionistic, skewed beats. It seems to have been cooking awhile, and I’m so glad you were able to see it through.

I just love how etete signs it off. Super fun.

So how did the collaborations work? Did you provide drafts that they then laid something over?

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Dear lord, the energy in this one. It’s fantastic @glia I feel like I’m experiencing something very true and primal when I listen to this, but like in a good way - a sort of positive chaotic vibe, reassuring somehow that even when things are messy, it’ll all work out.

A remarkable accomplishment, for sure.

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Great project, I want the disc.
What does the center of the vinyl record look like?
The image of “key” which is on the back cover?
Can we consider this as Venusian jazz?

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thanks for listening and sharing all the comments!

ha! yeah it’s definitely jazz adjacent…blending looped sequences & live playing so not really a jazz purist thing (my flow was inspired heavily by madlib/yesterdays new quintet)

btw great idea for the label art! there is full color in the packaging but the the lathes themselves will be kinda diy / “white label”

sorry if that’s a bit disappointing :slight_smile:

What a wonderful description! thanks :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
I am really glad the energy came through in these recordings

Initially i aimed for something a bit more organized and controlled but it feels like the chaos happening in the world the past few years inevitably seeped in. Accepting a degree of messiness was a turning point as i finished tracks

Thanks! It was fun to make

“Etete” is my sons nickname and the tune serves a few purposes: capturing his stumbling walk and my reactions (something feels a bit off kilter and ready to collapse/fall down at any given moment…but still amusing, a source of rare joy)

But aside from that it became clear it sounded like punctuation. No track really “fit” when placed after it. Also, I tend to use final album tracks as a bridge, hopefully leading listeners in the direction i’d like to go next.

Each of the collaborations were a bit different. I was in conversation with the other artists and friends of mine about their work and life and then collabs came about naturally as an extension of that.

Yes, I usually shared wip sketches. I find this part exceedingly difficult because i like to work alone…i know how my brain works, my strengths and weaknesses and just make rapid decisions on a whim. Bringing someone else into that process can make me second-guess too much

So i think it was important that we had mutual respect, admiration, and trust (especially since all the collaboration took place remotely via simple file sharing).

I didn’t guide them too much but there was clear communication afterward about how much i could manipulate their stems and recorded takes. For “God is not partial” Carlos had some great feedback about how the song should develop and i mostly left his take intact. Same with Chris (it was looped/extended but sonically not many effects added). Takoda’s part was edited w/ fades to sit in the mix & fit the melodic threads i wanted emphasized…but i actually later regretted some choices for how i handled that tbh.

Logan had no idea what our collab “Akpaifiok” would sound like because he recorded the upright bass first and gave me free reign to warp it & play my parts around his scaffolding. Vooo heard my framework sketch, including the simple synth lines, sent me a short sample of him playing bass guitar (in key and in sync) and asked me to adapt it to the piece however i wanted…so it got heavily chopped into the phrasing you hear on “Sidequesting”.

Pinson and Nik were also very open to whatever edits and rearrangement i felt like doing. “Muqarnas Progression” is mostly untouched while “Amikedi” and “All of us” contain many more changes (mostly to give structure to the tracks and place focus on certain elements in the mix)

So, to answer your question simply: i usually sent an unfinished song, told them what i thought was missing, blended their stem with any additional instrumention i wanted to add, then confirmed they were okay with the changes and signed off on the final mix.

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