Day 3: Experimentation
Hi. This is Harry. How’s it going?
It’s been 3 days now, we’re starting to get to know each other, I think we’re ready to get weird. So buckle up, we’re delving deep into the murky realms of Toucan Labs.
Yesterday James and I made a song. It’s about aliens and we’re really proud of it.
It’s a ridiculous concoction of FUNK, Beach Boys ‘Good Vibrations’-esque jarring transitions between sections, and 1960’s TV interviews. One year ago we wouldn’t have dreamed of making a song like it, but here we are. WHAT CHANGED??? I hear you screaming. Well…
In our formative years James and I were fully indoctrinated into the 4 piece indie rock guitar band lifestyle, we gigged around a bit, released some tunes, all in all we had a great time.
But when we moved to London after being booted into the real world (out of uni), we decided to have a go creating music as a duo. It was great, and looking back this is the root of our experimentation.
As 2 people, we were able to drop the idea that every song needed a rhythm guitar part, a lead guitar part, a bass guitar part, a vocal part, a drum part, to satisfy all the band members. There were gaps to fill in our songs and we saw an opportunity to expand our musical pallete, add some stitches to our tapestry of timbres. We sipped on the strangeness, rolled out the synths, immersed ourselves in worldly percussion, and acquired a taste for experimentation.
Now we release songs of varied genres more regularly. This removes the pressure of creating 10 perfectly curated songs every 2 years, who needs that. Part of me thinks the album is a relic and it’s manufacturing process dulls creativity and filters away the magic, maybe that’s only when labels get involved. But then, there’s so many recent albums that i’ve loved. aaarrgh… what do you think? Ping me: harry@toucanecho.com
SORRY I GOT DISTRACTED… Back to it:
We love creating music, and we love the no rules process we have at the moment. Our goal isn’t to find a label and sign away our vision, it’s to create our sound, and to make a ruckus.
Here’s some tracks and chat.
~~~VIDEOS~~~
Here’s that song about aliens, gotta love James’ performance. We haven’t released this song anywhere else yet, it’s an exclusive track JUST FOR YOU!
Here’s Patina – a song we created all from messing around on the laptop – looping, adding effects, sampling. It gives it a cool meditative quality.
The lyrics are addressed to the muse ‘Patina’, asking and thanking for the inspiration she provides. But the word patina actually means age and wear over time – implying that inspiration comes from persistence.
Here’s a behind the exclusive with us chatting about Patina, how we made it!
WOW, you’re over half way now. How about a reward for your heroic efforts?
JUST FOR YOU, I’ve curated a playlist of some of the most delectable experimental tracks around. Ranging from round and smooth experimental pop to hideous and unlistenable industrial soundscapes. I found inspiration in all of them at some point. Hope you like it.
nO sHuFfLe pls