Notes from
the road and the room.
How the songs get written, what happened in Abidjan, and the numbers nobody publishes. Six entries, no schedule.
How Harmattan Skin got written in one sitting
It started as a voice note in a taxi on the Spintex Road at eleven at night, with the windows down because the air conditioning had gone. By the time we reached Osu there were two verses and a melody I could not get rid of. This is what happened in the fortnight after — including the two days we spent trying to make it sound bigger, and why we put every one of those changes back.
6 min read
Everything else
Five more, most recent first
Singing in a language you are still learning
Half the Abidjan set was in French, and the half that was not landed better than either of us expected. What that taught me about writing.
4 min read
Why the horns only play on four songs
Adding brass to everything is the fastest way to make a set sound the same the whole way through. Here is the arithmetic we use instead.
5 min read
What a singer actually needs in the wedge
Less than most engineers assume, and never more reverb. A short, practical note for anyone mixing a vocalist for the first time.
3 min read
Boomplay, Audiomack, and where Ghana actually listens
Three years of our own numbers, published in full. The gap between where the money is and where the audience is turns out to be enormous.
8 min read
Three years of Thursdays at Bloom
A monthly residency is the cheapest rehearsal room in the world and the most honest audience you will ever get. Everything the last two records owe to it.
6 min read
Five years on from a front room in Osu
The First Light EP was recorded on two microphones borrowed from a church. Listening back properly for the first time since.
5 min read
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Wren
