Outside The Box
It's not the normal way I do things, being primarily a Drum & Bass Producer, but the last two tracks I've done with Winkandwoo have turned a few heads. Makes me wonder if I should continue on the DnB path haha! The feedback we have had on the latest release - Eccentric Male Alien - has been pretty incredible from you boys and girls, referencing the great David Bowie and Pet Shop Boys which has been a really humbling experience - so thank you!
I'll dive a little deeper in to our collaboration so you can see how it came about but rest assured, it wasn't originally the Pet Shop Boys or David Bowie who inspired me when I originally came up with the concept.
The Idea
It all came from the Electronic Music Alliance and fellow EMAlien, Andrew Gabriel, who had the idea of having each track title in the Future Sounds Anthology Vol. 2 release to have three words in beginning with the letters, E, M and A. Oops, I just gave away the whole theme if you didn't get it from my previous blog.
"Rage Hard" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
This was in fact, the original inspiration behind the track as I heard it on one of the "Pick of the Pops" episodes on BBC Radio 2 with the year of the charts they were covering being 1986. Before you ask, it was on in the background at my parents place as I was writing a travel blog, I had no choice!
However, as the 80s music clearly also had an influence on me, I actually quite enjoyed Rage Hard. It was key change city and thought I'd try to re-produce something like that in my track for the EMA compilation. Check out the fine 80s Rock Pop track in all its glory below:
Eccentric Male Alien
And so with all these 80s influences now bubbling around in my head after listening to that show, I sat at my music studio and thought, "you know what, I'm going to give that 80s Rock Pop thing a go!" What unfolded was a key changing, cheesy snared track with an attempt at a catch melody - in my mind, it had a combination of Kraftwerk and the Rage Hard track above. But it needed vocals and so I turned to...
Winkandwoo
Yes, this vocal genius helped revolutionise the deep house track I began and turned it in to something really awesome - remember Time Machine? Maybe this will jog your memory:
With this impressive vocal range in his locker, I knew that Winkandwoo would be a perfect match for a bit of Eccentric Male Alien action! Oo err...! When I received the vocals back, I was beaming from ear to ear and couldn't wait to get them mixed in to the instrumental before finally getting them mastered by the sound engineer wizards at the Audio Animals!
David Bowie meets Pet Shop Boys
It was one of the slowest weeks waiting to get the masters back, checking the emails every day... ping! IT'S ARRIVED!! But what also arrived was a surreal comment from the lads at the Audio Animals, likening it to one of the greatest musicians of all time but sadly no longer with us:
Comment in an email from the Audio Animals
Oh my God! What an awesome thing to say! Myself and Winkandwoo were really taken aback by that and the comments and tweets came flooding in with some saying we had "morphed in to the Pet Shop Boys":
Comments from fellow EMAliens in our Discord
And then Winkandwoo uploaded the track to his Soundcloud page and the comments have been electric too - really been taken aback by the response this one received so thank you to everyone who's left a comment and enjoyed the tune! We're so glad you all love it! And of course a huge thanks to Winkandwoo for laying down some superb vocals once again 😃
Release Information
Eccentric Male Alien is out now on Electronic Alliance Records as part of the Future Sounds Anthology Vol. 2, released on 3rd April 2020. It's available to stream on Spotify and download on iTunes, Beatport and this very website!
Hopefully you enjoy the track and as always, take it easy!
Nicky
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Original article: https://nickyhavey.co.uk/2020/04/momentarily-morphed-into-the-pet-shop-boys-there/