So that was a desire for quite some months now (summer 2016 tbe), and that's it, I made an album with korean talents. One thing checked on my bucket list ✅

Roadmap

This is kinda weird, as this happened so fast and slow at the same time.

• August 2017: I locked myself in my bedroom to make music. While all my friends were on vacation, I was there, alone, trying to make music that is good.
  I'm not complaining at all! It was quite fun, some highs and some downs sometimes as everything I guess.

• September 2017: All demos are ready, now I just have to find Korean singers and rappers. Thank you SoundCloud for having thousands and thousands of talented people.
  I literally spent days crate digging talented people singing in Korean, and I don't know why but almost everyone were so good. So I started to email some. I'd say 1/4 - 1/5 replied back, I was so happy when I had some replies haha.
  We talked throughout emails first, but that leaded to KakaoTalk (the Korean whatsapp)

KakaoTalk:

• October 2017: After some people that told me yes but actually never answered back, I finally have my singers and rappers ready and sending me their audio files! Among them: JUNNY, Holynn and CIKI. I'm so hyped.

• November 2017: Biggest surprise: PaloAlto actually replied to me. He's the founder of Hi-Lite Records. Hi-Lite records what is? Basically, it's the label where It G Ma was released.

At first, I thought that only PaloAlto was going to rap in my track. But he told me his friends really liked the beat, and they all went on the song:

• December/January 2017: I got all audio files from the singers and rappers, now I need to re-edit the track and do revisions. 1-2 revisions has been made with the singers, with one track where I did a totally new track with the vocals (the one with CIKI). For the rappers I did more revisions and I added another part as well (the bit where PaloAlto raps).

• January/February 2017: Concept and Release.

The Concept

I wanted to have a concept, a message that I wanna convey and spread. That message was simply regarding K-Pop and K-Music: it is not just about pretty cute things.
Way many people think it's just cute boys, cute girls, and mainstream productions. But it is not! There is actually an indie scene, and even the 'mainstream' ones are talented as heck!

Ok, so now I have a message. I need a visual idea to transcribe it. Wait... There is this animation movie that I watched a few months I really liked it, and there was a cool idea there...
Yes! A Silent Voice.

So the movie (originally a light novel) has not the same message at all that I wanna tell, but I can use this visual effect and tell something totally different right? That's what I did. I even made a whole music video with this concept.

Ok so now I need a the cover art of the EP (mini-album), I need something personal, an image that no one has. Let's try to find something with my old pictures that are in the cellar under the house.

Found something!

The Release

I needed an intro, like a short video on Instagram/Facebook to explain the concept. It was raining in Paris at this moment, so I decided to shot some places. I made then the edits using Final Cut Pro, so I spent ages as I had to place frame by frame the crosses.

A post shared by Tobias Dray (@tobias_dray)

Ok, so now I guess everything is ready. Let's release it for the Valentine's day.

One month later

A month later here I am, overwhelmed by the responses for far, really glad I'm not the only one who likes this mini album haha. I got some blogs coverage, people messaging me and saying . they loved the project, interviewers who wanna do interviews, etc.. I'm pretty glad all this hard work pays :) (not really money tho lol, I'm still a broke music producer, hopefully will change that next year)

Thanks for reading, it was fun to write! (and sorry if there is any english mistakes)

Kind Regards, Tobias.

(PS: There is many things I didn't tell, tell me if you want I tell other things about how came this project in details!)