#065 - FLOOD SONGS PROJECT - pt I: Introducing the artists Koko, Emma, Shelly and Zahlu

Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Welcome to the Production Talk podcast with me, Yarn, of mixartists.com.au. In this podcast series, we celebrate the modern way of producing music. We want to talk about all things related to songwriting, recording at home and music production. So, if you produce your music at home, this is the place to be. Please subscribe and recommend this podcast to all your friends. This is the Production Talk Podcast episode 65. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Welcome back to another episode of the Production Talk podcast. At the beginning of this episode, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the country that this conversation is recorded on: the Arakwal people of the Bundjalung Nation. And I would like to pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Today is a bit of a different episode. Today I would like to give you a little sneak preview of a project that I've been working on for quite a few months now, if you are a regular listener to the podcast, you may already know earlier this year, we had a couple of episodes about the floods that happened in the Northern Rivers region in on the east coast of Australia. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: And the devastating effects that this has had on local towns such as Lismore and Mullumbimby and many, many, many, many others. And yes. So a while ago I started the Flood Songs Project to do my part in, in getting the local music industry back on its feet. And over, over the last weeks and months, we've all been working tirelessly on this production and we hit a couple of snags along the way. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: A couple of hiccups. Things took longer than expected. Who would've thought ? Isn't that always the case? But yeah. Today we actually met up with some of the artists today and had the final listening session before we sent the finished mixes. Off to mastering to legendary Andy Stewart of the Mill Studio, which you may also know as a previous guest at the Production Talk podcast. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: So today I'd like to introduce some of the artists who are on the compilation and tell a brief story about how their recordings came to pass. So first up, let me talk to you about Coco production. Cocos production was one that Nathan Stanborough and I walked on together. We ponged foreign pack, so to speak. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: And we tried different approaches. It was the only song where we had to have two attempts at getting it right. We didn't get it right in the first place. The song was based around an acoustic guitar vocals and yeah, at the beginning we tried to get it all, you know, on a click and, you know, clean produced with separate guitars and vocals and It just didn't fear, right? Jan 'Yarn' Muths: So we actually had to reset it and start again. Thank you Cocoa for your patience. Really appreciate this. But eventually we just recorded vocals and guitar just as it came out of her in, in the live room, in, in one take. So I think actually we recorded three. Takes or up or was it for? And one of them we decided for, and that was taken start to finish. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: No editing whatsoever. And then we added a couple of extras. I recorded the kick drum with microphones at the far end of the room to get a bit of a heartbeat kick underneath. I recorded a couple of simple swells with the mallets, and then we also added some. Yeah, sound effects. Rain and thunder as well as yeah, a couple of strings in the final chorus to make it a little bit thicker. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Just a little bit. Coco song is absolutely beautiful. It's so organic. It is, It feels like it's it's just roar full of, of. Emotion and full of story. And it's maybe not a production masterpiece as such, but that wasn't really the intention anyway. The attention was to really capture the moment and capture the vibe and the stories as they eventuated after or during it after the floods. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: And it's worth really listening to, to Cocos lyrics. What she's gotta say is, goes really, really deep and she's got a very amazing expression to, to get this all out. So without Father Idu you, let's hand over to Cocoa and let her share a couple of words. Cocoa over to you. Koko Kopytko: Hi, my name is Coco. I wrote the song, Spirit of Hope, for the Flood Songs project. I'm a solo artist, singer, songwriter. On February the 28th, I was at home in East Lismore, a fairly new local to the area. I was grieving the loss of my 18 year old son who'd just left home, as well as the passing of a cherished fellow music maker who served to be a huge inspiration for me over the years. Koko Kopytko: One of the opening lines of my song Sky cried like a brother just died, is a tribute to him. , my experience of the flood event around Lismore was peculiar and I experienced a creeping sandwich stress. I had a four month old baby at home, so I was unable to be of any hands on help at the time. My husband and teenage daughter were at the front lines for the cleanup in Lismore and Coi Kai. Koko Kopytko: They were reporting to me each evening their experiences, and I felt a loss, helpless and sad as reports of lives of loved ones. And devastation spread. When I saw the call out for the flood song article in the E Echo newspaper, I knew that I would benefit from the catharsis that comes from opening up. Koko Kopytko: I wanted to give a voice to the situation in the hope that victims of this tragedy could feel validated. I wrote a ballad, which in turn has become a protest song. So many injustice injustices that needed highlighting. I continue to hear horror stories from within the Lismore community. Everyone is keen to move forward, but there's still an eerie elephant in the room standing in the shadows that we're all wondering when and who will address and make the fundamental changes. Koko Kopytko: I wrote the song quickly in a day. The message just came through. The recording process took a little bit longer, but we nailed, nailed it in the end. My song is still in production but is sounding authentic so far. I have a bunch of songs that I'd like to polish and record in the not too distant future. Koko Kopytko: Thank you, Yarn for the opportunity to birth what I feel is a raw expression of a tragic event. I'm trusting that the transmutation of this brings about healing for individuals and communities alike. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Thank you for sharing, Koko. Much appreciated and thank you for being on board. Next up, let me introduce Emma Hamilton, who yeah, recorded the longest piece of the compilation and wow watered journey. This piece is Emma's worked on it for a while and she's composed mainly on a computer. And then met with Producer Saphia Stone, who worked with her very closely to rerecord all the vocal. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: And then they handed it over to me for a bit more editing and mixing. And yeah took a favor of work to get this song right because there are just so many elements in it. Lots of electronic music elements. However there are also lots and lots of sound effects and lots of layers of vocals. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: And the piece is in the end over seven minutes long and it takes you on a journey. Through different stages builds it up, breaks it back down, and yeah, takes you on a very intense journey. Thank you for being on board, Mr. Over to you. Emma Hamilton: Hi, I'm Emma Hamilton. I've been a singer songwriter for over 30 years. I've been in lots of bands, but over the last few years I've been really recording quite a lot of music on Garage band at home. I have four albums on soundcloud.com/emma hyphen Hamilton four. If you wanna have a listen. This year I experienced flood in Suffolk Park. Emma Hamilton: I had a few inches through the house which could have been a lot worse. It was a lot worse for a lot of other people. But it really triggered my. Memories of my experience when I was 19 in the Lismore flood of 1989. It was an 11 meter flood and I was in the attic for three days waiting for the, the waters to go down. Emma Hamilton: It was. A fairly traumatic experience, although I did handle it in my stride. My song really explains the experience. I felt inspired to write a song about it. And then I saw Ya's Post on Facebook putting out a call out for artists who have experienced. and so I went ahead and wrote the song and recorded it. Emma Hamilton: It's basically a story from start to finish. It doesn't actually have a chorus, which is a different way of writing for me. I really enjoyed the process. It was described as genre defying, which I thought was awesome, and I'm very proud of. I'm also a visual artist. I'm a painter. I did this painting behind me and I'm also a ceramic sculptor. Emma Hamilton: You can see some of those pictures on Instagram on Emma dot Hamilton dot Arts for that's the number four. You enjoy my song and enjoy the album. I've just been so chuffed to be part of this whole process. And to be chosen to be on the album. Yarn is just an incredible human, such a beautiful person, and just so kind and wonderful to have created this album, to have volunteered his time and energy, and for other people to have also put in their time and energy. Emma Hamilton: I think it's gonna be an incredible outcome and sending out lots of love to you all. Bye. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Thank you for your kind words, Emma. Much appreciate it. The next artist is somebody who you may have heard of before. Her name is Shelly Brown and she's got a podcast singing Lessons for No One. And I've mentioned it more than once. I think it was even in the last week's episode, wasn't it? So Shelly and I we go a long while back, and interestingly, she was the last act that we recorded, so the hardest Part of the production was actually to find time. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Shelly is very busy. She's got lots on, she's got a family to look after and so do I. We both have kids in a similar age, so it took us longer than it should have to actually get, act together and really find time, make time to meet up in the studio. And one, once we did it just fell into place so easily. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: We spent less than a day in the studio. We recorded acoustic guitar and vocals to start with, and then later added extra bass and organs. And Shelly played the shaker giggling like a little child full of joy. And yeah, lemme just think about it. Did we add anything else? Of course. Lots of harmonies, of course. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: So that song came together really easily in the studio and yeah, sometimes the planning stage is the hardest. So over to you, shell. Shelly Brown: Hi there. My name's Shelly Brown. I'm a singer and a songwriter and a vocal coach. I make a really fun podcast called Singing Lessons for No One. I love teaching, singing, and sharing all the things that your voice can do. It's the funnest thing I can think of. The musicians that I work with are my dear husband, Dan Brown. Shelly Brown: He plays all the instruments that I can think of. He plays keys and bass, and we both pretend we can play the drums really well. And I play with Grant Garroth who plays the drum kit, and he's a legend. I feel like I send him my songs and he sends them back to me and we speak this language that is unspoken and perfect and beautiful, Shelly Brown: On the day of the flood, it was my birthday weekend was the end of February. We were all in our swimmers and we were playing in this light rain and looking at the bomb, and the weather forecast was the last thing on our minds, and it was my birthday weekend. We were celebrating. My sister was visiting from Melbourne, catching the last bits of heat that she could grab before she headed home and. Shelly Brown: We walked out around the house and we were thinking this is a lot of rain. And the more it rained, the more we thought this is a lot more rain. And it started to flood in certain parts of our garden that just shouldn't flood and amount of rain, that just shouldn't happen. And when we realized it was coming in the house, we didn't worry about the garden anymore. Shelly Brown: We were inside and , I remember when I was pregnant with my son, I bought all these crappy towels, just in case cuz we live half an hour from the hospital. And I didn't end up using him. That's another entire story for you one day. But I can tell you that all of the good towels were out on this day. Shelly Brown: We covered all of our floors in towels. and we were sweeping and trying to push and fight the rain and the floods that was coming in. And for weeks after, I was just thinking about how lucky we were that we could fight. For the people that had 14 meters, you can't fight that much water. There's nothing that you can do except sit on your roof and try and get saved. Shelly Brown: And how lucky we were that we could fight it and push it and try and direct it and tell it who was boss, which is just unthinkable. Rain is rain, water's water. It goes where it wants to flow. Shelly Brown: So I wrote lots of songs through this time because writing songs is how I process and how I work through everything that I work through in my life. I sit in, I write songs. I wouldn't play them all to you. I'm sorry. I'm sure you're really nice, but some of them are just for me. But I wrote maybe three or four over these weeks just sitting at my dining room table listening to the rain behind me. Shelly Brown: Just thinking about everybody. I went to uni in Lima a solid 20 years ago. And and so the circles of our community have spun out and out and you know, you still know people that live in Lismore and know people that know people and, and all the surrounding towns. It wasn't just Lismore Darling Lismore, but it was so many towns near us. Shelly Brown: And so all of these songs that I wrote were thinking about the people that I know and the people's, people's peoples that I know, and all that they dealt with on that. and it was a heavy time and it was scary. And I wrote for my son who was scared of the rain, which I feel for him with all of my heart and soul because I love the rain. Shelly Brown: I love rain on a tin roof, there is no more Australian comforting sound to my heart. Then rain on a tin roof through gum trees if you're lucky. , but for a bit there for a few months in without a doubt, we were afraid of the rain and the bomb was the most constantly checked website in our house. It was a really full on time and we're still a long way from having rebuilt our house. Shelly Brown: A long, slow pain journey. My husband is this strong, calm, gentle man that's supported and just St. Strode through it and is sorting. I don't know if he's freaking out on the inside, but he is strong and calm and I try to be strong and calm for my son. Shelly Brown: It's just like a little therapy session, talking to myself. . Hmm. I first heard about the flood project that Jan was orchestrating via the internet through, through Facebook and through the Echo newspaper, and I'd been talking with my sister lots about how all the creative people that live here would be making. Shelly Brown: And making creations forever more about this cuz there's not, there's nothing else you can do for 14 meters of rain, 14 meters of rain, 14 meters of water across valleys and valleys and valleys like so many towns were affected by this. It's just so much water that the only thing you could do is have art created for the next few decades about it because it's just ridiculous. Shelly Brown: An absolutely stupid amount of. So I had been writing songs and I had been creating, and I Know Ya A little, A little well, well a little from his amazing podcast that he creates, that I listen to with Wide ears and Wide Eyes to learn more and more about how to create this thing that I love about more techniques with microphones and about. Shelly Brown: Techniques of recording and mixing and mastering and all the things that you do to let your creativity flow whilst pressing record, this thing that makes you feel a little bit freaked out. You're recording it. It's like imprinting yourself. So you wanna do it well and you wanna do it creatively and individually. Shelly Brown: Uniquely, so I knew of Jan. I know ya. He's . Jan's mixed. Lots of gigs that I've played at the Billy Nael Pub. Oh man. How is Billy Nael in the flood? Oh, son of it. Just more towns. So many towns. Oh yeah. Am I being cohesive? Okay. I heard about the flood project on Facebook from yarn. And I know ya really well through recording and mixing and from him doing live sound at the Billy Nigel Pub and I saw that he'd put it out there and I thought, Oh yeah, I wanna be part of things that document this insane disaster in beautiful ways. Shelly Brown: So I put my hand out and I sent three songs in. That I had written and the process went forward from there. I was lucky enough to be included. I'm delighted to be included. What else are we talking about? Oh, goals, shit. Okay. Over the next 12 months, my goals in music are to continue. Stepping outside of my flood ravaged home and continue making ways for voices to be in harmony together. Shelly Brown: Because my house flooded, I couldn't teach in my home anymore, and so I started a choir in a local hall, which was incredibly lucky to be able to book because all of the community centers around here are now hosting all of the businesses that got flooded. So they're absolutely the most vibrant hubs you've ever seen because the towns got taken out. Shelly Brown: So I have a choir. And I'm not a choir teacher, Dunno how to do a choir at all. But I love teaching, singing and so I'm teaching choir, singing technique, Harmony, Joy, . It's my own brand of Fang and it's hilarious. And I take tea and picks and really you can't fault that. It's just the best. And I also teach songwriting and vocal joy workshops at SAE in Byron. Shelly Brown: They host me and they say, Hey Shelly, what do you wanna do? And I say, I wanna do this. And they said, Yeah, let's do that. Because they wanna support community people doing their thing as well, which is pretty awesome considering it's a worldwide I. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do that. , what else do I do? Shelly Brown: I also perform regularly here and there doing lots of little things. I had a gig this morning, I had a gig last week, and that's as good as it gets. Just gigs and music and singing and meeting people who love music. It's pretty joyful and lovely, and that's my goal. Just keep being, keeping being. No major girls, no opera house for me, not today, Shelly Brown: Okay. You can find my music at my website, which is shelly.com au. And you spell my name, s h e l l y, just like a shell sitting on a beach, just a shell. And then a y.com au. And you'll find all my music. Shelly Brown. On all of the things that you find music on because that's where it's fun. But you can track me down and we can jam live. Shelly Brown: Or if you wanna do a singing lesson via Zoom, then that's pretty jam fun as well. I'm fun in a square and I'm fun in real life, and that's as good as it gets. . Did I cover all the points? That's 11 minutes of Shelly being awesome. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thanks for listening to my song and thanks for having me as part of this flood project. Shelly Brown: It was a disastrous event that happened twice a month apart, and I'm delighted to be a part of things that are bringing light and joy and music and harmony from such a dark, catastrophic event. Thanks so much ya. You're the best. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: You, Shelly. Good. Let's move on to the next, and also the last artist of this episode. There are few more artists who will introduce at a later stage, but now let's hand it over to Jason Salu, also known as Zalo of Xlu and the Alchemist of Sound. Solo produced his song Acoustically First with Producer Shi Stone. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: She also recorded his vocals and did a phenomenal job. The production All app was eventually pieced together between lots of work from shi, also Salou did a lot of work at. Did some recordings guitar space backing vocals, and eventually the two panda drove over to me to saw through a larger puzzle of pro sessions and individual files, which yeah wasn't a big deal. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: I got it all sorted and had it up and running in no time. And yeah, this mix came together relatively. The signal quality was really nice and there was a really good energy, so both zao and use of I you did a phenomenal job. Let's hand over to Sao and have, listen to his story. Jason Zahlu: Hi, everyone out there. I am Solu. Local singer songwriter guitarist, music producer of the Byron Bay, Shy for over 20 years now. The kind of music that generally I write and love writing. I've been learning to produce my own records now for about five or seven years, doing a lot of studio work. Mainly focusing on eighties, electro sort of nineties funky house sort of stuff that I've been working on at home without the band, with covid and everything like that. Jason Zahlu: Also got like a folky, sort of rootsy sort of sound like to do with a solo acoustic mode. And the other sound is a sort of cycle, like grunge, rock, funk, rock, nineties sort of vibe. With my band at The Alchemist of Sound. I've worked with different musicians over the years since living in the Shire. I generally put bands together to record records, bass player, drummer, guitarist, keyboard players, and so forth. Jason Zahlu: Generally when the flood hit, I was working in my recording studio in Mullen, Bibi, and I was by myself. And it was raining a lot, obviously, you know, over the time relentlessly over days on end and, you know, got a knock at the door going, Hey, we've gotta go to higher ground. You know, the, the where near a river and it was coming onto the property. Jason Zahlu: Lucky for me it only come on like three a quarter on the property and it never came onto my cabin. And it never damaged any my equipment. I've heard all kinds of nightmare stories of other people. I lost everything. It's. after that experience I felt the need to write this song called Northern Rivers Rising. Jason Zahlu: now we were, we did evacuate the property and go to higher ground. So I was in that very vulnerable position where, which I've never been in before, where or what am I gonna take? What am I gonna leave? And I end up grabbing certain things just in case the place flooded. Like I lack top, you know, my, my, my guitars, my lyric books. Jason Zahlu: Hey, I can leave my studio monitors. They can be replaced. So it was quite a, a, a, a. The harrowing experience, even just being in that vulner position ended up putting my stuff in the car. We ended up going up to higher ground and, you know, the power was off and, you know, it never really flooded on my property, so I feel so blessed and lucky that didn't happen. Jason Zahlu: But unfortunately I did hear all kinds of tragic, heartbreaking stories of what happened in the, the whole Northern Rivers region, especially in the hills of the Landslips. And it was just crazy. And I was, you know, going through a bit of vicarious sort of trauma myself, hearing about these stories, even though generally I was okay and my gear was okay. Jason Zahlu: So, I mean, it was interesting because I've, I wrote this song called Northern Rivers Rising. It was more just acoustic guitar and vocal and I know yarn just for around the tracks for many years. And the, the ad popped up on his mix artist page on Facebook and I go, Wow. Well that's just a coincidence. Jason Zahlu: You know, I've written this song and thereafter songs about the floods, so therefore I, I submitted the song and. Hooked up with Sia and we sort of got together and talked about the direction and what we could do with the song. It was really just gonna start really as an acoustic guitar vocal song. And then, you know, I was kind of at home having a listen to it and I thought, Oh wow, you know, that's right. Jason Zahlu: I actually had to put like a beat down, like a click track, but put a beat down to play in time. Cause I was gonna go into another professional recording studio and do the, the vocals and the acoustic guitars with Sfia. So I ended up putting this beat down just to play along as a click track and, and it was a pretty cool beat, you know, it was a rock beat. Jason Zahlu: I thought, Wow, well, you know, wouldn't that be cool if we put some bass on? And then I put some bass down and like, Oh, wow, wouldn't it be good? Some with heavy guitars? And it sort of morphed, you know, I was just at home, I end up tracking you know, the, the, the track. A little bit more, so I'm putting some more overdub. Jason Zahlu: So it's gone from this solo acoustic guitar raw vocal that I submitted the original demo to More of a rock, kind of midnight oil kind of, kind of kind of song. And I really embraced, you know that, you know, Australian Aussie rock sound on this track, Senate Sapphire. And she was like, Oh yeah, kind of like that. Jason Zahlu: And. And she's like, Ah, you know, do you like the acoustic too? And, and then she ended up, we ended up deciding to go for, for the rock sound kind of thing. Because I find generally with songs, you know, I've learned over the years, you know, regardless I write who wrote it myself or who's gonna produce it, what does the song want, what does the song saying to me? Jason Zahlu: You know? And I, and I, I felt the song need a little bit more than just vocals. So I ended up tracking a lot of it here. The, the, the base, the over dubs on the, on the heavy guitars, and it needed some nice lead to put some lead on. Did a guide vocal, went into a more professional recording studio and did the vocals and guitars and then we fused the sessions together and gave it to yarn. Jason Zahlu: And that's that in a nutshell of the recording of Northern Rivers Rising. Generally in my personal life with my music, I've been doing a lot of music production. I've got a lot of content. I wasn't even going to write another song. I, you know, cause I've done so much recording. I find songs, I don't force them. Jason Zahlu: They naturally come outta me when the time is right and I really felt the need to, to write this song about the, what, what went on in my experience in the community with the floods the next. Sort of plans and visions for my music would more to get into the marketing side of things, to, to start, you know, getting more into the marketing and pushing my music out there a little bit more into the world stage. Jason Zahlu: Cause I've been focusing a lot more on music production, learning to be a music producer, which I have done now. I'm quite happy with, with, with the skills that I've learned over many years sitting in front of the computer. And the next stage is marketing. So that's where I. You can find my music of the records that I've recorded in the past. Jason Zahlu: I've got some, some rock stuff online. I've got some electrodes stuff online. My YouTube channel has some acoustic stuff. So there's three sounds you can find online. Xlu.com z a h h in the middle, Z a h l u.com. Spotify same Z a H Z. You'll find my records on there and YouTube with YouTube. Jason Zahlu: There's a few more film clips and some li a lot of live recordings. My band with the Alchemist to Sound and some of the electro stuff I'm doing and some acoustics. So you can find all the styles of the music I do on line YouTube. That's it for me. Take care. Really grateful that I am included on this amazing project. Jason Zahlu: Thanks to all involved. Take care, love life. Catch you later. Bye. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Okay. Thank you Sal. This is actually all that we have time for today. Actually this is. The latest episode I've ever produced, it is now almost midnight, and this episode is going live in just only four hours. I will promise to be better and not leave it for that late. Let me just say a huge thank you to all the musicians who contributed to the Flat Songs project. Three of them were not included In today's episode, we will have another special on the remaining three. Next week, of course. But I also would like to thank the musicians who played sessions. Like Dan Brown, for example. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Actually, we had two Dan Browns a drummer, , and a keyboard player, both volunteering their musical services, which is really appreciated. Also a huge shout out to Safari Stone and Nathan Stanborough, our producer team. They helped me so much. I couldn't have done it without him. And a huge extra thank also to Andy Stewart, who is now in charge with the mastering stage. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Also I'd like to thank the SE Institute who are very kind in donating some studio time. So this production, this album, this entire compilation. Pretty much produced between my studio in Mala mibi. Some of it was done at S SAE and quite a bit was actually done at home. Just the way it happens these days, which I believe is just right at the core of the Production Talk podcast. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: That's what we always talk about. Yeah. It's all coming together now, and I can't wait to show you the finished result once it's out, which will be very, Okay. That's all for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to reach out to me directly, of course you can do so via my website, Mix artist dot comu, where I offer studio recording services on the east coast of Australia. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: And of course, we also offer online mixed on services for musicians worldwide. Hit me up. Let's have a chat. I would love to get to know. Okay, that's all for today. It's almost midnight. It's time for me to tune out. I still have a bit of editing to do and catch a touch of sleep as well. So that's all for today. Jan 'Yarn' Muths: Bye for now. Speak to you next week.