Mucha na Dziko

Hi, I'm sorry for the delay
I went with my parents and my little sister to a cabin in the woods, down by the seaside, so I hadn't much internet there.

You know, usually I don't think in terms of genres, especially when talking about inspiration. Usually I'm just making music, inspired by a song, or a feeling, or a situation I've been in, etc.
When I think too much about the music I'm making then I'm not making much music at all.
And that's what's happening to me for the last 2-3 months or so. That's why I have far less tracks coming out on my soundcloud account.

I like to think of the songs I make as belonging to the genre "Gustaw Witomski"

But, I'll try to decipher the basic influence




That's a funny one actually.

You see, my parents bought an apartment in the south of France a couple of years ago.
In a lovely town called Sète.

(it was home to George Brassens – a French poet and musician, I don't know whether you know him for not [if not: check him out]).

Last year, I've thought of inviting some friends over there. Me and my girlfriend were staying there for over a month, and people where allowed to come in and out whenever they wanted.
I've invited my best friend (who also happens to be the guitarist of my band) and his girlfriend, my friends from high school, and among them - Winceny (Vincent).

We were great friends back then (not so much currently, and not so much when I was recording the track), and he was supposed to come during the last week of my stay there.

He wasn't much of a musician.

During those holidays I was playing around with some chords, that I didn't know where to put, and on the first day Wincenty came he said he wanted to learn to play reggae (so, you know, we could smoke a joint and play some reggae).

So I taught him the basic thing of hitting on the one and on the off-beat, and as he couldn't play the chords, I played guitar and he played bass. He was struggling to play, so I told him to just play the root notes.
And I started to play the chords that I had laying around.

And then it happened. We had just two-three chords, but the joy we had from playing that thing was just otherworldly. We spent the whole week playing just this one song.

It didn't have much to do with Reggae.

Because he came right at noon, and we smoked a joint before playing it, we called it "Na Samym Południu" (which is a wordplay in polish on the title of the film "High Noon". In polish the movie is called "W Samo Południe" (which means "Right at Noon" while "Na Samym Południu" means "On The Far South", so...where we were at)

Afterwards I went back home, to where I've then lived – Paris (I hated to live there. It was an emotional nightmare).
At the time I've listened to a lot to "Analog Africa" (the label) and Ananda Shankar.
In the original recordings we played it on electric bass and acoustic guitar, and the only part that exited so far was the third one (The Am to Emaj loop).

I wrote the Dmaj and Emin parts alone, and then arranged (acoustic guitar; classical guitar; sitar; piano; electric bass; tambourine; tape loops) and recorded the song.

So, what it was supposed to be was reggae, but then it turned into jam music, and then I turned it into what it is now after listening to a lot of 70s African recordings.


I have no idea what's MPB, so I guess that's not where I've found my influence.
Is it worth checking out?
What kind of music is it?



I wrote it after discovering you can play the whole guitar neck down with chords half-step apart.
I really liked how it was adding this jazzy feel to progressions, so I started playing around and what came out was the part with the „you look for someone” line.

I think it’s that half-step walk down that gives the track it’s „beatle feel”. Maybe also the Bmin chord at the near end of each loop.
Anyway, I’m a massive Beatles fanatic, so no wonder they influence probably anything I do.

Then I added the II-V-I part that comes afterwards.

The thing started to sound to me like something you could do a slow dance to during prom in the 50s, but felt a bit jazzy at the same time, and I wanted to really make it seem that way with the guitar solo.
Strangely enough I recorded it in 3 takes if I remember correctly, which is one hell of a feat for me, as usually I need more like 20-30 takes to get a nice solo done.

Needless to say, I’m pretty happy with the effect.

So basically the song has the „slow dance late at night somewhere during the 50s” (imaginary) genre influence.


Mine Are Fine

My then-girlfriend was a shoegaze/new wave/grunge fan, and she never really enjoyed the music I was making at the time.
I mean, yeah, sure, she did like it occasionally, but in a general matter...I wasn't her favourite artist.

So basically I wanted to make myself a challenge of making a song that would fit her taste in music.

Anyway, I just got my first delay pedal, and I managed to acquire two additional amps with built in distortion.
After listening to some ****ty modern rock music, I turned up the delay and distortion and started to slide my fingers up and down the fretboard to find something cool sounding, and what came out pretty instantly was the final riff.

The rest was fairly easy. Apart from the solo, which, as mentioned above, I've spent 30 or something takes to get right. I'm very proud of it though, especially compositionally wise, as it was the first time I've consciously changed keys in a song.

Long story short, she did like it, but she dumped me anyway 6 months ago, after three years together.
There's still this cool song though

So the influences would be shoe gaze and 2000s rock I guess


まだ !

Here I actually have two artists who specifically influenced the song.
Just before writing it I discovered Donovan (I knew he existed, but prior to this I've never particularly listened to him), and at the same time I discovered Shintaro Sakamoto (a Japanese musician, he had a cult band in the 80s an 90s, and in the early 2000 he started a solo career - miles ahead of his previous work - if you don't know him, I highly recommend you check out his album "Love If Possible" and then work your way from there).

The bassline was the first to get made. I was amazed at myself that I can write such a weird thing, and it's feel reminded me of Donovan's work somehow.
So I wanted to make the whole song sound "donovanish", but after recording the whole instrumental thing I thought it might be better to go the Sakamoto way and I improvised a vocal line that was supposed to sound "Japanese".

It wasn't supposed to mean anything, just have this Japanese feel, but it turns out some of the words actually do mean something, like "まだ" (the title, "mada") that means "more".

All in all, Sakamoto and Donovan.



Thanks

I guess my default state of mind is bittersweet and nostalgic.


Oh, that’s cool

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