New Release: Excuse Me Madame

Ok… this isn’t exactly a new release, but it’s been freshened up a bit and newly mastered by Charley Webb. Charley gave me some pointers on tightening up the lows in my mix, which helped increase the clarity and depth throughout. I think that’s most apparent in the background percussion parts, and certainly in the big chorused Rhodes part after the A section. Great teacher, great results! Thanks, Yoda.

This track was built around the bass, which, as many producers will recognize, is the Scarbee Rickenbacker from Native Instruments. I opened a new session, loaded it up in Kontakt and was instantly amazed by the grit, tone and playability of this instrument. I knew that Thomas Scarbee does some incredibly intricate sampling, but the effects and amp modeling really takes it to a new level. Within minutes, I had the chorus baseline laid down, which called me somewhere I hadn’t ventured before… bossa nova!

Throughout the late 90’s, I got deep into downtempo, acid jazz and lounge music. The tracks that always seemed to peak my interest leaned away from the boom bap of hip hop, and towards a more refined and nuanced sound. They had a slightly shuffled backbeat, simple percussive polyrhythms and wonderfully lush chord progressions. I quickly learned this was bossa nova.

So here I am with this gritty, bouncing baseline. Through trial and error, I managed to piece together a chord progression to follow, just don’t ask me what key it’s in. Then came the shakers, agogo and cowbells, which for me is the easy part. Orlando jazz guitar guru, Mike Ryan, came by to add some melodic parts throughout, and most impressively the dual parts and solo to end out the song.

As the song neared completion, I realized that the A section melody wasn’t nearly as corny and quirky as I wanted it to be. It reminded me of the super groovy, melodic instrumentals that you’d hear in the early days of The Price is Right as Rod Roddy was telling us about the next item up for bid. A couple of synth layers later, it had all come together. I like to describe this track as the soundtrack to Bob Barker’s 1970’s trip to Rio de Janeiro.

Agora a gente dança!