Kiana Li

'A Faint Glow of Bravery' - an overview (pt. 1)

Added 2024-01-19 16:00:09 +0000 UTC

"... this EP was a long journey for me to find something less "describable" and less conventional in terms of emotional meaning. Drum and bass is a genre with so much intensity and energy but it's important for me (and back then I began to realize that) to harness that emotion and point it to somewhere that was more pin-pointed and targeted, and explore dynamics not only in the technical sense ... and to portray something that was deeper and harder to understand."

Timestamps:

0:10 - An introduction to the music and the personal sentiment it contains. The backdrop of winter inspiring and stirring all manner of emotion and the process of writing being a way to weather the cold winter, and a push to realize ambition.

05:00 - Introduction to 'Maybes'

05:45 - Eastern Margins @ E1 - NTS x Diesel Tracks. A pivotal gig that broadened and shook up my perspective when it came to dance music and its audiences.

10:20 - Diving into the stems of 'Maybes'.

13:20 - Break processing, and stacking layers of compression incl. sidechain.

16:30 - Demonstration of Eventide Omnipressor, upwards compression.

18:10 - Explaining certain mixdown choices (& limitations) as a result of working on only closed-back headphones. Midrange mixing on the track.

21:00 - Filtered percussion demonstration.

23:50 - More synthwork.

26:00 - A look into a scrapped demo that was closely connected to the project - 'So Soon'

29:50 - Looking into the project file.

32:50 - Diving into the project file of 'French Grey'. Slow sludgy moving doom.

34:40 - Working with a mastering engineer.

36:30 - Focus on the drum programming and building the loop with oneshots vs breakbeat samples.

40:00 - Addition of a filtered and controlled break sample to add texture and grit and space.