Man missing after Boomtown as police and family share appealA 31-year-old man is missing after attending the Boomtown Fair festival in Hampshire earlier this month, with police and family appealing for his safe return.
Cameron Crowther went to the festival, which ran from August 9 to 13 this month, and police have shared a photo on social media.

#MISSING | We need your help to find Cameron who has gone #missing from #Birmingham.
The 31-year-old is 5ft 9ins tall and is known to have also recently travelled to Hampshire.
Anyone with information is asked to contact us via 999 and quote PID: 441705. pic.twitter.com/vG0O5lfVmd
— Birmingham Police (@BrumPolice) August 16, 2023

The 5 foot 9 festivalgoer has been described by his mother as mild-mannered in conversation but funny and charismatic. He has a beard and fair skin, and wears glasses.
He arrived at the festival on the 9th, and left on the 12th after losing his phone. The police picked him up on the M3 and took him to Basingstoke railway station, and it’s thought he travelled on to Bournemouth on the 13th.
His family believe he may have travelled to Winchester to pick up his belongings, and think he may still be in the area. They’re appealing for anybody who was on the 19:11 train from Basingstoke to Bournemouth to come forward if they have any information that could help. And, they’ve asked anyone with dashcam footage or doorbell cameras to get in touch with the police.
Crowther had a coach ticket from Boomtown to Birmingham, but it’s unknown whether he used it. He’d been to Boomtown previously, but this was his first time going alone.
Birmingham Police have asked anyone with potential information to contact them via 999 and quote PID: 441705. They’ve also shared some additional photos of Crowther on Twitter.

#MISSING | We have some new photos of Cameron as the search continues to find him.
Cameron has gone missing from #Birmingham.
The 31-year-old was last seen in #Basingstoke.
Anyone with information is asked to contact us via 999 and quote PID: 441705. https://t.co/a3bwAPjr59 pic.twitter.com/pbWtr6m2N5
— Birmingham Police (@BrumPolice) August 18, 2023

His mother, Jacqueline Bird, told ITV: “I’ve been calling him every day to contact me, and on the Monday morning, I was waiting for him to come home. He didn’t come home.”
The post Man missing after Boomtown as police and family share appeal appeared first on MusicTech.

Mixing elements of a project is like “playing Tetris”, says BreauskiIn partnership with BandLab Opportunities.
As part of MusicTech’s Bandlab Opportunities collaboration, we’re showcasing an artist with a Bandlab account who deserves more recognition for their music production skills. The artist in the spotlight is Breauski. He’s an upcoming artist from the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, who makes variety of genres in EDM, from bass house to trap, to dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass.

READ MORE: Robb McDaniels’ Beatport wants to cultivate a new wave of creators and build “the Connected DJ Booth” of the future

We’re instantly hooked by Breauski’s – real name Jake – sound and approach to sound design, so ask him what his approach is to making music. We cover what hardware he uses, how he creates intriguing sounds using plugins like Serum, and his tips for EQing, and letting all the components of a song fit together like blocks in a game of Tetris.

Hey Jake! What’s your story?
I got into music production in high school. A buddy of mine’s older brother had turntables, and he was really deep into house music, so we would go to my buddy’s house and mess around on his techniques and his brother’s Technics [turntables]. Then we started getting really heavily into drum ‘n’ bass in the mid-late 90s. It kind of just grew from there. We started buying our own turntables, spinning parties and stuff like that.
I’ve been doing music production as a labour of love. It’s not something that can sustain me financially right now, but whenever I can get a chance to be in the studio and work on something I’m excited about, I’ll hop in there and start working on it.
Who are your favourite artists and how do you channel that influence into your sound?
Aphex Twin, Alix Perez, Chase & Status, Badjokes, Camo & Krooked, Noisia, G Jones to name a few! I’ll usually try to deconstruct anything they do that I like. It’s kind of like when you hear a track and something stands out and you’re like “Wow, that was really cool. I wonder how they did that?” and then I just experiment and play around and try to achieve a similar effect.
What’s been a standout collaboration for you?
I’ve collaborated with a few artists. One that sticks out is a vocalist by the name of Sedia B on our track Income. She brings such a fun and wild energy and I love her vibe and tone in general in the composition. Another Charlotte-based DJ/Producer buddy of mine Joneses AKA Rogue Inertia. He’s a talented artist and definitely someone to keep an eye on.
Breauski in his home studio
You’re a diverse producer. How do you know which genre you’re going to make on a given day?
I’ll grab a sample – sometimes I start with a sample or a bass sound I like – then, I use it as a catalyst and build off that sound, adding components that give it a nice catch and release. They need to play well together. If it works better at 72 beats per minute, like for a trap song, I’ll go down that route. If it sounds more house-y, I’ll lean in that direction.
Tell us about your setup.
I use Apple Logic Pro. I use Xfer Records’ Serum and Native Instruments’ Massive for synths. For beats and drums, I use a bit of Native instruments’ Maschine. And then, I have a couple of Yamaha HS8s.
Are you more of a gear nerd or a plugin-based producer?
I used the Moog Sub Phatty for a while [for] working on basslines. I’ve also had a few keyboards in the past but I feel more comfortable working with soft synths. I would love to delve into working with more external gear, like patch-based synthesis, but the [modules] tend to be pricier. So, it’s a bit challenging to dip your toes in when the entry cost is around $2,000 for a good synth.
I would love to get something like an old Roland Juno or a Jupiter; one of those classic pieces. I’m familiar with many of those sounds and that hardware, given my deep interest in synthesizers. However, when it comes down to it, I usually rely on soft synths.

Are there particular plugins you always find yourself coming back to?
Recently, Serum. Every sound packs such a strong punch. There’s a lot of synthesis you can do in it, and it’s pretty easy. It’s like playschool compared to Massive but in terms of oscillators and getting everything dialled in, Serum simplifies things. I mostly use it for basslines and things like that.
For melodies, I might opt for Alchemy or other Logic Pro synths, like ES2, which is a good-grade synth. I use that a lot. Also, I use Alchemy and Massive for synths, pads, and the like.
And what about a secret weapon plugin?
Dada Life’s Sausage Fattener.
Do you have any music production tips you’d like to share?
When you’re finished, make sure to compress where necessary, especially on essentials like kick and snare. Not everything, but certain elements like the kick and snare are vital in electronic music to break through the mix.
Getting your kick and sub to harmonise is crucial – properly EQing both is key. One of the most significant things I learned was how to compress and sidechain the kick and sub effectively. Also, use subtractive EQ; less is more. It’s better to remove frequencies than to boost. I used to over-boost, but it resulted in poor sound quality. With subtractive EQing, you can free up space for other sounds to shine in their areas.
Remember, there’s limited space for all these sounds, so arranging them is like playing Tetris, ensuring they coexist and have their own place in the mix.
Check out Breauski’s music on ReverbNation.
Editor’s note: BandLab is a subsidiary of Caldecott Music Group, which MusicTech, NME Networks, is also part of. 
The post Mixing elements of a project is like “playing Tetris”, says Breauski appeared first on MusicTech.

SynthFest UK 2023 Announced The largest synthesizer event of its kind in the UK returns to the Octagon, Sheffield this October on Saturday 7th October 10:30am to 6:30pm.

Nvidia’s Q2 earnings prove it’s the big winner in the generative AI boomNvidia’s second-quarter earnings, which were reported Wednesday after markets closed, prove there is money to be made — and lots of it — selling the picks and shovels of the generative AI boom.
“A new computing era has begun. Companies worldwide are transitioning from general-purpose to accelerated computing and generative AI,” Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement.
Huang isn’t wrong. Nvidia has become the main supplier of the generative AI industry. The company’s A100 and H100 AI chips are used to build and run AI applications, notably OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Demand for these demanding applications has grown steadily over the last year, and infrastructure is shifting to support them.
A number of cloud service providers recently announced plans to adopt Nvidia H100 AI hardware in their data centers, according to Huang, who added that enterprise IT system and software providers also announced partnerships to bring Nvidia AI to every industry.
“The race is on to adopt generative AI,” he said.
Nvidia reported revenue of $13.51 billion in the second quarter, a figure that crushed Wall Street expectations and was double the $6.7 billion it generated in the same period last year. Analysts polled by Yahoo Finance forecast Q2 revenue of $11.22 billion.
Nvidia reported GAAP net income of $6.18 billion compared to $656 million it earned in the same year-ago period — upwards of a ninefold gain. Nvidia’s net income skyrocketed even from the first quarter when it reported earnings of $2.04 billion. Its earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $2.48, up 854% from same period last year. Analysts polled by Yahoo finance expected earnings per diluted share of $2.09.
The results show how dramatically its business has changed. The company’s gaming unit was once the main driver of revenue. And while gaming is growing — its Q2 revenue was $2.49 billion, up 22% from last year — it’s now overshadowed by its data center unit. Nvidia’s data center business generated $10.32 billion in revenue, up 141% from the previous quarter and up 171% from a year ago.
Huang said earlier this month during a keynote at SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles that the company made an existential business decision in 2018 to embrace AI-powered image image processing in the form of ray tracing and intelligent upscaling: RTX and DLSS.

Nvidia CEO: We bet the farm on AI and no one knew it

That bet has paid off. And Nvidia has forecast even more growth.
The company forecast revenue of $16 billion for the third quarter, plus or minus 2%.
“The world has something along the lines of about a trillion dollars worth of data centers installed in the cloud,” Huang said during the company’s earnings call Wednesday. “And that trillion dollars of data centers is in the process of transitioning into accelerated computing and generative AI. We’re seeing two simultaneous platform shifts at the same time.”
He said accelerated computing is the most cost effective, most energy effective and the most performant way of doing computing now. Now, computing, enabled by generative AI, has come along.
“This incredible application now gives every everyone two reasons to transition to do a platform shift from general purpose computing — the classical way of doing computing — to this new way of doing computing accelerated computing,” he said.

SEC charges former corrections officer for role in bizarre crypto scamJohn A. DeSalvo allegedly solicited ICO money from police and orchestrated a pump and dump on PancakeSwap shortly after.

Serato Sample 2.0 puts stem separation directly into your DAW – a production gamechanger?Auckland-based software developer Serato has released Sample 2.0, bringing stem separation technology as a plugin for your DAW for the first time. The new version of the sampling software also boasts a tweaked workflow for a workflow that’s “simpler than ever before,” the company says.
READ MORE: Group test: Six of the best stem separation tools in 2023
Following an early preview by content creator Ave McCree yesterday (22 Aug) and six years after version 1, Serato Sample 2.0 is now officially available to download. It packs a “proprietary machine-learning algorithm,” according to the brand, that allows you to quickly isolate and manipulate the instrumentation of any sample.

MusicTech has test-driven an early-release model of the plugin and can confirm that, yes, it’s incredibly easy to separate samples into stems. To do so, you’ll load the Serato Sample 2.0 plugin onto a MIDI channel in your DAW, import a sample from your computer, and isolate or remove a ‘stem’ using the dedicated panel.
There are options to create an acapella, remove a vocal line, isolate a drum beat, extract the entire backline, or dissect a groovy bassline.
The results aren’t perfect, but you’ll likely be impressed with what’s instantly possible.
Serato Sample 2.0. Image: Serato
With the Serato Sample workflow, you’ll be able to chop up the sample and play them in realtime on your keyboard or MIDI controller, too. Parameters for level, filter cutoff, attack, release, key shift and more are available per sample, too.
Also included in Sample 2.0 is Serato DJ’s trusted Pitch ‘n Time technology. This allows you to time-stretch and change the key of your sample with “best-in-class” sound quality, Serato says.
Grammy-winning producer !llmind (who has produced for the likes of Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and Drake) said, “Sampling used to be just chopping and stretching songs. Now, I get instant access to audio stems in my DAW. [Sample 2.0] completely changes the game.”
This isn’t the first time stem separation technology has been made available – software such as Hit’N’Mix’s RipX DeepRemix/DeepAudio is one notable program that superbly carries out the task. With Serato bringing the tech in a plugin, though, we will surely see many beatmakers’ workflow change.
Keep your eyes peeled on MusicTech for a full review of the software.
You can buy Serato Sample 2.0 now for $149 or subscribe for $10 per month.
Learn more at serato.com.
The post Serato Sample 2.0 puts stem separation directly into your DAW – a production gamechanger? appeared first on MusicTech.

Songwriters are worried about BMI’s private equity sale – and if it will hurt their royalties. What happens now?MBW has heard rumors from senior music biz figures that BMI has explored talks with a number of potential backers/suitors, with the latest name on the lips of the business being New Mountain Capital
Source

Karol G at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CAColombian singer Karol G has been an unstoppable force in Latin music. In February, she became the first female artist to reach #1 on Billboard Top 200 with a Spanish-language album with her fourth studio album Mañana Será Bonito. Karol G’s musical formula is easy to gravitate to, she is not afraid to experiment and mix genres of reggaetón, trap, regional Mexican, Brazilian sertanejo and pop. In April she announced her tour in support of the album, her Pasadena, CA stop at the Rose Bowl (capacity of 92,542 seats) was one of the first to sell out. A second stop date was added and also sold out very quickly, cementing her as one of the biggest acts in music. 

When I arrived to watch her performance on Aug. 18 at the Rose Bowl, everywhere I looked fans were dressed up in Y2K-inspired outfits and a sea of the color pink - an homage to Karol G’s current hair color. The show began with an animated film story narrated by one of the most recognizable voices in Hollywood, Morgan Freeman. The short clips would help divide the concert into different segments. Using the same cartoon characters found on the cover of Mañana Será Bonito, the story followed a mermaid named Carolina (Karol’s real name) who journeyed to rediscover her most bichota self after suffering from a frozen heart and losing her light. The word "Bichota" comes from the Puerto Rican slang "bichote," a drug dealer or someone in charge of criminal operations. Karol G gave the word a new meaning of empowerment and self-confidence. 

An inflated mermaid set the stage, as the Colombian superstar appeared sporting a diamond bodysuit, oversized shades and fuzzy white boots performing her biggest hit-to-date “TQG.” Karol G is all about girl power, she was joined by a full female band and a big (mostly women) dance squad. The entire show was filled with elaborate dances that helped fill out the enormous stage and runway. Karol G is a natural onstage with her fiercely strong raspy vocals. With the biggest smile on her face, she addressed the crowd in Spanish the entire night -- often making cheeky remarks, reading the signs her fans held and hyping the crowd up. She’s also a skilled dancer, keeping up effortlessly with her dancers to the reggaeton beats and sensual choreography. 

During each segment of her show, Karol G would disappear from the stage and re-appear with new stage sets and costumes. One of the most memorable moments was when she appeared riding on an enormous white cloud to perform the emotionally tearful ballad "Ocean."

Long setlists seem to be the new norm, as Karol G performed a total of 36 songs including fan favorites “AMARGURA” and “Tusa.” It’s been an eventful month for the songstress as she released a new mixtape Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season) on Aug. 11. It’s a companion piece to Mañana Será Bonito, which includes remixes, brand-new songs and features artists Peso Pluma, Kali Uchis, Tiësto and more. The mixtape was the main celebration of the night as she performed a lot of tracks from the album including OKI DOKI, “Mi Ex Tenía Razón” and “QLONA.” She also invited show opener Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko to the stage for a first-time performance of their duet “DISPO.”

Karol G kept fans on their feet with the song selection. She had a segment dedicated to her Mexican discography which earned the biggest cheers from the crowd. Backed by an accordion, guitar and tuba player, Karol G borrowed a cowboy hat from the crowd to get the mood going as she began with “GUCCI LOS PAÑOS.” As the crowd screamed with anticipation for more regional Mexican, she gave a toast and took a shot of tequila with the crowd before singing “200 Copas.”

The last segment of the night was filled with all the high-energy hype songs. Fireworks erupted as Karol G ended the night with the bombastic hits “Provenza” and “MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO REMIX.” As Morgan Freeman told us during the show “La bitchota was a force to be reckoned with.”

For more on Karol G, visit karolgmusic.com

Set List:

TQG

Besties

Mi Cama

EL BARCO

X SI VOLVEMOS

Tusa

AMARGURA

BICHOTAG

OKIDOKI

UNA NOCHE EN MEDELLÍN REMIX

 QLONA

Sejodioto

Punto G

BICHOTA

EL MAKINON

DISPO (with Young Miko)

CAROLINA

GATÚBELA

TA OK REMIX

Ocean

PERO TÚ

MERCURIO

A Ella

Creéme

MIENTRAS ME CURO DEL CORA

OJOS FERRARI

TUS GAFITAS

CAIRO

GUCCI LOS PAÑOS

200 COPAS

MI EX TENÍA RAZÓN

MAMIII (Becky G x KAROL G cover)

AMARGURA

PROVENZA

PROVENZA - REMIX Tiësto

MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO REMIX

So there’s an interesting link between Morrison Hotel Gallery and the team that built Concord…The Concord connection here is strong...
Source

Five of our favourite moments from Field Day 2023This year’s edition of Field Day festival is over. The dust has settled in London’s Victoria Park; the stages taken down. All we can do now is reminisce on what a brilliant day it was for dance music.

READ MORE: The Aphex Twin machine causes chaos at Field Day 2023

We saw none other than Aphex Twin deliver an expectedly mind-blowing headline show. TSHA performed with a full band for just the fifth time. SBTRKT continued his return to the fore, playing his new album. Fever Ray got real weird on the East Stage. Jon Hopkins elevated the West Stage with a live techno-tinged set. And what’s more – it was sunny! We’ve gathered some of our favourite memories from the day-long event.
Jayda G’s sparkling DJ set

Fresh off the back of her new album, Canadian-born, London-based Jayda G, embodied a sense of celebration during her DJ set on the East Stage. Playing in the mid-afternoon, she fired through her usual collection of feel-good house music, getting the huge crowd warmed up for the day’s antics.
It was when she played her track Both Of Us, though, that the crowd really sparked into life. Now a usual sight in Jayda’s sets, she came right out to the crowd, clapping with them as the track built up its piano-laden drop.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jayda G (@jaydagmusic)

Check out Jayda G’s tour date via jaydag.com.
Arca’s fiery homecoming show

For Arca, her 7.25 pm slot on the East stage warming up for AFX was evidently important. The Venezuelan, real name Alejandra Ghersi Rodríguez, used to live in London, she told the crowd, so it meant a lot to feel such a warm reception. And she sounded so good. As she sang with pure sass through her mega mixture of IDM, reggaeton, avant-pop, and techno, performing tracks such El Alma Que Te Trajo and Rakata, she found her feet. We were also a huge fan of the leather outfit, topped off by a Batman-esque eye mask.
See when Arca is next performing near you at arca1000000.com.
Mount Kimbie’s Street View visuals
Mount Kimbie at Field Day
Mount Kimbie’s Kai Campos didn’t hold back with his modular synth-fueled techno set at the North Arena stage on Saturday. When both members of the band play live, it’s a calmer affair. When it’s just Kai, it seems, things get a bit harder. It was a fun introduction to the event at the early time of 4 pm and left many – who perhaps weren’t aware of Kai Campos’ modular techno sound – feeling pretty puzzled.
Mount Kimbie at Field Day
The funniest thing about the set though was the visuals. A massive LED screen behind Campos’ head displayed Google Maps Street View images, which at times felt strangely intrusive and at others were plain hilarious. It was incredibly strange to see various blurred faces appear on such a large scale to the eerie backdrop of Campos’ brilliant live set, saw a Doepfer synth at its centre.
Find out where you can catch Mount Kimbie live via mountkimbie.com.
Bonobo’s live band bonanza
Credit: Sarah Louise Bennett
While Aphex Twin’s mind-boggling set was the talk of the festival, for those looking for something a bit mellower in the build-up, Bonobo’s headline show hit the spot. As the sun set, he gently cruised through tracks from 2017’s Migration and 2022’s Fragments, making moments of musical magic. While Bonobo’s DJs sets are of course exciting, this was a live set with Bonobo’s full band, which was certainly a sight to behold..
See when Bonobo’s next playing live via bonobomusic.com.
Elkka’s dance workout
Andrew Whitton
Elkka, who showed off her home production setup to MusicTech in 2022, joined the Field Day lineup relatively last minute. Playing a DJ set on the BBC 6 Music stage, she joined the likes of Chloé Robinson, quest?onmarq and Anastasia Kristensen to add to the playfully energetic vibes provided all day long in the unique, domed stage.
She also played her own, forthcoming new hard-hitting track full of thumping drums and swirling synths, which sent the crowd into a frenzy.
Check out Elkka’s tour dates via elkka.com.
The post Five of our favourite moments from Field Day 2023 appeared first on MusicTech.

Arthelion Releases MOLOSS II FREE hybrid synth plugin for Windows.
Arthelion releases MOLOSS II, a free synth plugin for Windows. MOLOSS II is a reworking of the original MOLOSS I hybrid synth. Some of you might remember we covered MOLOSS I back in 2019, and many of you felt it had potential but wasn’t quite there yet. As a free and open-source plugin, we expected [...]
View post: Arthelion Releases MOLOSS II FREE hybrid synth plugin for Windows.

“Now you can do an orchestral piece on a computer with 200 tracks – but it’s good to impose your own restrictions”: Calvin Harris on the benefits of limitation in music productionThough he’s now one of the most successful and acclaimed DJs in the world – with millions of streams and millions of record sales to his name – Calvin Harris, like so many DJs and producers, came from humble beginnings.
In a new interview with BBC Sounds, the Scottish DJ recalls starting his music-making journey using an old Amiga 500 Plus desktop computer his older brother left at home when he went off to university.

READ MORE: “I’ve never used a MIDI instrument in my life”: Jack Antonoff on his love of analogue gear

“I made my first album on that, actually. I used it long after I should have stopped using it,” he admits.
“I used to play a lot of computer games on it, and then my brother got this very sort of primitive – it was called a tracker programme – so you’d have four channels running vertically, and you could input samples on those vertical channels. Then you’d hit the spacebar and it would start playing. And as the line crossed these little inputs, it would [make drum sounds].
Commodore Amiga 500. Credit: James Sheppard/Future via Getty Image
“So I loved it – it was like playing a computer game, but actually you were making something at the end of it, so it was kind of creative.”
Harris goes on to highlight the importance of restriction in music making, and how it can actually be more beneficial than having limitless access to more and more channels and possibilities.
“It taught me to be very selective about what I put in my own tunes, simply because I only have five channels. So everything that was there had to be there for a reason. Now it’s limitless, isn’t it – you can have thousands [of channels].
“But I think if you learn how to do something and you’re very restricted – there were some songs that I couldn’t put a crash symbol in and a chorus vocal at the same time, it would take up too much memory. So I had to decide, would I put in this riff, or would I put in this hi-hat, you know?
He continues: “You can do anything now. And all the programmes are so advanced. You can literally go from doing nothing to doing an orchestral piece with 200 tracks, but I think it’s a good idea to impose your own restrictions sometimes, and work to that.”
The post “Now you can do an orchestral piece on a computer with 200 tracks – but it’s good to impose your own restrictions”: Calvin Harris on the benefits of limitation in music production appeared first on MusicTech.

Orchestral Tools introduce Baroque Bundle Orchestral Tools are celebrating the release of the SINE version of Berlin Harpsichords by offering it as a bundle with their Miroire library.

The Chemical Brothers and Beck join forces for new single Skipping Like a StoneThe Chemical Brothers have teamed up with singer-songwriter Beck on new single, Skipping Like a Stone.

READ MORE: “I want to use chords I never used before”: Pharrell teases new N.E.R.D music

Speaking about the collaboration, Beck exclaims his love for the duo’s “great predilection for exploration.”
“They kind of sit in an unusual place between different eras of electronic music and DJ culture,” he adds. “It’s like they have one foot in multiple decades at the same time in a way that is utterly unique among their peers.”
The single is planned to appear on The Chemical Brother’s newest 11-track record For That Beautiful Feeling, set for release on 8 September 2023.
It will include a previously released single No Reason, as well as a new mix of The Darkness That You Fear and Live Again.
According to the band, a month after the album is released, they will also release a new book about their relationship and history with electronic music.
You can listen to the new track, Skipping Like a Stone, below:

In other news, the UK government is upgrading the church famously features on the album art of their 1998 compilation album Brothers Gonna Work It Out from a Grade II listed site to a Grade II* site.
Upgrades to the status of Our Lady of Fatima, which is situated in Essex, came after a recommendation from Historic England in a bid to protect its historical and architectural significance.
The post The Chemical Brothers and Beck join forces for new single Skipping Like a Stone appeared first on MusicTech.

James Blake and André 3000 are sitting on months worth of unreleased musicJames Blake has revealed he spent months working with rapper André 3000 on new music, but there’s a chance that none of it will be released.

READ MORE: The second single, Loading, from James Blake’s next album is here

Blake, revealing the news on the Broken Record podcast, tells host Leah Rose about working with the Outkast member, referring to the 48-year-old as a “living icon”.
Although the pair did release the collaborative track Where’s the Catch for Blake’s 2019 album, Assume Form, “they did months” in the studio, he says. However, André recently told the same podcast that he plans to release no new music in the future.

“It sounds like you have a lot of music that hasn’t been released yet.” Rose says. “Yeah,” Blake responds plainly. When asked if fans will be able to hear any of the music, he says, “I hope so.”
“My god, you’re dealing with a living icon.” Blake praises André. “It’s almost surprising to hear something new come from that person because you’re so used to the songs that exist, it seems impossible that they can be created. It feels like they were just divinely put somewhere and you found them like precious metals.
He goes on to say how lucky he feels to work with so many amazing musicians, but “in this case with André, he just had to pinch myself a bit.”

Also in the podcast episode, Blake, whose seventh album Playing Robots into Heaven, is set to be released in September, talks about working with Def Jam founder and revered producer, Rick Rubin.
Rubin taught Blake to “remember what it is that you have the most unique perspective on”, he says, and while many might criticise his hands-off approach, Rubin’s “big picture” perspective is invaluable.
On helping artists as a producer himself, he adds that “producers are supposed to change your life”.
“The most successful sessions with people I’ve ever had, I’ve enabled them to look at a song in a certain way or be confident in a way that they previously didn’t back because people were telling them ‘it’s not this, it’s not that’.”
“What I do in the studio is encourage them to be them. That’s something that people in the mainstream don’t often hear – there’s more reason to play it safe.”
Check out the latest single, Loading, from James Blake’s forthcoming album via YouTube. Find more episodes of the Broken Record podcast via pushkin.fm.
The post James Blake and André 3000 are sitting on months worth of unreleased music appeared first on MusicTech.