On Saturday 29th March 2014, in full costume dress, around 100 voices from The Dowsing Sound Collective (and beat boxer Skilly Skillz) were locked away in the unlikely setting of the Cambridge Union Society Debating Chamber for the filming and recording of a new collaboration with global stars Basement Jaxx. The band (Felix Buxton & Simon Ratcliffe) had seen Dowsing perform live in the Cambridge Corn Exchange in December, and approached us to feature as part of the launch of Power to the People, their new online global video/music project. The concept behind the project is that musicians, singers, dancers and film makers from all over the world can collaborate to create and upload their own versions of the new track onto powertothepeople.fm. Visitors to the site will be able to choose individual elements of the song recorded in different styles and languages; for instance a vocal recorded in Spain with a drum beat from Brazil - essentially making their own mix of the track in a ground-breaking open source approach to creating music. The project underlines the point that everything is connected and connects globally through song and dance with a peoples anthem in different styles and languages, highlighting the diversity of creativity within musical and dance forms. The project will link everyone involved with creators from all around the world. It has been a massively exciting project for us, although a little time pressured! But the band wanted us to create something that can be used at the launch in August 2014, and we said yes. Our approach was to create a voice-only four-choir arrangement with each choir taking the lead at different times… for a group that predominantly can’t read music (and one that usually performs with a 12 piece band!) it was a great challenge. We were also thrilled to involve beat-boxer Sklly Skillz, who performed in front of the Queen as part of her Jubilee celebrations in 2012, and were lucky enough to have headphones (essential for the recording process!) provided by leading audio specialists Bowers & Wilkins (bowers-wilkins.co.uk). For more information see: thedowsingsoundcollective basementjaxx powertothepeople.fm
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 18:08:36 +0000