Obsession, it's fair to say, is one of my strong suits. Not just in art, but in love. The thrill of the hunt and the hint of forbidden fruit only add fuel to a fire that already burns hot.
WOOP is an epic love battle Royale, where the showdown... goes down.... in the studio. If you haven't seen the video yet... u can watch it here:
Every note in this track was played into my DAW by hand using the MIDI keyboard -- or in some instances (specifically certain parts of the complex arpeggiated patterns) drawn in. I did it all without sequencers or arpeggiators. All sounds were created with Analogue Solutions mono synths Leipzig, Nyborg and Telemark with textures from a Juno 60 and a little digital grit in the bass courtesy of Omnisphere. Sadly all the hardware synths burned in the fire, but when I look into the future, I see Magic Powers Studios being bigger, stronger, and better than before.
(If u would like to donate a synth in exchange for content, please contact me.)
Birth of the Recording:
I wrote this song on a beautiful day during a walk around the block. I started hearing the words in between kakao chat messages with the anonymous subject. I was so in the moment of feeling this person, and so deep in the craving, I thought about how I needed to build a time machine so I could go back to when we were in high school and change the course of history. Get him to fall for meeee.
I got back to my studio and the first thing I did was start playing in some kicks and snares. I used the Ultrabeat drum module in Logic loaded up with a few of my favorite vintage drum machine samples. I'm not someone who uses samples very often, but when I do it's for drums and explosions. Then I started working out the bass. I wanted to have a really 80s sounding bass so I went for the straight ahead 8th notes and started stacking some poly chords over the top to give it that special sound.
Took me a while to figure out HOW to get all the sounds from my HEAD into the logic file... but I kept at it and WOOP began to take shape.
Throwing the pitch-bent Juno-60 motif over the chorus was a magic moment for me.
I didn't have my mic set up at the time and didn't want to break the flow by stopping and finding it and plugging it in and all that, so I used the voice note feature on my cell phone to record my voice while I listened to the early backing track in headphones. Then I dropboxed it to myself and dragged it in there as an audio track.
Although I did re-do the vocals later, the original cell phone recording is still mixed in there.
Music Video:
I've had ideas for the WOOP video swirling around in my head for so long.... and it didn't look anything like this. But life is short and I don't have time to wait around for a budget to shoot a mini action film, so I adjusted my vision and MacGyver'd it. Who says music videos can't be made with a cell phone, a cheap silver space suit and some $10 lights from Amazon? Total cost for this video was a little over a hundred bucks. The real cost was the editing time.
I shot the footage over two days. The first day I got some great green screen footage of the twins (green screen is another $30 + $70 more if u want the rig to hang it), and some of me... but I was pouring sweat and haaaaaaaated how it looked. So I shot myself again the next day, adjusting for all the things I didn't like on the first go around: more lights, more angles, and more motion.
Synth shots were harvested from dropbox since all the synthesizers I played on this song had just gone up in smoke, and there's no way I could release this song without showing off all the gear I used to make it.
I absolutely LOVE how the color came out. You can really see the saturation in the still shots and those are raw out of the camera. I've always been a light paparazzi... taking photos of light bouncing off things in unique ways. And I have a serious thing for glowing neon and phosphorescence... so the end result made me very happy.
When it comes to art direction and setting up the shots, there wasn't really much thinking, just basic instinct. It's all about the vibe. This is where pop and the underground have a love child, and I wanted that love child to be so cool you'd HAVE to ask for her number.
If u couldn't tell... performing this was really fun... even when I was frustrated by the fact that I was overheating due to the fact that I was wearing a blonde bob wig to hide my long wild curls. The silver space suit was so tight that it was almost impossible to peel off once I'd sweated in it. When I finally got it off, you could practically wring it out. Because yes, I danced my ass off.
I love taking on the characters that come thru in my music, and being the WOOP Girl was a blast.
Fun fact:
The first person I played a demo of WOOP for was my brother. He said I always write lame boring intros, but it's like foreplay, because then come the verses and they're like the musical equivalent of "oooh boobies!" and then when the chorus hits "it's like BAM, out comes the pussy!" I knew this utterly vulgar analogy was, in fact, my brother's highest possible form of compliment. My choruses felt good about themselves that day.
Final thoughts:
I can see myself really getting into filmmaking because this was so instinctual for me. I can imagine how amazing it would be if I had time and resources to put into music video creation. For now, tho, I'm putting these out with a proverbial gun to my head, before the universe finds a way to destroy what's left of my music. I'm filming and releasing a song every week for the next few months as I finally let go of these original songs. (There would be a whole lot more... but, you know... the fire.) That means I'm conceiving the visual concept, getting the costumes, performing to the track and editing it all within 7 days.... for each song... while simultaneously building this website, writing these blogs, live streaming and being a single mom to twins.... and hopefully sleeping a little too.
I rise to the challenge... because I am a fucking warrior. And damn it feels good to finally release some music. Even tho these are old versions that I never thought were good enough.
x magic
P.S. please join my Facebook music page thingie... last week I had 7 followers. Now I have 63, Come be lucky number 64.