COLTRANE

This is the song where I was able to use some of my jazz background. It was inspired by my time playing with the VC Conservatory’s jazz band and one of the musicians in the group. I felt such a strong connection between us when we were playing music, it was as if our minds and emotions had synchronized completely. However, once the song was done, everything went away - our lifestyles were complete opposites so the only place where we aligned was through music. Coltrane talks about a fictional relationship based on my experience, one that is held together by music, hence the lyrics: “Play me some Coltrane so we don't fade away”. Because the musician is a drummer (his favorite jazz artist is John Coltrane), the song relies heavily on beats. The chorus serves as a sort of a breakdown and almost has a ballad feel (we also used some saxophone samples to honor Coltrane), talking about the certain sadness and desperation that underlines a relationship like that. However, the post-chorus immediately shifts into a very hip hop beat, showcasing the carefree ease music brings to these two people. My favorite part of the track is definitely the bridge where the tempo slows down and you just have the vocal and the  piano, and it almost turns into a full-blown ballad. Overall, this was definitely the hardest song for me to get right. We made at least 4 or 5 different versions with producer Pascal Guyon and the main reason was that  the track always ended up sounding cheesy and I had a very specific sound in my head but didn’t have a reference song to show to Pascal and say: "this is what it’s inspired by”. All I knew was I wanted to make a jazz/80s/hip hop/pop track that was also a ballad (ha! talk about a challenge!). It wasn't until I locked myself into my home studio for a few days and explored dozens of sounds that the song sounded right.

CAR/STORE ITEM NOTE: The item representing this song is a vinyl (taken from the song’s lyrics: “vinyl playing”). For the Too Cool store,, we continued that theme by creating a pair of funky socks with the vinyl print.