Done. Hecho. Fait. Fertig. Fatto

R&D has been mixed!!!!
Mastering is next week in NYC.
My single "RoxTar" was unleashed yesterday.

GO HERE to download.
Partied like one last eve with friends, fam and fans at Little Miss Whiskeys.
Check my homie Substantial's recap here

More photos and video to come.

Shoutout to Team OOK for keeping the train running.

I sleep. For now.

K.

Dusty Springfield.

Over the past 15 years, my closest friends and i have developed a language based on references to other nouns or adjectives. I am dusty, i.e sleepy, crunched, busted, exhausted, tard. The record is going well. I have 3 songs (as of last evening that blended into this morning) to go and R&D is officially in the recorded can. Sequencing and Mastering to follow and then i will breath my sigh of relief in terms of having actually recorded and supervised this opus to reaching the market place. I have a bit of anxiety about it, as would most parents when given the scope of parentage, but I'm confident that i have made something honest, something me. In creating each piece of this record i stayed away from the usual cookie-cutter "this is for the club..." thought process and thought about what i would really like to hear in a mature (do not read as old!!!)record. I try and blaze my own path, stay on my own road/lane and listen to what needs to be said and how. I have moments of humor and being utter facetious in light of certain issue but all in all i say its well balanced. a hand in from Tonedeff and many conversations with Substantial have definitely helped in smoothing the road. Not to many potholes or 11th hour decisions to rid the record of fodder. i'm a minimalist when it comes to music, meaning I'm not recording 50 songs and picking 12 for a record. i specifically set out to record the amount of songs that i think will make a good record. in the end only 1 song bit the bricks, for no better reason than the energy behind it didn't reflect my current state of mind in approach to the subject matter. So it wasn't me anymore and ergo got merked. The whole thing has come together, God y goo, from the underlying theme that ties the concepts together to the overall sound of the instrumentation. We had a beat from a producer that was BANGING!!!!! but fortunately it didn't work out. I think it was fortunate because the vibe of the song would have been a little out of sorts with the entire piece, don't slip though it was banging and the concept of the song was hand in glove with the beat..but alas my friends it shant be, at least not on this snapshot. follow me on twitter @koklarock and @kokayi. bang.

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OCHO

last night mixed the 8th song from Robots. had a ball, discussed epiphanies and random factoids whilst mixing vocals..oh so many vocal tracks. yeesh. i think i may start to limit those next time around. thankful that i label everything and not obscurely. I have fun mixing even though it is one of Dante's levels of hell for audiophiles, but i still dig it. I'm sleep deprived (thank God for spell check, but functining all the same. more next week. i shall recuperate and continue on. RND2010

Mixing Mixing and More Mixing

beyond the margins

i pride myself on coloring outside the lines, connecting the dots out of order to allow art to be created without seeming manufactured. static. void of life. dull. rote. Last night was great even though i realized entirely too late that too much sugar, though swift on the uptake,eventually results in the crash. not really good for late night mixing. We tweaked a song and got midway through another. I'll ask tone when i can reveal the tracklisting or maybe we will do that once the artwork is done. This leg of the journey is the most arduous causing the most anxiety. i'm actually anxious for this record to come out. God has been more than gracious in allowing the right people to enter my life, ones that see when it's not yet made manifest, that hear the inner voice and speak things into existence.

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R&D Yupdates!....Yup!

The other night i subjected myself to sleep deprivation once again. This portion of the creative process is what rounds out the vision. I have ideas about songs from drum to finish. As a producer the thin line between that and being an artist is always one that can cause you to over think the music or over do the "dazzle" so i have to take things slow, not wasting time and money but slow meaning specific. It helps to have an engineer that cares about your music sounding great, knows your style of production and has a vested interest in seeing you succeed. Tats the blessing this go around all the pieces that i didn't have on Mass Instructions are falling into place for R&D. It's all shaping up nicely if i do say so myself an with it being a few hands n the pot i'm definitely the only one at liberty to say. Easy K

Robo-Disco? aka The Other Way.

I've affectionately named the process of recording Robots & Dinosaurs, the robo-disco Don't ask me why. That's just the 1st thing that popped in mind. This journey has been arduous.I'm not complaining, just stepping outside of myself and recognizing the scope of all that has happened. From meeting substantial , to rocking as a QN5 artist at the annual QN5 Megashow. Bonkers. I've done this alone before,
Mass Instructions was all me and small team. No label, no funding just 9-5, hand to hand hustling. The writing, recording and mixing were on me and my homie EL put the sauce on what I sent.

This album is wayyyy different. I recorded everything as usual (actually lost a song and had to reconstruct and rerecord vocals, which I just did tonight before going to the studio), but this time the mix is another mans burden. Yay!!! I'm exuberant, all askew,thrilled, verklempt even. Because its not me. I guess that was the lesson this go round, god allowed me to meet folks that have a specialized skill set which has surpassed my expectations as far as minimizing the amount of "me" I have to expend. I'm taking a L working this late, but I'll sacrifice these hours of sleep to pay the ferryman, in order to get the best sounding project. Things are gelling and the mixes are getting easier as the engineer gets acquainted to my process.

Back to the studio to put another song or 2 in the can. Be easy

K

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No sleep til......

Where do I begin. I'm missing 5 hours of sleep during mixing nights. I'm in the 2nd stage of mixing. I shant shed a tear. It's been fun. Had a dope photoshoot for the record in NYC on Sunday with dope Photographer! By far it was best photoshoot I've ever had. Have another one scheduled for this Sunday with another dope photographer. I sleep now. Well maybe..