Previous posts have highlighted Luke’s generosity and agreeable-ness when it’s comes to me straight-up highjacking our shared creative projects for whatever high-concept cross-artform nonsense I suddenly decide is going to bring unifying sense to both my art practice and my selfhood. It’s one thing when I’m just turning our band into performance art or making him create the hybrid between live music and music video that no-one asked for. But it turns out that there’s an even more entitled level of pushing the friendship that I can take it to!

Luke has been, even by his standards, churning out sick tracks this last year and a bit. Aside from all the Lion’s Mansion and Tantrums stuff and the Faux Faux record, we’ve got two new Babyfreeze EPs about to come out and he’s ALREADY got enough tracks for a new full-length BFreeze album! So when I was stressing back in May about whether I had enough time to write songs for Hot and Powerful and what the songs would even be like I played it safe and asked him for some beats.

He sent me a track called Mannequin and right away I knew that I was gonna horde it for a very specific purpose. The beat and the hooks were super-2018, which means that they were also super-duper 90s, and the whole thing had a gauzy, bittersweet vibe that reminded me of Velvet Rope-era Janet Jackson and also of eating takeaway with your lover in a loungeroom on a rainy day. It was the ultimate romantic sex-jam, the perfect Babyfreeze track to follow up Creation, and I had a vocal melody for it immediately.

More importantly I had flashes of the music video, that I knew would have to be conceived and created at the same time as the song. The video was gonna star myself and my partner Zev and involve us macking on and the whole thing would be a present for them for their 30th birthday. I knew all of that as soon as I heard it, but it took me three months to share this unreasonable package of info with Luke. Nailing the perfect romantic sex-jam lyric aside, I knew I needed to have the video concept at least a bit fleshed out before I asked Luke to go along with it. But what would it be, aside from me crushing on my Honey? Us actually eating takeaway? Cruising around in Zev’s car? Costumes and sets? And how could I keep it a surprise for Zev until the moment it’s happening?

LUKE: The song that became Become started with a chord progression, like most of my stuff. I’m really into ‘neo-soul’ chords at the moment – major 7ths, 9ths, suspended 11ths, whatevers, as long as they’re luuuuush. Those chords are obviously still there on a guitar, but often such hand-stretchers I’ve never utilised them – playing piano or writing midi makes them accessible, and between that and sampling, my songwriting is now in a different place. And that place is often chill – Nick and I joked the next Babyfreeze record might be all ballads, plus Fossil Rabbit and I have started an instrumental ambient funk duo, The Ill Feathers!

Become also incorporates all the little modern pop production tricks and trap flourishes I’ve picked up of late. Taking a cue from master producers like Stargate and others, this is one of the first songs I’ve tried a holistic ‘track and hook’ method – in short, I looped the track and sung some gibberish over the top (imagining I was Dua Lipa helped). I then figured out the notes of what I was singing, and after some re-arranging, that melody became the glockenspiel line you hear woven throughout. It’s a really fast way of coming up with a part – typically a lead vocal line – using it as gilding like we do is a straight-up flex.

When I shared the track with Nick, he was immediately smitten with it, likening it to Jam & Lewis era Janet Jackson. He came back to lay down the vocals sometime later (and crushed it naturally). I love how he floats between mirroring the glockenspiel melody and dovetailing his own around it, beautifully bringing the song together. I added a few production and arrangement tricks to his vocals – doubling them in some parts, adding harmonies in others, some subtle delay and distortion variations – all culled from the Youtube videos on producing I am addicted to, though I’ve eased off slightly on watching them as that time is now taken up with drumming videos!

The final touch was the solo – I had it arranged for Hendrix-esque guitar, but when devdsp came around to experiment with his Eurorack, I thought it might be fun to try it as a beefy modular synth line. It gives it a frosty edge, which I adore. With every bedroom producer using the same plug-ins and synth patches, anything you can use from outside of your DAW stands out. devdsp is getting some incredible sounds out of his rack now and we’re hoping to do lots more with him in the future.

And then there’s the video, which as above, is entirely Nick’s idea. I just showed up at the appointed time and place, knowing it was to be a single take. I kind of amazed myself with the camerawork – given the option, I delegate that kind of high-pressure shot to a Shane Parsons or such. I lucked out into finding (as we were rolling!) several cool framings that I bounced between. Walking backwards to zoom out at the end was spontaneous but I can’t imagine a better closing. Between that and the edit, it was like that old adage about cooking – use the best quality ingredients and do as little as possible to them. The lighting, the talent, the location were all perfect.

To me, this is the closest we’ve come to chart pop and when we’re ready, I hope to give it a big push. It will also be included on our upcoming full-length DISCO ROOM, an album with all my most recent funkiest and fizziest tunes.

And lastly yes, that’s my sweet baby girl Violet doing my producer tag!