![]() ![]() ![]() “With the older songs,” said Bartolini, “it was surprising to me how much detail they were able to capture with only three tracks, especially when you get to see them broken out. The lo-fi repetition of beats can be engaging on tracks like the Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You),” although the genre’s retuning of vocals can sometimes be infuriating, as in “Come See About Me,” where the Supremes sound like, well, the Chipmunks (a dated reference if ever there was one). Postman,” but “ Baby I Need Your Loving” bears little resemblance to the Four Tops’ original – which is not to say it’s unappealing. The Originals’ hit is obvious from the get-go, as is the Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. We wanted to make sure the listener would be able to recognise the songs to some extent.” Since I was able to isolate those aspects of the song, it allowed me to manipulate them while still maintaining the core elements of the original recording. For example, I thought that the background vocals and string arrangements of ‘Baby, I’m For Real’ by the Originals were incredible. Obviously not all music works for this type of downtempo music, so it was not just about finding ten tracks, but about finding ten that really felt fundamentally they could have been the basis of li-fi – something that’s evolved over 40 or 50 years.”īartolini (alias LOUALLDAY) began loading up the stems of the potential choices, and – as he explained last year – “then searched for those special moments in each song that I wanted to bring forward and highlight. They really wanted to give our producer on volume one, Lou Bartolini, a wide range of options. “I went to them with the original concept, and they went deep into the archives to source the best and brightest of Motown. Motown was the obvious place to start.” A few seasonal tracks from Hitsville were initially used by uChill in a Christmas playlist.įor LoTown, Wilner credits two of Universal Music’s California catalogue crew, A&R vice president Harry Weinger and A&R manager Rachael Simpson, with bringing the project to life. “So about a year ago,” he says, “I started thinking about trying to create a richer dialogue around these types of music, and bring classic catalogue into the mix. Wilner was tracking the so-called “lean-back” music genres, the diversity of sampling and how classic melodies kept reappearing in different forms. The LoTown project originated with former Spotify exec Tammas Wilner, now a senior member of Universal Music’s digital team in Los Angeles, and Jamie Ells, part of its commercial projects division in London. ![]() The brain picks out the differences in sound and in turn helps it get into a mindset of focus.” To a world working from home, that can be useful. “By listening to Lo-fi music,” wrote one such student, Brenden Lutes, “you are helping the brain to focus. Millions are drawn to it as background music – to help students concentrate, for example. Lo-fi (for “low fidelity”) has been around since the 1950s, but it has really flourished over the past ten years on platforms such as YouTube, Spotify and Soundcloud. In several respects, lo-fi is ambient music, wherein tone and atmosphere are as important as structure or melody. So in the case of ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone,’ I came up with the piano to loosely fit the pitched-down vocals, and, from there, added vocal chops in.” “It was a challenge mellowing these out to fit the lo-fi style,” Mondo Loops (a/k/a music producer Antonio Vianello) told me, “but my approach was mostly to craft a chord progression around the vocals – then start chopping them up and finding sections I could sample into the beat. “ The Tracks Of My Tears” – another Mondo Loops remix – sends Robinson’s normally-recognisable tones down several keys, and, by submerging them below an icy piano, makes the song more melancholy than tragic. Miles Medina’s reshaping of “ My Guy” locks Mary into a cupboard, to judge by the sound of her voice, and renders the singer vulnerable rather than blessed. Mondo Loops’ lo-fi treatment of the Temptations’ “ Papa Was A Rolling Stone” takes down the temperature and the tempo (not to mention the running time) and turns Dennis Edwards’ vocal into a lower, slower cameo appearance. It’s got a certain charm, though, and may well resonate with a younger audience.”Īnd that’s primarily the point: to have these LoTown remixes connect with a younger crowd of music listeners, and to help keep the Motown legacy current and interesting.īut let’s return to Whitfield, Wells and Robinson for a moment. To quote respected British broadcaster, DJ and soul aficionado Richard Searling: “It’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard.” He adds, “It’s a bit like a nightmare for those of us who relate to the warmth of Motown. ![]()
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