Studio Campfire Stories: ‘Tales From The Land Of Milk And Honey’ Edition – The Making Of ‘Disappear’

nicolay-phonte-zo-2015

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I ended up passing him that one and two other instrumentals, if I'm not mistaken. And just for demoing purposes, I even opened the mic up for him to record a very rough scratch vocal on it, where he kinda sang and hummed his way through the melodies and changes just to get an idea of a songwriting cadence for later.

Fast forward to February 2015, Nicolay and I received an email from Phonte with the subject title, "Disappear" and the message read:

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"2015 here we come"

Now, at the time, Phonte and I were working on something else COMPLETELY separated from anything +FE, so we had no idea that this email contained the first song for an upcoming +FE album that would be finished and released just six months later. NONE. But when I opened it and recognized the instrumental, I got hyped immediately. Then hearing Phonte's verse and remembering that it loosely matched the cadence of the scratch vocal that he had recorded back in May 2014 was real dope. But the icing on the cake here was that damn Carlitta Durand. I swear man, her vocals win EVERY SINGLE TIME. When she came in on those pre-hook hits?! I damn near lost it! That part had so much "punch" behind it now to really take it over the top. Then when her verse began, that same voice took on more of a "delicate" role; it was crazy to hear that contrast from the same vocalist within the same piece. But MY part?! MY part is the "...catch 22 I keep falling for your touch" line. Good GRACIOUS I got goosebumps off of that shit the first time I heard it (and still do now even after having heard it 3,892 times). She NAILED that line.

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Once the vocals were finished, Phonte was telling me that he wanted Nic to work with the second part of the song -- the "part two" I described earlier. So I sent Nic the song's original Pro Tools session and after hearing what he ended up doing with the drums and additional synths, I was sitting there like, "YOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" He took the drums and flipped them so that the momentum of the song continued on a huge high, but the swing was different AND it had his signature on it. I honestly wish I was in the studio with him to have actually seen how he did what he did with those drums. He also added more layers of synth in the form of arpeggiated parts and some additional pads. And I haven't even told Nic this yet (I'm sure he'll find out once he reads this story), but MY favorite piece of the second half is what he did between 3:49 and 3:59. That eight bar ride out?!?! Fucking CRAAAAZY. There's really something to be said not only about our complementary styles but the sheer confidence we have in each other to just pass an instrumental between the three of us and still end up with a uniformly, solid piece of music that contains distinct signatures from Nic, Phonte and myself. I actually think the same can be said for the entire +FE album, but "Disappear" in particular was one where within that 4:26 worth of song, you can literally "hear" the baton being passed. I think that's REAL dope and hopefully it makes for a more intriguing experience for our listeners.

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