October 24th, 2024
Sticking to my mandatory hobby bounce from illustration to music then illustration, this one is about… music. My last song is called Steps which is ideal for a step by step creative process of making something out of… a few things.
October 5th, 2023
Another year, another post, another song. A short story of how I came up with Lanes.
As often I caught the seed of the idea during a little impromptu breakfast family jam:
After writing some very French lyrics, recording during some very late night sessions, and fiddling with a very fiddly production, I threw a very secret living room performance:
I pretty much liked it, pretty much released it, and then I very much scrapped it.
The song was mostly ready, but I got bored of how it turned out. It felt sad and a bit boring, so I decided to move on and start again.
Getting back to the root of the song enabled me to let go of the previous approach, explore different and more upbeat ideas for the guitar, the drums, the singing, and eventually, let it swim away:
Of course there was a “lanes illustration” that took priority over the song, but that didn’t make it to the final artwork. I’m so sorry illustration! The art of loving ideas, scrapping them and starting again. Nice and healthy.
October 6th, 2022
Keeping up with my 2018’s born tradition, I followed up the birth of my second little girl by writing a song, recording a tune and drawing my baby in her mummy’s arms.
Pretty keen on my new creative project, I started writing the first lines two weeks in and quickly realised I needed to pause, and let moments and leaps happen to go beyond writing an entire song about a newborn.
The first draft acoustic recording a little less than a month in:
Followed up by the final production released exactly 5 months in:
February 10th, 2022
This first EP is the result of a couple of years experimenting with sounds, vocals, styles, while growing my skills as an enthusiastic music producer.
After flirting with music production for years without really committing I decided to push that interest so I could understand the essentials of producing and mixing. In March 2020 I started writing a new song – Simplicity – as a way to learn the foundation of music production while getting familiar with Logic Pro. I named that new musical experiment Emlo, a blend of Emile, my middle name, and Emilio a variation I like for some unresolved reasons.
Those songs talk about growing up through adulthood, from the thrill of making things, the challenges of handling anxiety, to the importance of focusing on what really matters and letting go of what holds you back.
I like and listen to many genres so I couldn’t really categorise what I’ve made there, other than something pretty personal, and hopefully relatable to some. My creative process naturally developed into mixing up organic sounds like guitar, piano, with hip-hop inspired digital beats, then building up a tight but relaxed vocal delivery on top. A tricky balance I’m definitely still working on.
Thanks for reading, hope you’ll enjoy listening.
November 16th, 2018
Of course I was always going to do an illustration about my daughter born earlier this year. Oh and to write a song as well. Because that’s what I do.
Here’s the little story of how it happened.
October 1st, 2017
Still finding my feet with my hands.
I experimented illustrating using the iPad Pro/Apple Pencil/Procreate combo for a little while now, loved the control I get over each single pixels, the natural feel of the pencil pressure, the lovely palm rejection, meaning that I can get really close to express my full sketching skillset on a digital piece of glass.