Making Tracks Podcast Thomas Kam

This week I speak to Stanlæy, an artist and musician who combines glitchy, experimental production with intricate compositions, belying a background in classical viola. They love sonic world-building - within songs, and in their physical sound Installations. Their track Fragility, (from their EP “p=arallel u=niverse”) uses digital, broken sounds with fragile vocals and lyrics. A song can also reflect a temporal landscape, tied to a specific period of time, which we can re-enter on later listening. “Fragility” is tied to the period of lockdown in which it was written, and relates the need for self-compassion, especially during that time. We also discuss breath, the artist as an electrical conductor and the colour of songs.

This week I speak to singer, songwriter and cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson, whose music combines classical music with alternative R&B. We discuss her track “Rise Up”, which is both a dance track inspired by Missy Elliot, and a powerful anthem to enact change, which found it’s place in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. She describes her journey exploring her Jamaican heritage through it’s folk music - how composing and performing are an outward expression of her spiritual condition - and how this creation can help change our world for the better, from the inside out.

This week I speak to xyzelle., a soulful alt-RnB singer/songwriter who moved from the Philippines as a child, and we discuss our shared experiences of growing up as an Asian person in a predominately white area. She brings her track “Remedy”, which celebrates finding self-confidence as a teenage girl and a person of colour. We discuss how music can tie you to the place you came from learning to trust your creative instincts and how these lessons bleed over into the rest of our lives.

“What an inspiring conversation!” Those are the last words of this week’s episode, and I’m sure you will be inspired too by Abi Flynn's extraordinary story and music. Abi is a soul, jazz and R&B singer, with an amazing story. Diagnosed with cancer, and given a terminal diagnosis, she healed, miraculously, after a profound spiritual experience. It’s remarkably similar to my own story, and we explore our shared insights on death and inner transformation. Her song “Courage” was recorded whilst “on her deathbed”. We also discuss returning from isolation (a topic so relevant to all of us now)  alchemy, and how becoming a mother has changed her life.

I chat to Jasmine Crowe, a pop artist, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist from Los Angeles, who uses music to speak about mental health and addiction awareness, which she explores in her first album, “Symptoms”. She brings her track “Sky Is Falling”, a powerful tribute to the death of her father, an astrophysicist, philosopher and musician.

We too bring together these paradigms, and contemplate how music fits in. She describes how collaborating on songwriting has evolved her musical style, and her experience of doing so long-distance, online.  We also discuss coping mechanisms and mental health, and the relationship between music, time and memory

This week, I chat to Anusha, whose pop/R&B sound combines her classical training, and her poetry (strongly paralleling my own songwriting background). She brings her track “Someone I Never Wanted”, written about her experience of sexual harassment at university.

She describes her struggle to break free of the limits imposed on her by her classical mindset, excessive music theory & the perception of her as a black artist. We also discuss the value of play in a society obsessed with points-based achievements, how hip-hop acts as a meeting place for her influences, and how inner reflection can precipitate social change.