"Atlas" is approaching its final destination. "Tales", the 11th instalment, came out on 28th February and Nordi is leaving us with a sense of dopamine towards his next adventure 🏜

The upcoming tale — "Don't Let It Gone" will be available on your favourite music hub starting 27th March.

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Similar to the last month, another short weekend session took place. Unfortunately, I (Miguel) didn't manage to get the day off on Friday (6th March), so I still had to work an evening shift at the café. So after work I had to travel from North London to Euston, where I finally departed for Northampton, arriving around half past midnight at Northampton's train station where Rafael picked me up to take us home.

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The first session on Saturday (7th March) started by focusing on the "Aliança" compilation and by night time we switched work to the "LIFT" compilation.

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Firstly, "Epiphania" – the "Gregorian choir-sample" track created during last month's sessions got structured with a bridge section added and the drums perfected along with an 808's sub bass empowering the dynamics.

Secondly, "Executivo" got its beat enhanced with additional Kick and Samba-style percussive patterns added to the original drums section. Furthermore, Stairstep added some background vocals to his verses.

Thirdly, "Gaia" was thoroughly organised in addition to some acoustic guitar chords added, offering Stairstep's cinematic view to the track, as well as Nordi's banjo arpeggios that truly add an explorative and mysterious layer to the overall sound.

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Lastly, we moved from "Aliança" to "LIFT", more specifically — "Roots". Some unnecessary instrument stems were removed from the mix, in addition to some new vocal takes and adlibs being added to the chorus and verse parts.

Furthermore, we cleaned up "Fine Art"'s project since there were too many guitar stems clashing with each other's frequencies and obsolete ad-libs and background vocals too.

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On Sunday (8th March), besides our focus on improving the sound of "LIFT", I also started a 150bpm punchy electronic beat on Korg Gadget using my Nintendo Switch. It's still a rough sketch but the drums and bass alone, definitely have potential to carry the track on their own! 🔉🔊 

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When we took a break in the afternoon, we were feeling down... We realised so many of our first project sessions (from 2019 to 2023) are still extremely unorganised, lengthy and quite mentally exhausting to be changed into something we feel happy with. Fortunately, in the last couple of years, we've been so much more organised and methodical during our creative process!

Rafael also expressed how frustrating it is sometimes to work on your art and not receive any feedback or appreciation for your creative efforts. Please, if you like our music and artistic vision, say something! We'd love to hear your thoughts 🙏

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Moving on to "LIFT":

Firstly, all the vocal stems from the project mixes of "Simple", "Punk!", "Wealth", "Care" and "Feeling" were moved to the right vocal chain previously created by Rafael.

Secondly, "Punk!" got new rap verses from Nordi.

Moreover, "Feeling" got a massive update (previously called "Gut"), with Rafael and me writing the lyrics for the chorus section together (as we did for "Lux" last month – check last month's blog post). This is most likely one of the popiest chorus we've ever made! Our intent is for everyone to feel happy, cheerful, and to celebrate life with their friends and loved ones when listening to it.

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Around 8:20pm, Rafael dropped me off at Northampton's train station where I took the train back to London.

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Stay safe until the next monthly session in April fellow monks!