Nordi's monthly track releases continue with The Loop, which came out Friday, 19th September*. The next one is Blufff, the 7th instalment from Atlas. And... our artistic monk's upcoming premiere Manuscrito EP is approaching at a spooky pace! 👀

During this weekend, I (Miguel) took another trip to Rafael's home in Northampton (it's becoming a regular occurrence, with one visit per month). This journey went slightly smoother than the one in August, apart from the fact that I lost the first train due to my lack of time management... If we ignore this, I can say that, overall, travelling by train these days is possibly the most pleasant way to do so. Nothing beats sitting comfortably inside a train, while you play some of your favourite tunes and look outside the window, wondering at the vast green open fields beyond the (train) tracks.

The two sessions we had over the weekend made us start 2 follow-up tracks for another future compilation called Aliança.

The result of our weekend's first session was possibly one of the fastest and smoothest workflows we have ever had on the creation of a track from scratch to finish in the studio! The track is just over 2 and a half minutes, and we've managed to capture a revolutionary/libertarian spirit with both our vocals, while having Brazilian Funk-inspired drums and samples sprinkled throughout the track. I'm really happy we've managed to encapsulate the whole vibe and idea for the song in such a short amount of time.

For the second session, we only had one hour to work with, so the main idea was for me to get a couple of samples from a late 80s UK Acid Jazz cassette tape. While I was playing around with them, Rafael laid a drum beat on top, along with an atmospheric Rhodes electric piano. We rapidly achieved this dark and apocalyptic Trip Hop ambience, almost reminiscent of Portishead's self-titled album (Portishead, 1997). Not much could be added to this piece since around 8pm on Sunday, Rafael had to drop me off at Northampton train station, so I was on my way back to London.

Another weekend's sessions are coming in mid-October.

Until then, stay safe fellow monks!

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* By the way, I sincerely recommend you check out Nordi's new music video for The Loop (out 26th September). The way his life is portrayed in such a deep and personal manner, truly emphasises the meaning put into his art.