The Star Online: Entertainment: Music
The Star Online: Entertainment: Music |
| Posted: 26 Mar 2013 02:51 AM PDT Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds, the grand master of R&B, is glad to see his favourite music genre making a comeback. THE term "genius" isn't one you just simply throw around, but with 10 Grammy awards to his name – not to mention some of the most successful singles ever to hit the charts – Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds, 53, would probably deserve it. During the peak of his career as a singer, songwriter and producer in the 1990s, it seemed like everything Edmonds touched would turn into gold. He broke chart records with his songs, collaborated with the best of the best, and uncovered artistes like Usher, TLC, OutKast and Toni Braxton through his label LaFace Records (which he founded with Antonio "L.A." Reid). He wrote and produced the mega-hit End Of The Road for Boyz II Men, which set a new record for most consecutive weeks on the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts. It was a record he would later break again, with another Boyz II Men collaboration, I'll Make Love To You. But still, many people would only know him now as Babyface, the R&B artiste. Despite being the super-producer of his day, winning three Grammys in a row for Producer of the Year, Edmonds has always been associated with R&B music – not that he minds. "I love R&B music, but I do other things as well. But if that's how people recognise me, that's fine. It doesn't matter so much to me," said Edmonds during an interview last week in Kuala Lumpur. "I know I've worked in a number of different genres. I wouldn't call Celine Dion R&B. I wouldn't call BarbraStreisand, Eric Clapton or even Madonna R&B for that matter. But the majority of my number one hits were kind of pop/R&B, so it makes sense people associate me with the genre." The full list of heavyweights he's collaborated with is an astounding reminder of his impact on pop music – Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin and Beyoncé, just to name a few. Edmonds was in KL last week to perform at the 2013 SapuraKencana Petroleum Malaysian Grand Prix Charity Gala, which was also graced by stars like Teri Hatcher, Josh Hartnett, Kimora Lee Simmons and Ralph Johnson from Earth Wind & Fire. He last played in Kuala Lumpur in 2010. To Edmonds, performing live on stage and producing one of his wonder hits in the studio is something you can't separate. "I think they go hand-in-hand. If you produce a perfect hit in the studio, everyone in the audience would know the song and be able to sing it. So it's gotta be done right to begin with," he said. At the moment, Edmonds is enjoying the renaissance of R&B in mainstream music. He's a big fan of Miguel and, of course, Grammy-winner Frank Ocean. "I like Frank Ocean a lot. It was very cool for him to come of the left field the way he did," he said. "I think that R&B will be coming alive again. I also like that Justin Timberlake has come up with a very R&B album." As for why he thinks R&B has been out of the spotlight for this long, he said: "Everything goes through cycles, and now people are just ready to be passionate again, to be in love again – and that's what good R&B music is all about." But for all that Edmonds has achieved in his career, he doesn't see himself as a genius. He said: "Every artiste is different. Some are just way talented from the moment they were born, but for me, it was something I had to work on over the years, and find my space. That took a long time to happen." |
| Singer Dionne Warwick files for bankruptcy Posted: 26 Mar 2013 02:39 AM PDT REUTERS - Grammy Award-winning singer Dionne Warwick has filed for bankruptcy in New Jersey, citing tax liabilities she has attributed to financial mismanagement, her publicist said on Monday. Warwick, 72, known for Do You Know The Way To San Jose? and other popular songs, filed the petition on 21 March in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey, the state where she was born and currently lives. She listed total assets of US$25,500 and total liabilities of more than US$10.7 million, nearly all tax claims by the Internal Revenue Service and the state of California, according to the filing. The personal bankruptcy filing was due to "negligent and gross financial mismanagement" in the late 1980s through mid-1990s, Warwick's publicist, Kevin Sasaki, said in a statement. The IRS and California tax claims total more than US$10.2 million, mostly from the 1990s, according to the petition, which listed Warwick's average monthly income as US$20,950 and expenses at US$20,940. Sasaki said the actual back taxes owed had already been paid, but the penalties and interest has continued to accrue. "In light of the magnitude of her tax liabilities, Warwick has repeatedly attempted to offer re-payment plans and proposals to the IRS and the California Franchise Tax Board for taxes owed," Sasaki said. "These plans were not accepted, resulting in escalating interest and penalties." A five-time Grammy winner, Warwick took her first in 1968 for Do You Know The Way To San Jose? and her second two years later for the album I'll Never Fall In Love Again. |
| Posted: 25 Mar 2013 05:39 PM PDT Homegrown experimental music outfit Space Gambus Experiment lifts off with an exciting new album entitled First Steps Into Inner Space. Where does one go after making a self-titled debut which captures tantalising melodies from the gambus (lute) and the drones of the planet Jupiter, among other musical things? Kamal Sabran – artiste, poet, musician, filmmaker and sound art exponent – had already made a critically devastating impact in the art and music scene with Space Gambus Experiment's debut CD in 2009. The album featured cosmic radio waves he had recorded when he was the artist-in-residence for the National Space Agency in 2005. As a sound artiste, Kamal had achieved his dream of recording sounds that did not emanate from Earth. He then further pursued his quest by making music using those sounds and the sound of the stringed lute which he achieved with the help of his main collborator and gambus player, Zulkifli Ramli. There hasn't been an album to match the artistic achievements in Malaysia before or since the release of Space Gambus Experiment's debut. If Kamal had looked to the stars for inspiration then, he now looked to himself for his next musical passage. "The first album was about outer space but this time, it's inner space ... it's the journey of the soul," said Kamal in a phone interview from Ipoh, Perak. And by looking at himself, he realised one thing early on about his main musical influence. "My influence in music is rock. Which is why this album is heavy, at least heavier than the first album. One of the main differences with this album is that I'm playing the gambus instead of Zulkifli. He has a different style of playing the gambus, which is more Malay-traditional, whereas the way I approach it, is like playing a guitar." Kamal explained that Zulkifli was unable to collaborate with him this time around because of commitments with his own band, Dewangga Sakti. Since its formation, Space Gambus Experiment (SGE) has always been a collaborative effort between Kamal and other like-minded artistes. Through social media, Kamal reached out to artistes, sound-artistes and experimental musicians locally and the world over, all of whom share a similar objective of pushing the boundaries in music and art. And First Steps Into Inner Space is no different. Here are the names of the collaborators: Eric Hausmann (USA), Katsuyuki Hattori (Japan), Fahmie Freakmie (Malaysia), Lorenzo Pancini (Italy,) Pilar Rocha (Brazil), Cathy Fern Lewis (Canada), Irawan Prayoga (Indonesia), Akane Kameyama (Japan), Adam James Davis (Britain) and Putera Oud (Malaysia). "I would write about 40% of a song and then I would send the track to one of the collaborators. I worked with 10 people but I was selective in the way I worked because I knew each of their individual strengths. A particular track would go to a particular person depending on what I felt they could add to the song, be it vocals, guitar or bass. After I got it back from them, I would work on the track further," explained Kamal. He admits that this process "took a long time" but he didn't spend all that time – about three years – working on just the 11 tracks featured on the new album. "I had written over 100 songs but I selected the best 11 songs for this album," said the 35-year-old. Methodology of sound Kamal described the songwriting process he had undertaken for First Steps Into Inner Space as complex in that he wanted to make the intangible tangible, with the germ of the idea being the song's title. "I was influenced by (Persian poet) Rumi's poetry for the album title and title tracks. That was how I worked on this album. I would think of a title and then start writing the music," said Kamal who recorded, mixed and mastered the album in two venues – his home studio, Ipoh Experimental Art School Malaysia, and American collaborator Hausmann's studio, Spilling Audio in Portland, Oregon in the United States. Thus was born such philosophical and mystical titles as Earth Is Not My home I'm Just Passing By, Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed, What You Seek Is Seeking You and The Wound Is The Place Where The Light Enters You. Once he had a title, Kamal would pick up the gambus and write a melody to suit it and that would form the base of the track. "Everything starts with the frequency of the gambus. I needed to be careful with it because I didn't want the sound of the gambus to get lost in the mix. The gambus has a limited frequency to it," he explained. After that, Kamal would take drum samples for the beat, live guitar recordings, synthesisers, synthesised vocals and even sample hisses, pops and crackles of old tape and vinyl recordings to add what he calls "layers and textures" to his music. "I'm exploring philosophy and Islamic paintings with this album. It is a more personal exploration. The cover art for the album is of a Mughal Emperor and this type of art is known as a miniature painting. It's interesting because this art form has been around for centuries and there are similarities between this and Western art movements like abstract and impressionist. "The Islamic paintings were usually two-dimensional and flat; the colours are flat; there's no form, no shadows, and there is a lot of repetition. For example, all the trees will have one shape and they all look alike in the painting." Kamal had taken the parallels from art and supplanted it into music-making. "With SGE, there is no structure like verse, chorus, verse or we need an intro here or a bridge there. I had taken a minimalist approach to writing the songs. An entire song may just consist of two chords but it's the colour of the instrumentations that make it whole, that gives it its own shape, form and structure. "And working with other people made it improvisational as well because what I originally sent them would change once I got it back and it would continue to change until I was happy with it." While there are no lyrics in the album, Kamal would sing the title over the song, something which he had a few problems with, initially. "I didn't like the sound of my voice. I wasn't happy about that. It wasn't until I fed my voice into a vocoder (a system used to reproduce human speech) that I discovered another aspect of synthesised sound. "This album is heavily influenced by electronic music. And the sound I was referencing in particular was Kraftwerk and other early electronic music genres like Krautrock." So what are the first steps into inner space? Well, the first step is listening. For more info, visit facebook.com/spacegambusexperiment and kamalsabran.blogspot.com. |
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