In the words of Zombie Nation:
“One cold day in December I had a brainwave. An idea for internet democratic music, made as a collaboration with my boys and girls on Facebook and Twitter. If you’re reading this you probably already know that it is my declared passion to mash samples together on my MPC, so the logical first step was to issue the callout: “send me your sounds!”
In the week that followed, my dropbox was inundated with whistles, basses and burps.
The next step was to split the sounds into categories and present them in 10 polls, and then open the voting up to the world. I created loops from the most popular sounds, and then opened them up to another popularity contest. The people spoke, once again, and chose their favourite five loops.
In the following weeks, between sessions taking my beloved MPC all over the world, I worked out an arrangement. A song! Part of this work was done streaming video from the studio, with about three hundred people watching and contributing to the decision making process. After a final round of feedback on the arrangement through Soundcloud, the song was finalised. Tada!
The last step was to make the parts available to the public, so anyone could have a bash and submit a remix. We selected the six most interesting and unique remixes, and included them in the package.
Now only one thing was missing – a name! This was one element of the project that was beyond the capabilities of online democracy. The polling system hit its technical limits. So I decided to discuss the name with my new studio buddies, the people behind the original sounds submitted! And then att last, we had reached the end of the road.
This project was not an attempt to make a logical song, a marketable piece of music, or even one that would appeal to most. Rather, the idea was to produce a democratic piece of music; one in which anyone could take part, and influence the outcome. And I am happy to say that it worked out great!”
Even though it wasn’t an attempt to make a logical song, it came out dope. The Obi Blanche remix is a solid banger that is definitely gonna be getting some play time in clubs everywhere. The whole release contains the original track plus six remixes and you can pick it up here.
Zombie Nation and Friends – The Mind of Many (Obi Blanche Remix) 320 kbps
–Andy
