spaced out sessions and different places . But what ended up happening was it ended up being so successful that it was like , “ OK , well now we have to make an album to follow this up .”
Then when that happened , a much more cohesive process started to form where the three of us and Daniel and the musicians involved in the project were all doing the sessions together and cutting them all at the same places and that is where the more cohesive aspects and elements of the album took shape .
CM : From Pilgrim ’ s Paradise to “ Get You ” to the rest of Freudian , did you see a progression in Daniel ’ s performances and his comfort in a studio setting ?
RB : In particular with his songwriting , he really matured . I feel like Freudian is when he really started to develop a sound that he owns . That was really cool to watch and I think it ’ s interesting how , like , I feel like Pilgrim ’ s was more of an acoustic , traditional recording than Freudian and Freudian is more of a mixture of program and acoustic elements . Pilgrim ’ s had that as well , but , to me , it felt more like a band record . So it ’ s just interesting and the process was just different because we had more resources to make Freudian and on Pilgrim ’ s we really had to bootstrap it . He was just at different places in his career , so that meant being able to post up in a recording studio and really flesh out Freudian in a facility rather than in mine and Matt ’ s production room , which really makes a difference .
CM : You expect a lot of electronic instrumentation and effects in modern R & B and soul , but it actually sounds like Freudian is a pretty traditional instrument-driven record .
RB : It ’ s funny , more of the album is actually electronic than you ’ d probably think by listening to it . We would take organic sounds and manipulate them electronically so that something sounds classic , but it ’ s new , you know what I mean ? Like on the early Freudian sessions , there was a lot of experimenting with different sonics and guitar tones and just different vibes . Once we hit on a specific guitar tone and sonic characteristic , I feel like it was intentional to remain cohesive to the sonic landscape that was being built . That just helps the album be cohesive and not have like an ‘ 80s guitar tone with ‘ 60s vintage [ drums ] or whatever . It is kind of like once you locked into a certain style of how we tracked the guitars and the sounds of those , then we kind of stuck to that throughout the album . The same thing with the keys and piano , which are recorded very similarly throughout the album . That was definitely an intentional thing .
CM : Daniel ’ s voice sounds pretty pure on the album . Were you doing much with effects or in the mix with his vocals ?
RB : Yeah , I ’ ve built a chain that is for Daniel that I ’ ve used since Pilgrim ’ s and it ’ s really not varied too much since then because we found a sound that we love and haven ’ t moved too far off of it . The one thing that I did change for Freudian from Pilgrim ’ s is I ’ ve been using different reverbs . I use a lot of early digital reverbs because their sample rates are low and they ’ re generally fairly warm . I find that complements his voice pretty well . That is something I probably changed from one to the other , but honestly , it ’ s been pretty consistent .
CM : If you ’ re willing to say , what else is in that vocal chain ?
RB : You know , I ’ m going to have to keep some of the secrets , secret . To be honest , there isn ’ t too much . I like to take very simple approaches to vocals because vocal is one thing that if you start affecting it too much , it starts to feel unnatural and unnatural vocals are really uncomfortable .
I think people find overly-processed vocals uncomfortable , but they don ’ t know why they ’ re uncomfortable . It ’ s because everyone knows what a voice sounds like and if you fuck with that too much , it becomes less familiar . Whereas , the average person on the street doesn ’ t necessarily know what a snare drum inherently sounds like , for example , because they haven ’ t analysed closely what a snare drum sounds like . But a voice they most certainly do know . So that is where I am almost most hesitant to really bend . I always try to mix my vocals as natural as possible . So for me , less is more .
CM : To end , anything else that was cool , unexpected , or unique while recording Freudian ?
Daniel Caesar
RB : Maybe one , for example , is that the guitar solo in “ Take Me Away ” is not a guitar . I mean , I can ’ t say what it is but there are a lot of things like that where it is like , “ What if we did something traditional , like a guitar solo or something , but not use a guitar solo ?” You know what I mean ? So it feels like a classic thing you can identify and relate to but there is something new and fresh about it . That ’ s something I try to bring to whatever we ’ re working on and there is that sprinkle across Freudian .
Michael Raine is the Senior Editor of Canadian Musician .
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