indiessance: amy millan

Monday, September 21, 2015

Porter Robinson: Divinity [feat. Amy Millan] [ODESZA Remix]

Gemcutters have many ways to cut, shape and polish gemstones. For example, leaving the face-up size unchanged while adding pavilion facets—reducing a stone's weight by 10%. The original gem remains, but now additional facets dazzle; sparkling with new beauty for beholders. Weight ≠ Sparkle. Digital remixes are like that.

Porter Robinson, Amy Millan and ODESZA all played key roles in embedding the new gemstone recut of Divinity into the music industry mountain—a classic alt-EDM combo.

Odesza

Porter Robinson

Robinson realized the confinement of EDM as a portal of artistic expression, limited to generic elements. Ideal for the synchronization of bodily movement on the dance floor, but lacking sophistication for lyrics to resonate deeply in the hearts of listeners. EDM ≠ Art. Once he began to squelch conventional dance elements, the sonic transition developed naturally. A bird escaped its cage.

Robinson doubted that many DJs would listen. He decided to live adventurously on an island without EDM. A castaway entering the studio with a pioneering spirit to record the Worlds (2014) album. He told NME:

...the first priority I had was that I wanted it to be beautiful and emotional. That was my first goal. And I guess kinda in terms of throwing off some of the EDM stuff; it just came about naturally. Because I found that it was; they're trying to shoehorn it into a danceable format. Trying to shoehorn every song into dance was really just limiting in terms of expression. I was finding that I could tell the story a little better if I didn't make it have a [boom boom boom EDM intro] like a, you know, a dumb buildup...₁

Amy Millan

Amy Millan likes to infuse country with rock, Wayward and Parliament (2006) revealed experimentation. In 2014, the sonic moves of digital grooves drew her into vocal collaboration on Porter Robinson's foundational mix of Divinity.

ODESZA

Sound engineering can make or break a song, which ODESZA proved by making Divinity sound awesome with a remix. Effectively highlighting Millan's honeyed vocals. The beauty and emotion that Porter Robinson set out to accomplish has been recut into a new sparkly gemstone.

NME. Porter Robinson Interview: 'EDM is entertainment, it's not art'. YouTube. YouTube, 5 June 2015. Web. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwOLDyJv-wI 21 Sept. 2015.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Amy Millan

Image: Kirstie Shanley | Amy Millan at Vic Theater (2008)

Singer-songwriter, Amy Millan, informed her publicist, I wanted to make a record that had a thru line between pop music and old, country music. Former roommates—who were bluegrass musicians—may have had something to do with her country music influence. She struggled to bring about an indie-country mind-meld, until someone told her that her voice was the key. I suppose, she also needs to realise: if she actually began to write perfectly blended—50/50—pop-country songs, she may not be able to turn such an ability off. Some gifts are like that.

Her latest CD, Honey from the Tombs, contains some pop, much country, a bluegrass tune, and then there is one track that departs from all that—the dark horse of the album, Wayward and Parliament. Amy worked at a coffeeshop on Parliament street in Toronto, Canada that housed a collection of about 3000 CDs. There, she got hooked on music by Brian Eno. Pitchfork deemed the track an experimental anomaly. Such manifestations of creativity are part of what help keep the indie genre alive.

Arts & Crafts: Amy Millan