Premiere: Anatole works his particular brand of magic on Lucy Rose's Is This Called Home

Blue Mountains-based producer Anatole has been a fave around these parts for a while now - each new piece of work he releases adds a new enchanting layer to his mystique, and so it's with great excitement we present a premiere of his latest remix, for revered UK-based artist Lucy Rose. Last year she released her wonderful latest album, Something's Changed, and lately has been dropping special remixes of its tracks for a release called Something's Changing. So far we've heard takes from the likes of Liz Lawrence (Moirai) and Fryars (Second Chance), and Anatole's is another exceptional take, and one that differs quite a bit from the original.

We're not only chuffed to premiere it today, but also offer a little insight into Anatole's process courtesy of some fantastic questions from Rose herself - check it all out below:

LUCY: It must be very different remixing someone else’s song compared to writing your own music. With remixes does it feel like there are more or less confinements or restrictions to what you can do? Or does it give you the freedom to be more daring and extravagant?

ANATOLE: It is definitely very different but it is something that I am enjoying more and more as it forces me to approach making music in different ways. There is more restriction but that is not a bad thing at all. I feel like in any creative process you are looking for some form of restriction in which to anchor yourself to. In the case of this track, there was a very strong melody line which was an obvious place to start and build from. Therefore I actually find myself sometimes having more freedom to be daring and extravagant because I know within which context the music is going to ultimately exist within.

L: I’m always so jealous of artists that not only write and play their own music but can produce it too. How did you get into the technical side of making music?

A: It was a natural progression from being immersed within music (albeit in a different form). I grew up playing in orchestras and jazz bands around Sydney and as my listening became more diverse, the way I approached music as a whole started to shift. I've always dabbled in multiple instruments growing up so I saw making music as an extension of that. I very much approach Ableton the same way I do any other musical instrument - it requires practice and dedication to get the results you want and I think my background in classical music is a good foundation for those skills

L: Your remix is so different from the original, I’m interested to know how you start a remix and what gives you the inspiration to take it in a certain direction? Lyrics? Tempo? Key?

A: After an initial listen to the track I try and stay away from the original throughout the whole process. I then go through the individual elements and see if there are any strong ideas coming out from the stems themselves. In this case, the vocal had very strong rhythmic elements that I wanted to explore. The original is in 3/4 and I warped the vocal to fit into 4/4 which already gave it a sense of forward-momentum that I wanted to keep throughout the entire track. I felt the best way to continue to build on this idea was with an ostinato (a repeated motif) in the bass and driving percussion. Once I had that worked out the rest came very naturally and it was just a case of following where each individual sound was going and how to resolve those lines within the space of the track.

L: It’s been so lovely for me to have you create time and energy in making this remix and I feel very lucky to have been able to collaborate with you on this. Collaborations happen in many genres of music but it sometimes feels like it happens less in alternate music. Is this something that’s important to you? Is it hard finding the balance between collaborations/remixes and your own music?

A: It's the most important thing for me! I see collaboration as something that happens at every stage of my process. I record all my own sounds and a lot of them with my friends (I don't play any string instruments but seem to use them a lot). There is an action that has to happen to collect those sounds which is greater than the sum of the products. It's the same with songwriting and in this case, remixes. So in a sense, I don't see any need to find a balance because I view it all as part of the same process. No man's an island and all that.

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