Hot Sly's blog

Blackrain - "My baby shot me down"

2012-02-18T18:26:00.002+01:00

Last year I met Dany Terbeche (Enfer Magazine) who asked me to make a re-arrangement of "My baby shot me down" of the band he manages, Blackrain.
How could I miss an oportunity to participate in a rock project? So I made this version of the song mainly with Swan and I must say it was a thrill to work with such talented artists!
Special thanks for Max2 chorus.
Here is a little "lethal dose of..."

Allan Oz - "Stand up and unite"

2012-02-11T12:04:00.002+01:00

Currently working with Allan Oz on a new pop electro project with my fellow DJs friends Lois Angel and Tanguy.

We recorded 4 songs so far and well, working with a nice and talented singer/dancer makes you want to create more!

Here is the first song we recorded, "Stand up and unite":

Air Europa - "Volare"

2012-02-03T14:32:00.001+01:00

Last year I produced "Volare" for the Air Europa new campaign. Chico Castillo is singing. I was in contact with Mandarina Films to achieve 3 different versions of the song.
It was very interesting to work with them and getting to shape a song to what they had exactly in mind. A very good experience!

Old tunes from Bourne catalog

2011-12-06T21:51:00.001+01:00

This autumn we finished recording a project based on songs from the Bourne catalog. As of now we only made two songs but more are coming. Always a pleasure working on such beautiful songs with talented singers!

Here is a demo with Barbara Scaff:

Lucie Chapelle - "Mélanges"

2011-12-06T21:34:00.001+01:00

Back in 2006, I produced two songs for Lucie Chapelle, "A toi" and "Dans les yeux de mon père" published by Jean Davoust. The album was released by FGL.

Here is the demo:

Souffle - Sound design for a short movie

2011-12-06T21:09:00.001+01:00

I did a little soud design for a short movie a while ago on a short movie by Alejandra Magnasco and Connie Ott.

It was funny recreating sounds, I never did that before. Oh well, nothing very difficult but it was nice getting hands on something new. I also made a little track for the ending.

Here is an extract:

Papa Wemba - Orchestrations

2011-11-19T17:01:00.001+01:00

Last year I worked for Etnic touch studio for the new Papa Wemba album.

They were asked to produce an acoustic album and Yves Ndjock asked me to write some orchestrations for him. Emmanuel Pezot mixed the album. No release date yet.

Of course I was thrilled to work for such an amazing vocalist.

Here is an estract of the song "Union".

"Flamenco gipsy fusion" in Miami Beach

2010-02-15T23:31:00.007+01:00

I just got back from Miami where we played at the The Fillmore theater with Chico Castillo and Anabel Veloso's amazing company of dancers. This hall is really beautiful and has an amazing sound.

I got a little scared with my rig as there was no power supply for the keyboards so everything was powered by the laptop (MH2882 in FW and 2 usb keyboards). Mainstage got stucked, the MH delocked FW (quite a mess I'd say). Fortunatly, I had a power supply in the afternoon before the show and everything ran smoothly after that. USB powering is really not safe on apple laptops!!!

I tested the Axiom 61, it's a nice piece of hardware, very easy to play. The Oxygen 49 as a second keyboard (also a controller for ableton live, program 10 on the Oxygens to make it work). Mainstage 2 seems to be more stable than the previous version. Live is amazingly stable, I never crashed it so far.

This is a trailer of the show as we played it last year:

"Une nuit... la la la" - musical tale for children

2010-01-29T15:21:00.006+01:00

It's finally out! Last year I worked with Jerôme Bardon on a musical tale written by Amanda Sthers. The voices are made by Marie-Amélie Seigner, Guy Maruani and Jerôme.

It's just been released by Trilogy Records International and is published by Jean Davoust Editeur and Star Sattelite Music.

This is a little extract from it:

Evolving Electro Symphony Area

2010-01-29T15:08:00.006+01:00

During december 2009 I made some tunes experiencing various sounds, rythms and writing techniques. I wanted to try fusion of electro sounds and symhony orchestra. Everything is done with audio instruments.

I plan on doing much more tunes based on this concept during 2010.

This is a medley of what I've done so far:

Czech National Symphony Orchestra - Session

2009-11-17T19:25:00.010+01:00

Last month I was in Prague with Yves Dessca for a session with the great CNSO. The manager Dusan Mihely was there playing the clarinet, thanks to him, he's a wonderful player. Tomas Brauner was the conductor and Jan Hykrda the copyist. We had the excellent Antoine Goubin at the protools station. A special thanks to the celloist Milos Jahoda with his beautiful sound.

Here is a little track with some rough mix excerpts of the sessions I made with the CNSO.

Chico Castillo - "Vuelvo" released

2009-08-22T14:43:00.006+02:00

The album "Vuelvo" was released in July after the concerts in Miami under Loudes 68 / Universal Latino.

I produced 8 titles on it with Chico including "Passion gipsy", "Ramito de violetas", "Libertad", "Nunca me arepiento" (which was played in concert with Alejandro Fernandez), "Djobi djoba", "Sin ti", "Noches de Marbella" and "La distencia".

I also recorded "Un amor", Chico playing it alone in only one take!

Here's a short piece of "Ramito de violetas":

Diane Dassigny - "Les sacrées noces de Betty M."

2009-08-22T14:36:00.006+02:00

Jérôme Bardon and I composed some songs for this play written by Julien Daillère. It was played in Paris last year featuring Diane Dassigny as the main character of Betty and Claude Rogen who played also the piano.

It was very interesting as this play is between a play and a musical. We were glad to participate to this project for such great comedians!

Zyx Records - "Paris Bar"

2009-08-22T01:22:00.008+02:00

This compilation from Zyx Records featured 2 songs from artists we produced under the label Bobcat Interactive.

"Hotel du nord" by Gianni Lorenti which I composed with Jérôme Bardon and "Je t'aime loin" by Jérôme.

We produced everything with my fellow companions Manu Pezot and Chris Lebled. Tened'or helped us by shooting great photos of these artists, Jean Davoust was our trustfully publisher and Nicolas Lemay did really nice covers!

Mylène Farmer - "Innamoramento"

2009-08-21T18:59:00.008+02:00

I met Visa when I was working on the "Recreation" project and he asked me to make a remix for Mylène Farmer.

Of course I accepted and we worked on "Optimistique-moi". The remix was played on the radios and was on the single.

After that we did 3 more: 2 for "Innamoramento" and 1 for "Dessine-moi un mouton".

It was really nice working on those. We were more on a re-arrangment vision than a pure club remix. We did all those in various studios with different techniques. The one that was amazing, was the tracking on a good old 24 tracks. What a sound!

Pangea - world music album

2009-08-05T13:28:00.009+02:00

Pangea is a project we made with Christophe Lebled and Manu Pezot. We were working under the name of Bobcat Interactive along with a few friends. I'll tell more about that later.

So basically we wanted to make musics from various places in the world, uniting it as it should be. Very often we forget that a long time ago, earth was only one vast continent.

One of the songs appeared on "Club Privé vol 2" - Atoll Music, alongside with an arrangement we made for Victoria.

Here are the excerpts, more to hear from Pangea on my website:

Francorusse - Bass & guitar session

2009-08-04T15:53:00.007+02:00

I was still at music school when I met Alex Jaffray. He posted on our board that he was looking for a guitar player. I answered and I recorded some tracks for him like the music for TF1 "Euro 96".

One day he asked me if I could play bass. At that time I was playing bass with classmates so I said yes! Very cool session with Julien Charley at the drums (this guy is amazing!).

Here's the trailer of this comedy movie:

Gem Duncan "C-Lamour"

2009-08-03T16:03:00.012+02:00

Gem Duncan is a project we made with Stephane Lopez, Manu Pezot, Denis Bioteau and the horn section of Nicolas Guéret as Bobcat Interactive.

House music, sexy singer talking french love words with a plain hot voice! That's the deal.

Gem is a very nice person. Even if he's a moutain of muscles, he is also a moutain of love and friendship!

It all started with a simple track we were working on with Stéphane and then everything went crazy.

A special thanks to Yann Philippe Blanc who signed us at Universal/Mercury. He was a crazy talented guy, we were lucky to meet him.

Here's an extract of the single, more to hear... here

Un pur moment de rock'n roll - Programmer

2009-08-02T18:50:00.007+02:00

This is the first movie I worked on. I was in charge of programming and syncing the old hardware (U-matic, 24 tracks Sony, PC with audiowerk 8 and Logic Audio 4). Lots of headaches but great experience! I really feel lucky because it was just the end of all this kind of gear and I must admit it was really something. One day if I can afford the room space it takes, I'd be glad to own a 24 tracks. On the other side I really don't regret the audiowerk 8. Good stability, completly integrated with logic (a miracle at that time considering all the soundcards I tried!) but not a realy goot sound.

The time for computers to invade every studios was coming.

I also helped on a string orchestration for a song and transcripted the scores.

Florent Pagny - "Recreation"

2009-08-01T13:34:00.006+02:00

Well, this was my first real work as a producer. Everything started in this studio where I was an intern sound engineer/orchestrator/arranger. One day, I was working on a string arrangement for a song and the bass player was there. It was Patrick Dupont who was part of Florent's band.

He asked me if I would like to make a demo with him for Florent's new album. Of course I said yes and we started this amazing project.

Long story short, after the first demo, we've been asked to make 6 more. We finally produced 5 and 4 of them were on the CD. One of them has been choosen to be the first single, "Jolie môme".

Halloween resurrection - "Never gonna leave you" by Jes

2009-07-31T14:24:00.005+02:00

Back in 2002, I've worked with Vassos Vassiliades on some songs for Jes. We recorded 2 of them with her. Lovecat Music took the project in hand.

What we didn't expect at all at this time was the addition of the song "Never gonna leave you" to a movie soundtrack. It's allways nice!

So it's only a 19 seconds of the track, we barely hear it but Tyra Banks seems to like it, thanks to her!

Nice to be in the credits, even with a mistake in your name:

Ana "Amor latino"

2009-07-30T20:14:00.012+02:00

Last year Chico asked me to collaborate on Ana's album. I produced 4 titles for her. At this time we came with new ideas for the gipsy fusion.

We had a great time in studio with some talented people like Manolo a guitar player or Joël Netry playing percussions.

Ana was quick as thunder for singing the lead and some of the backing vocals with an amazing feeling! Later this year I mixed a recording of a show that took place at the Bataclan in Paris. The track was used for her dvd.

Here's a title she sings with Chico Castillo, "La distencia".

David Bella - Weezee-Wig "Be my girl"

2009-07-29T16:26:00.010+02:00

Well this is a part where friendship takes a very big place as it's more about the story of 4 crazy guys doing the music they like instead of of a success story.

So let me introduce you to those people.

First of all my two wingmen: Christophe Lebled an Emmanuel Pezot. I will probably tell the story more deeply in a future post about them but in a nutshell Chris is an amazing piano player and a very talented arranger. Manu is for me 'The Ear', a complete sound engineer very technical but his heart is still attached to music. I've learned so much with them! So one day we had this song "Be my girl" that I was singing. I was like "C'mon my voice is horrible!" and they were like "you bet it is". Chris remembered he worked with a singer lately that could greatly replace me.

That's where David comes in. First we tried his voice on this song and it was magic. Excellent feeling, very good groove. And we had a very good time besides that. It's very important to be comfortable in studio and working with friends is not only very nice but enhances the workflow a lot... and I mean a lot!

After that we've more songs to finally have an entire album. Unfortunatly we didn't find a deal for this so it stayed at this demo state. But oh well, what an adventure!

As always, here's a demo of "Be my girl", more to hear on my website.

Chico Castillo - "Flamenco gipsy fusion"

2009-07-15T11:15:00.009+02:00

Back from Miami yesturday where Chico played 2 concerts at the Adrienne Arsht Center.

This was quite an experience as I haven't been on stage for 15 years. It also gave me the oportunity to speak spanish again.

Chico did an amazing job and gave all his talent to the public, as allways.

I can't speak from the music part because I'm too involved in it but the dancers were simply amazing. Look over the net for Anabel Veloso who was the chief of the dancing team and you'll have an idea of the strenght and magic they all brought on stage.

DJ Mr JimmyH "Done and redone"

2009-06-08T11:13:00.020+02:00

I've worked for a long time with Jimmy. It was a very good experience as we really mixed our vision of music. What we've done is mainly lounge music, sometimes a little house, sometimes more experimental music. When we name a song "A bike on the beach", you sure don't get a pop song.

We've done 5 albums that can be found here and there: "Key west beach vol1", "Key west beach vol2", "In summer 2006", "Pearl Beach" and "Done and redone"

Here is a demo of one of our songs:

I've added more in my website's demo page.

Sanetta Gipson

2009-06-05T17:10:00.010+02:00

I'm currently working with Yves Dessca for American Summer Music. We went to Prague last year for some orchestra recordings and everthing should be ready anytime soon.

Sanetta has done some amazing vocals and she gives to our material a completly new dimension. There's still some work to do but it looks great so far. She has done a session in my studio 4 years back when she was visiting Paris and I keep a very good souvenir of this.

Chico Castillo "Vuelvo"

2009-06-02T21:47:00.011+02:00

So this is the big project I was working on at the end of last year. After contributing to Ana's album "Amor latino", Chico asked me to produce some songs for his new album. We worked on "Libertad", "Ramito de violetas", a new version of "Djobi djoba", "Sin ti", "Pasion gipsy".

For now, I'm rehearsing with the band that will be with him on his 2009 tour.

The album release is in July along with the beginning of the tour.

http://www.chicocastillo.com/

First blog!

2009-05-30T08:23:00.002+02:00

So it's saturday morning, I just had a coffee and said to myself: oh well, let's blog!

As I'm going to travel a little, I thought I might share some of my musical experiences through this media. So what am I going to say here?

Well, mainly what I am working on but also some experiences I have/had with music and music gear.

I hope you'll find something useful around here ;)