My latest track is out now via YouTube and elliottelford.com. This is very influenced by the recent events with Elon Musk (Go Fuck Yourself Bob Iger), as well as my generation’s (the millennials and Z’s) conquest for a better world. I hope it gets you excited about the release of Grōk, AI, and the cosmic future of humanity.
I spent a little while on this one, mostly on the mix. The sound design process has been pretty consistently expansive for me lately, and I keep fine tuning the frequencies of the sounds that I truly LOVE to make. I am not super impressed with the AI music making software yet, but I also remind myself that highly technical tools, such a RIFT, or PhasePlant are undoubtedly made with AI precursor softwares (which are human oriented). I can’t recommend these two plug-ins enough. They are top of the line and I really love and appreciate the products.
Noer the Boy is at the helm of a new generation of pioneers exploring the frequency spectrum through abstract bass music. His beats crush with punishing distortion and his music seethes with melodic and harmonic intricacies that will being your dance moves to the next level. From his background in marching band, choir, and video editing; Noah grew a fascination with kinetic beats, industrial sounds, and the unrestricted freedom of computer sound creation.
Noah is 27 (August 3rd, 1993) from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Noah was born and raised in Appleton, which is about an hour and a half from Milwaukee on the northern end of Lake Winnebago. Noah studied music and band in high school playing the French horn, which is pretty damn cool and also became a drum major for his high school, Appleton East.
Noah is a member of DJ Shadow’s imprint Liquid Amber, Los Angeles collective Courteous Family, and Noisia’s DIVISION, Noer the Boy has also released music on Mass Appeal, VISION, Alpha Pup, and Orange Milk Records. Noer teamed up with Shadow to co-produce ‘Horror Show’ featuring Danny Brown and tour Europe following the release of his debut album ‘Mechanism’. His sounds have grabbed the attention of bass music figureheads G Jones, EPROM, Machinedrum, Ivy Lab, and the Low End Theory club night in LA.
Noah seems to be in a solid space, even with the impact of CoronaVirus in 2020. Pretty awesome considering he now makes a living off making music, sound design tutorials and sample packs, and has an awesome Patreon where you can get exclusives of all his newly released tracks, as well as deeper packages to help music creators augment their productions. He works hard for it and his sound reflects that.
I’ve been lucky enough to take lessons from Noah for about the last year and a half and we’ve been drilling down into mix engineering, deeper sound design, and modular synthesis. Noah is really a wiz at music, so make sure you follow him because he will definitely be releasing new music. He’s recently started to make heavily synthesized house music, or electro, which I have to say I am ecstatic about. Electro-House is my favorite kind of music.
I interviewed Noah about A Forlorn Hope, in an effort to get a better understanding of his music creation process, and what this latest album means to him. I loved the album, especially Shapeshifter, Nebula, Exile, and Rule of two. The whole album certainly deserves a listen on some high quality speakers! (your car is probably not loud enough). Check out the Q and A with Noah below and leave a comment if you feel inclined:
Interview with Noer the Boy
Q1. Elliot: “I personally love all of your music. But this album seems special. I think it hits harder than most and that the sound design is pioneering. What kinds of processes and techniques do you use to make your sounds and mix stand out so much? What kind of special sauces do you use to create such a punishing sound?”
A1. Noertheboy: “Don’t underestimate the power of layering. A few simple sounds or effect chains can combine to form something that appears much more complex than it really is. Treat sound design as building with lego bricks – maybe the instructions are useful but also maybe you want to experiment instead.”
Q2. Elliot: “A Forlorn Hope has some of my favorite tunes on it. But I think that the title track is special and its kind of the motif of the album. Its fat. What inspired you to create that track, and the sounds that are in it?”
A2. Noertheboy: “Without giving too much away, Forlorn Hope is about a doomed journey to the edge of the known universe. ‘Forlorn Hope’ was originally named ‘Event Horizon’, but after watching the 90s film by the same title I didn’t want people to think I made the record about that movie.”
Q3. Elliot: “My favorite track is Nebula, I’m not sure why, but I just love the cohesion of the track and the melody that persists and finds an apex near the ending. What are your favorite parts of the album, and why?”
A3. Noertheboy: “It’s impossible for me to pick a favorite from my album. Each album track is my favorite for a different reason. If I don’t feel 100% like it’s my favorite song made so far, it doesn’t make it on the record.”
Q4: Elliot: “How did you come up with the theme and storyline behind the album? Its pretty cool. It reminds me of a combination of Lost in Space, Dune, or maybe the Abyss.”
A4. Noertheboy: “‘Forlorn Hope’ itself is a term for a group of soldiers tasked with a leading mission, usually a suicidal mission where casualties are high. That combined with my love of deep space SCI-FI films have influenced me a great deal. The Alien series, Interstellar, War of the Worlds, 2001: A Space Odyssey – movies like those have shaped a lot of my sonic identity. The world that ‘Forlorn Hope’ exists in is also the same world that my first album ‘Mechanism’ takes place in. I’m a big fan of concept records.”
Q5. Elliot: “You said on your instagram that writing this album has been particularly Cathartic for you. In what ways have you grown personally and professionally from writing A Forlorn Hope?”
A5. Noertheboy: “I only start write an album when I have something new to say and new tools to showcase. So a lot of growth has to happen to get to that place. And the album writing process itself is transformative. Writing a few songs will undoubtably inspire me to write more and that process leads to rapid growth and breakthroughs that might come much slower if not for writing a cohesive LP.”
Q6. Elliot: “How long did you album take?”
A6. Noertheboy: “The process took a little under a year and a half.”
Q7. Elliot: “How long have you been writing music? What was your first show like?”
A7. Noertheboy: “I’ve been writing music as Noer the Boy for going on 8 years, but music has been an integral part of my life ever since I can remember. My first show was a house party in college and I remember playing hella Pretty Lights, rap music, and Skrillex mashups IIRC. Shoutout my old music homies Kaelin and Alec for playing with me at that first show!”
Q8. Elliot: “You’re pretty good at writing music, Noah. But why do you make it? What’s your primary inspiration. (or 2, or 3)”
A8. Noertheboy: “Music put simply is my everything. It’s what I know. I’d make music if nobody listened.”
Q9. Elliot: “Is there anything else about the album that you want people to know? Maybe you can comment on how you feel about it being finished and out there in the wild to have a life of its own?”
A9. Noertheboy: “Shirts and vinyl copies are in the works! Big thanks to everyone listening and sharing the record, I really appreciate it.”
Q10: “Any last notes? Any coronavirus advice?”
A10. Noertheboy: “Take the stay at home orders seriously so we can get back to enjoying live music.”
That’s it for the interview, feel free to comment on anything and make sure to check out this very avant-garde production from Noer the Boy – A Forlorn Hope.
You can buy the Forlorn Hope album on Bandcamp to help support Noah in his journey. You can also follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and of course, on Facebook.
Sorry its been so long since I’ve posted about my music here. I’m getting back into the swing of my second job (yoga instruction) and I started a new landscaping business this year, so it has been very difficult to find time for things other than work and relaxing from work, and music requires a lot of attention, effort, and time.
However, I have been working super diligently on my music and continuing my lessons with Noah, aka Noer the Boy, whose music you can check out here. He’s a really talented dude with an incredible grasp on distortion and how to manipulate sound to create ultra heavy beats, so make sure you check out his music. His melodies are also really incredible, make sure you listen to his latest album: Forlorn Hope.
Melodies
The biggest challenge thus far in learning how to write music has certainly been learning to write effective and ear catching melodies. Ideally, to create melodies that resonate and build upon themselves to create an overall harmony that is enjoyable. Thus the release of ‘Mystery’ and ‘Go Big’, which are by far the most melodically oriented tracks I’ve made. I have kinda pushed sound design to the side to explore music theory in more depth and to get a handle on mixing, which has always been really challenging for me (before Noah, I was completely self-taught via youtube). I’m thinking about getting another mentor also just to keep growing in different ways. I’m also working with my buddy who is literally the best guitar player I’ve ever met, Rich Santana, to start making more analog sounds (drums, guitar riffs, bass riffs, etc). I’ve also picked up the Arturia CMI Fairlight and Buchla Easel emulations, which are super fun and incredibly unique instruments.
Learning to mix has been quite the journey for me. I got into music because I love sound and experimental beats, similar to Mr. Oizo, Daft Punk, Deadmau5, Eprom, and No Mana, but obviously all of the artists I just mentioned are fantastic mixing engineers. Experimental sound design isn’t really that cool unless you can properly mix the sounds, because of the overlap of the distortion and lack of quiet in certain parts of the frequency spectrum. I am continuing to educate myself on how exactly to mix sounds to create heavier beats and will continue this journey for a few decades, I hope.
Crystal Caves – Elliot’s newest track
This brings me to my latest piece of music, an abstract BASS track that I call Crystal Caves. This is significantly slower than the majority of my music, because I am trying to branch out from my favorite genre, house music, to play with more experimental and heavy rhythms. I’ve also worked out longer intros and some serious layering of melodies in combination with tighter mixes through precise equalizing and compression to make more cinematic music.
Get my music pretty music anywhere
The track is available on most streaming outlets and I’ve actually used a 3rd party distributor for this track instead of using DistroKid, though I am very skeptical of continuing to work with any distributor. I want complete control over my own music, which makes it tough to even send my stuff out to labels. Please share my track with your friends if you like it, I also really appreciate anyone who reaches out to me with a comment or even a buck or two to support my journey in making music. But I really appreciate anyone who is just willing to give my music a good listen.
Follow my releases here: https://linktr.ee/etelford32
the E.T.’s latest melodic electro house track is a well mixed 120 BPM adventure in the key of D.
Production
I spent about 6 months producing the track and I got a lot out of trying to work with all of the different sounds and variations of the original melody that I was able to create. I used all of my production technology, which now includes Fabfilter PROQ3, Izotope’s Trash 2, Sylenth, Reaktor, and all of the native Ableton plugins.
Lately I have been very centered and focused on writing better music, which always seems to happen in tandem with spending more time practicing yoga. I can remember in India when I first started making music with Ableton every day after I practiced the Primary Series with Saraswathi. I think I was inspired by Rumi while I was there and just wanted to find stuff to create.
I’ve always been into EDM, but making music gives me an extra excuse to be a mega-nerd about it. I make a few new playlists every week for my yoga classes, follow me on Spotify for them. My favorite artists this week are Black Gummy, Sayer, and Eprom. I’ve also been registering to Deadmau5’s latest album and like it a lot more than when it was first released. Sayer should be named slayer, his sound is so cool.
Somethin Somethin and No Mana have also been making great music this last year. About a week ago I went on a Mat Zo, Matt Lange, Flume, and Yung Bae have also been in my most play lists.
Lessons on writing melodies and mixing
After my last album, it became pretty apparent to me that I needed a lot of work in the studio learning about mixing and getting my sounds to layer and compliment each other. I saw a post from Noer the Boy on Twitter about Ableton lessons and decided to give one a shot.
It turned out kinda magnificently, Noer, or Noah, the guy I’ve taken probably a dozen lessons from is a prolific writer and has lots of great tracks already finished. His mixes are also very much on point; they punch through the speakers and the music makes me want to get moving. Its pretty exciting.
I have also finished my studio, meaning I have 2 Yamaha monitors and a subwoofer that get pretty loud so I can hear everything. I can understate how powerful this is going to be for my mixing; until recently my music was all made out of headphones (which don’t have nearly the same dynamic range as good studio monitors. More high quality tools to get better results.
More Progress in Melodic Structure
Writing a full melody has always been kinda difficult for me, but I really feel like I have written a few tracks that have a great melody and that are almost ready to be released. I have a lot of work to do on the mixing of them, designing some more dope sounds for ’em and on tying them all together. The new mixing tools I’ve gotten recently are also helping a ton.
It has been a journey in patience as I experiment with all different kinds of keys and modes to get the flow of the music going just right, but I think I’m getting there. I’ve also been able to finish buying all of the professional tools that I need for my studio, so now I can focus on the writing.
This guy just did his first headline at Red Rocks and will be starting to tour internationally here soon. Make sure you check out this pioneer of bass music when you get a chance.
More Music Coming Soon…
I have a bunch of tracks that I am working on that will form EROS Part 3. I’ve been working a bunch on the storyline as well, the whole project continues to evolve a lot. Check back in the next few weeks for the nunu 😀
EROS INTRODUCTION: The EROS album is definitely a step-up from my previous work. The mix quality as well as the writing is just on another level (thanks to a lot of hard work). I am attempting to write songs with a new degree of depth, EROS is a result of that search. Now for the EROS introduction, my latest work and music that I am very proud to present to you.
I have taken a lot of influence recently from old rock music, especially Pink Floyd, the Beetles, Led Zeppelin, and Jimmy Hendrix, specifically. The ideas of concept albums and how Pink Floyd used them to talk about ideas that are pervasive to the human experience. I’m in love with how Led Zeppelin plays to ideas and how all of the artists create stories with their music. Especially Hendrix.
So I have attempted to adapt my own methodology to create a concept for an album that I think can stand the test of time. EROS is an alien concentration camp of Mar’s moon that all of my tracks focus around. I am almost finished writing the tracks built around these concepts and there is a full storyline to accompany it. EROS tracks has been nearly 6 months in the making! So here’s the story.
EROS was originally going to be a trilogy
I decided to cut down the track count to about 7 or 8 and just take the best. I have also signed one of the tracks to a label. More on that later. Now to introduce EROS and the Universe that exists around the alien concentration camp.
EROS Introduction
Part 1: Introducing J the Alien
Introducing the main character of the Saga, J the Alien. J is an alien, in fact, he is the last being of his race, a once populous and prodigiously successful civilization until the collapse of their neutron star. Now a being must be born into a collapsing star in order to absorb the necessary energy into the incubation process. The energy requirements are so enormous that a birth causes the neutron stars to collapse within a millenia. The Novaborn live until they are killed.
Novaborn – the birth
Future Bass Hybrid
Novaborn is the story of J’s birth, the first part of the EROS introduction. He was birthed without any knowledge of his ancestry into the darkness of space. Upon waking for the first time post-incubation, J is guided via the Novaborn AI, Celexa to his new homeworld, Celexus. Celexa encountered a planet during the incubation process and already begun the terraforming process to make the atmosphere suitable for J to arrive and begin mining the crust. His first quest inundates J with knowledge about his species, their energy consumption, the energy costs of his own life, and the recognition that he is the only one of his kind. J’s life is a search for energy, to keep himself alive and to revive the Novaborn species.
J the Alien – Introducing the main character
Future Electro
J is a very unique character that I am very excited to share. I had an entire album built to explore J’s universe and existence. But I scrapped 5 tracks and combined the rest into the EROS saga. J has all kinds of incredible technology and unique attributes. Luckily, these attributes make for harrowing and mind-melting adventures through the cosmos. I will release the next tracks ‘very soon;.
This past week has been great for my yoga practice and also my music writing, usually the two go together for me. Hence the above remix of Morgan Page – Beautiful Disaster. The vocals are fantastic, I really hope you like the mix!
I subscribe to a sample library that I have a certain amount of download credits to each month so that I can download professional sounds, mostly drums and specialty synthesizer sounds or vocals. They are royalty free, but I always manipulate them enough to make them unrecognizable anyways.
They have remix contests and this contest in particular had some excellent vocals to work with, which I was looking for in Splice anyways, so I decided to just go ahead and do a remix instead.
So my latest track was a fantastic mix-down experience because I got to work closely with vocal samples to making them fit into the overall house mix that I created to accompany it. The vocals make the track stand out against a lot of my other work, but the sound design is very similar and the leads are Juno emulations.
I took a lot of new sound design techniques that I have been working with and applied them to the stems that were provided. The track is pretty simple, but the drum-beat is very original and the bass is super dope, I seriously can’t wait to hear it on a louder system. Part of the reason I make music is that I like bass music and house so much; it gives me a good perspective on going after the future of the genres and market.
The percussion also keeps the track moving at all time, while an electro stab that I added creates a bit of contrasting melody against the chords of the track, just to spice it up and provide a bit of my own flavor. I think the best part of the track are the FX and the beat. On some louder speakers those drums will smash.
Anyways, I hope you like the track. I can’t offer you a download, but here are the streaming links:
Soundcloud – Stream and let me know what you think of it.
Crave came together over the course of a few months, the layering of the lead synths took a while to plan. I feel like this is one of my best produced tracks yet and I certainly put a good amount of time into it.
It doesn’t exactly fit into what I am getting ready to create with my next album, but I certainly feel that the track is well written, so I am releasing it as possibly one of my last singles. I am feeling heavily into writing albums and am pretty excited about the idea of creating themes around the tracks to give them more purpose.
Electro-House and Modern EDM
For the past week I haven’t even been listening to much EDM. I’ve been actually getting really excited about older Pink Floyd tracks to find sounds that are more uniquely dissonant and distorted. Their older work certainly contains some mastery. This track is another experimental attempt at trying to create the sounds that meld together into a seizing rhythm of house beats.
I used a combination of my favorite drums samples from some Splice packs that I have been collecting for over a year now. The kick is from the Deadmau5 pack, it has some of my favorite drums sounds. The hats in this track are very uniquely arranged, I feel like they add a tremendous amount of momentum.
The Bass is heavily modulated and I’ve create three different layers for it. It should really shine on larger systems.
The Lead is yet another JUNO synth sound, which is still my favorite. I’ve added like 5 different FX channels to it that are all mixed into the drums to give some awesome melodic and pad pumping effects.
The composition came together rather quickly, I am sometimes really surprised at how it just seems to happen on some days when I devote myself to it.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy the track, I will hopefully have time to make a music video for it in the next week or so.
