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 first part of EROS took an enormous amount of time; ranging from taking me months to days, mostly months for tracks to come together. Unwarranted Surveillance was pretty much written in a day! That just means I employed a lot of learned techniques quickly to the track and was able to create a fun experimental melody that works with the other heavy bass sounds in the track. Positron went through about 20 different iterations and took about 4 months; Positron and Stabilize my favorite tracks of the EROS, Part 1 album, but I’m extremely happy with how all of the tracks have turned out. This is an introduction to the concepts of the trilogy album and will evolve with Part 2, and 3. EROS is a three-part adventure.
The EROS UNIVERSE ARRIVES
EROS is a concept album, a post-apocalyptic (you guessed it right!) space station that houses the criminals and fugitives of the intergalactic police, namely the Nemoans on the moon of Mars, EROS. The Nemoans are a race of giant toads that police the allied galaxies and are self-entitulated rulers of the galaxy, due to their military’s superiority. Toads are known to consume entire planets, some by themselves. Nemooah, the emperor has done this several times, though it is recognized as a legend by many rebels. EROS is the pinnacle of their demonic society and is influenced by my trip to Poland when I was 21. Part 1 contains 12 tracks about the technology and hero of the saga, J the alien. Part 2 will introduce Nemooah.
The Villain.
Emperor Nemooah is one of the universes most grimy and slime coated giant toads from the boggy swamps of the gas giant, Xaxis. Xaxis was destroyed by humanity in 2119. Nemooah’s revenge was the end of humanities occupation of Earth. Nemooah now lives deep within the swamps of Earth, eating crocodiles and whales occasionally. The remainder of the people’s of Earth now live in EROS, an energy producing virtual reality space station build on Mars’ moon. The energy gathered from the human bodies continues to grow as the humans become more and more complacent with their virtual prison. Hope for the future of humanity and the universe is fading.
There is only one being that is known to have escaped the Nemoan Federation since the beginning of time; a species, actually. the emperor has learned of their technology by the slim remains that he was able to find on Earth’s moon. He calls the race ‘novaborn’ as it appears that their technology requires the birthing of a new star, and not just any star, but one formed in the thickness of a new nebulae.
This is the beginning of the story for our hero, ‘J’, who is the last of an extinct race of ultra advanced cybernetic organisms. They are called, the Novites, or the ones born of stars. J wanders galaxy in search for new energy sources that could help to provide a future for his extinct race and their technologies that once spanned the universe. He is the last one.
Prelude to EROS Part 1
Drysithe was sure that he would die. Ever since he heard the transmission, his left eye twitched incessantly. This news wouldn’t sit well with the Emperor. Nemooah would surely execute him, like his predecessor. Nemooah didn’t even hide that he would one day kill his messenger, he had no fear of his younger cousin whatsoever. He would fade into oblivion, like his father when he failed the strike against Newetan
“The NovaStar has awoken, my liege.”
“What are the readings?”
“They are immeasurable… forces involved were too fast and powerful to even withstand basic readings… it destroyed our sensors. Specially, during the nebulae absorption process; we didn’t even begin to catalogue or record the birth… It has escaped through some kind of wormhole or portal at the end, my lord.” The undertoad looked down at his emperor’s corpulent feet with terror, he couldn’t stop his left eye from twitching. His veins felt like poison, his heart pounded.
“Do not fret, Drysithe.” Nemooah took a long moment to cackle, his amusement at Drysithe’s discomfort was unfathomably light. His many uniform decorations clanged against each other on his enormous chest. “I would never expect to catch a Novaborn during birth.” Nemooah sighed disaapointedly, letting loose a slight tumult of saliva and the dead remnants of his last good meal. “We will search the galaxies for the energy signature we found today; we have what we need! The initial data should be plenty.”
“Excellent, Emperor Nemooah, this is such excellent news!” Drysithe tried not to look at the dead toad at Nemooah’s feet.
“Indeed, it is for you Drysithe; today will not be the day that I eat you. But perhaps tomorrow..” and with a smacking of his tongue against his toad lips, Nemooah launched himself outside, then tore into the softer ground with a massive launch into the heat of the blazing nearby star. He used his jetlike rocket-pack to disappear into orbit on the horizon-line; headed for the nearby moon and the Nemooan intergalactic space station that shadowed its orbit with massive spires and rings that swirled endlessly in magnetically enhanced patterns to create the massive energies needed to travel between galaxies. space-station’s rainbows of color struck Drysithe as he realized that he would love his wife and see his child this hallowed eve. Tears streamed down his face and nothing has ever seemed so beautiful as the station, radiating brightly against the dark oblivion of the beyond.
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.
Haze is the next level of evolution for the E.T., with 9 brand new tracks and a ton of new inspiration. This is the E.T.‘s fourth independent album and the quality continues to skyrocket. I worked extremely hard on all of these tracks and appreciate any and all of the support that I get.
Hyper Drive was one of my favorite tracks ever to produce, I’ve literally spent the last 4 months writing in all of the melodies. I take a lot of influence from Skrillex, Porter Robinson, Odesza, Daft Punk, and Wolfgang Gartner in writing this track and used a lot of sounds that are pretty similar to them.
The intro is a fantastic voyage through the different textures of the track, mostly using the Juno synthesizer from Yamaha, which I am now using in most of my productions. It cascades into a radiant bass-scape with heavy engine shutters and grimey dubstep basses in combination with some really beautiful melodies.
The ending has a synthesizer solo that I created with Serum, its pretty grungy and awesome to listen to and sounds different, every time that I hear it. Enjoy the adventure through sonic space-time!
TRACK 2 – ACID URINE
Acid Urine is a Dubstep track that has actually been finished for a couple of months. I’ve been making final touches to it, so you can definitely consider this one of my more thought out tracks. It is pretty original, lots of weird sound designs in it, but overall it pumps and I think it gives a feeling of future dubstep, kind similar to G Jones. I have a track that I am producing right now that sounds pretty similar to him, so I can see that influence continuing to grow.
Enjoy the heavy bass-lines, it gets really dancy at the end. So glitchy, and yeah the first drop is heavy, turn it up.
TRACK 3 – ESCAPE ENDOR
Escape Endor is probably my favorite track that I have produced. The Arp in combination with the Bass synthesis is just so groovy and in combination with the vocals, its vibes create an almost irresistible booty shaking.
It reminds me of when Walker Boh escaped the Martixy thing in the book Terry Brooks wrote about the Elfstones. Like Neo in the last scene before he becomes a demi-god or whatever.
It’s a little cray, but turn up the bass cause the mix is solid.
TRACK 4 – FORCE
Force is a Bass-House track that kinda came outta nowhere in the last week of writing the album. The melodies and bass are simple, but powerful and fun. Turn up the mix on this one, it will definitely get you dancing.
TRACK 5 – BROKE
Broke is a pretty special track for me in how it represents my continued advancement into the genre of Glitch-Hop. The soundscape is insane and the sub is almost overpowering in the mix, but the sounds of dubstep interlace some glitchy and beautiful melodies.
Broke contains some of my most unique sound designs and many of the sounds will be used in the future to fit into my future trap/bass/glitch-hop tracks.
TRACK 6 – LUCID
Lucid is a Future Dubstep & Trap Adventure that was very much inspired by the music of REZZ, which I find to be hypnotic and a bit simple, but very compelling. This track hits hard and has some really cool bass sounds so make sure you listen with at least a little bit of subwoofer.
TRACK 7 – DISCOVERY
Discovery has my favorite melodies of the entire album. To me, this track is all about inspiration and finding after the search, it really was quite a surprise to come up with some of the excellent sounds that create this dreamscape. Very inspired with my sound design in the Yamaha Juno series, expect some exciting melodies in combination with some filthy bass.
TRACK 8 – HIVE BUZZ
Hive Buzz is a French House track, meaning that I took an old disco sample, then turned it into a house beat. The bass here is undeniably booty-shaking and the melodies are a beautiful contract to create a disco-like future-house atmosphere. Tell your friends!
TRACK 9 – JUNO
Juno is the final track of Haze and contains some of my most ambitious sounds from the album, many of which were created in the Juno synth and from using emulations. It really is an incredibly good sounding synthesizer that represents the 80’s so expect some retro sounds in this track, though the mix is extremely modern. I love the vocal manipulations and how they turn into a kind of atmospheric melody for the track.
HAZE was probably about 500-600 hours worth of total work. I really have worked my ass off for the last 6 months to bring you guys these tracks, so if you enjoy them, please help me to share them. I am also creating a little commentary track on writing the album that I will include with the FREE DOWNLOAD BELOW.
Now off to the future of the E.T. I am pretty sure that I am going to enter into CloZee’s remix contest, her latest mix with Pretty Lights was spectacular and I absolutely love her sound. It seems to be the perfect next step.
I also have a couple tracks that are in progress, of course 😉 One is called ‘Blow It’ and sounds a lot like G Jones, and I am working towards that level of Glitchy-Future-Trap and Bass tracks. Look forward to the future 🙂
The album will be out on Streaming Services within a week.
Bleep Bloop or Aaron Triggs is a future legendary Trap producer. He continues to make a name for himself in the bass scene, making future trap and heavy dubstep with G Jones, Proko, NastyNasty and Yheti.
Bleep Bloop uses some interesting and mysterious gear, though its well rumored that he uses a moog sub phatty for a lot of his tracks. Fat licks and heavily distorted industrial inspired basses lace his thick trap beats. His style is pretty similar to G Jones, and they have a good amount of tracks together. Proko and Bleep Bloop made one of my favorite tracks together, Disc Error, definitely listen on soundcloud.
Expect Big Things
Bleep Bloop is leading the way in a style of music that is new to the scene. His dubstep is starting to pick up some massive traction. This year he’ll be supporting Rezz on tour. The quality of his music will only continue to improve with time if he continues to do what he is doing. That makes me pretty excited for the future of EDM.
The West Coast Bass Scene has a lot to look forward to….
Combined with Eprom, G Jones, Proko, Yheti, etc the bass scene in the west has a lot to look forward to. Bleep creates some wonky analogue style sound designs and layers on some thick bass. Then he maxes out distortion and smashes the side chain for some face melting beats. Bleep Bloop brings it when he plays so if you ever get a chance, make sure you’re ready for this kid to blow your mind.
G Jones is a pioneer of the electronic music scene and has been pushing the boundaries of live performance DJing in the underground for several years. He has played under a few different aliases including Grizzly J, . Greg Jones is the creator’s real name. But G Jones is what the bass music fans are shrieking alongside Bass Nectar, Bleep Bloop, Yheti, the Widdler, Bleep Bloop, Zeds Dead, Nasty Nasty, and Pretty Lights.
Jones has created with several artists and is definitely a rising star of the bass music scene. His latest album “Visions” is one of the most unique albums ever. It blasts distinctly unique bass sounds designed for louder systems. Check out the album below, stream it on youtube or BUY THE ALBUM (def worth it.)
G Jones’ soundcloud is chalked full of hits so make sure you check out his unique style of dubstep and future trap. Not really sure which it is. Don’t really care.
His latest release of Eprom’s Pineapple is completely ridiculous and true to the style of Visions, which is fairly evolved from his ‘EYES EP‘ four years ago. Also check out his collaborations with Bleep Bloop, including the 4 track ‘MIND EP‘. Also check out Bleep Bloop’s entire discography to melt your brain a bit, the dude has some seriously talented ears for dropping massive and unpredictably delectable dubstep beats into your lap.
Top G Jones Tracks
listen to some of my favorite G Jones tracks below:
G Jones Visual Style
G Jones, like many of the experimental bass artists on the West Coast Underground (see my list of top artists here) is still developing his visual style, however, the momentum that he has going right now is pretty incredible. He has started to team up with Bass Nectar, so expect this artist’s visuals to start pushing EDM further.
The west coast bass scene is continually undergoing major changes. The industry continues to move at a faster and more tremendously unpredictable pace. We get to see how Greg develops the brand of G Jones. And how he continues to reach the underground as he becomes more and more popular.
The Future of Trap and Bass Music
Huge sets in 2018 as well are new releases are a must. Expect this artist to shine in the years to come. Huge releases from Yheti, Bleep Bloop, and Proko lead one to get really excited for the potential of the entire bass music scene. 2018 will be huge for the bass music scene in California as it continues to mature. Find some more info below.
