First things first, please download it here: http://kenrossmusic.net
Alright. Well... that took longer than expected.
I mean, I think the last time I actually put out an album, mixtape or EP was 2004? So this EP/Mixtape/Album or whatever you want to call it was well overdue.
I always dig when artists talk about what inspired their albums or talk about the developments in their artistic process, so because I want to be cool and legitimate I'm going to talk about my experiences in the creation of "Zzzz" in this post... So readers beware: lots of words will follow and if you could care less, you can just chill, catch up on your "Entourage" and I'll make sure to post an Eric Carl picture-book to break it all down for you in the near future.
I guess this album would have to go all the way back to '05-'06, when I wrote this song called "the Truth", which is on the album under a slightly different title, "True to You". It was the first song I ever wrote with a jazzy neo-soul vibe, and it was almost there. The problem was I couldn't sing that hard r&b-like stuff for shit. A couple years later, not really by singing more but honestly just by listening and playing more, I tried my pipes at it again and it didn't sound nearly as bad... So I thought: "Hey... maybe I could try this recording music thing again."
Surprisingly, the majority of the album was all conceived in about two months over the past summer. Back in June of '09, after re-recording "True to You" using the individual tracks that had been recorded nearly four years earlier (including Malc's killin' solo), I made a track with Alexia Blakley called "I'm Still". I was striving for a contemporary take on a Tammy-and-Marvin upbeat duet. Shortly after this recording my computer hard-drive crashed, and I was pretty... fucked.
I had made a bunch of tracks but of course, backing up shit is not my forte. (As many people that have worked with me in the past know very well) So I lost like 4-5 tracks that I was working on for an album to be released initially in September of 2009. But there was no way that was going to happen after the massacre of all of my recorded files. So long story short, I recorded almost all these beats over the summer while back home in Boston and while teaching at the Litchfield Jazz Camp. When I got back to Northwestern to start up school I had a lot of music that didn't make much sense together, ranging from extensive experimental vamps (i.e. "Cherokee Dream Catcher") to Radiohead cover's like "All I Need"
So fall quarter hit me and all the music making stopped. I wanted to release the project initially before I left for the holidays, but trying to maintain a social life and a "sweet" real-world resume got in the way of me putting the my efforts into this project. Over winter break I kinda looked at all the music I had and still none of it made sense together really. Straight hip-hop songs like "Stop!" and soul joints like my adaptation of the American songbook standard "Darn that Dream" just didn't sound great in succession... But I did notice a theme of dreaming throughout the majority of my pieces... and Zzzz was born. So over winter break and up until last week I worked out all of the "Zzzz" interludes to help segment all the songs a bit. As a result these interludes actually kind of became some of my favorite pieces on the album, and really helped me develop my style that I'm going to further build upon in the near future.
As a nice touch, I wanted to kind of come full circle with the project. So I called up my friend Malcolm Campbell to record before I had to go back to Northwestern following new years. The day we recorded also happened to be the same day that the Lucky Movie team came over to film the promo video, which worked out nicely, as they got to film us jamming a little bit on "I Thought About You". But the real end product of this session was the first track on the album, "Zzzz". And there you have it, four years apart, the collaboration of Malcolm Campbell and Ken Ross to make some good jazz/funk/blues/hip-hop for your soul. I hope you enjoy it along with the rest of the album.
A lot of people have been asking me what my favorite track is and why, so I figured I'd put my thoughts out there too for any curious individuals. (Oh and by a lot I mean like ten...people and one child, but that's a lot right? Its all relative, I think?)
My favorite could definitely be "Zzzz 1.0" or "2.0", but if I had to go with one song I think it would be "Prayer". There were a lot of things that I was striving to do with this album, one of which was taking soul/r&b music back OUT of the box that its been put in, and I think that this song really accomplished a lot of that. Musically, I was really trying to combine all of the music that I listen to into one song or style, and I think I did that by using hip-hop influenced drums, greasey guitar riffing, distorted synths, and a jazz guitar solo at the end. Musically this song embodies a lot of the kind of music that I hope to make.
Not only that, but conceptually this song was on point. I was thinking back to the emergence of soul music; its movement out of the church and into more secular topics, many of which were part of the black power movement. I was trying bring soul music back to the spirituality which it came from and once radiated. So I made this song that's about prayer, which to me often becomes the struggle between being thankful for your blessings and being unsatisfied with your present situation. Lyrically the song ended up being a kind of satire for those who only look to their spirituality when in need, and not as a form of being humble or content. (hence the sarcastic quotations) Its something that I've struggled with and I think that its universal to everyone whether religious or not. So because both the music and the concept was there for this song, it definitely came out as one of my favorites on the EP.
