What Will We Do Now?

“What Will We Do Now?” is a record that comes from quiet hours, It merges downtempo and electronica with a big of blues and jazz textures, combining live sessions with found sounds and half broken analog gear to create something more slow burning and a little weathered. It’s not a clean or polished album, it’s sort of supposed to feel lived in.

At the heart of these tracks are vocal samples from some awesome soul and folk singers, like Johnny Adams on "901" and Z.Z. Hill on "Sweet Darling," among others, their voices are the emotions around which I built the songs, shaping the music around their phrasing and tone.

A lot of the album came together using an old Moog Prodigy from the late 70s that used to belong to Liam Howe from Sneaker Pimps, a band I’ve loved for years. Becoming X had a huge influence on me, songs like "Spin Spin Sugar" and "6 Underground" still hit like nothing else. There’s something in that sound, that strange mix of electronic and soulful sounds, that I’ve always been drawn to.
I also like using synths such as the MicroKorg and Yamaha CP, instruments that might seem basic at first glance, but have this unexpected depth and charm when you switch them on and start to really learn them. The Wurlitzer setting on the CP especially has this warmth that felt perfect for the mood I was chasing.

Making an album is never a linear process for me, I’ll usually write close to 300 pieces and gradually carve it down to around 15 that feel like they belong together. Not every discarded track is a full song though, some are just sketches or dead ends. But what remains is what stayed with me, what felt truer the longer I lived with it.
This record, more than anything I’ve done, felt like it took its shape slowly. The more I sat with it, the more it made sense to me. It's repetitive in places, even broken in a literal way, there’s a barely functioning Korg synth on a few tracks that kept cutting out or glitching. But I kind of fell in love with that. It’s part of the album’s DNA, damaged, delicate, but holding on. I owe a lot to records like “Play” by Moby, which showed me how electronic music can feel both vast and intimate.

There’s a particular moment in the film Lost In Translation, where Scarlett Johansson’s character stares out the taxi window at night in Tokyo while My Bloody Valentine’s “Sometimes” plays out. I feel like that scene captures something I try to do with music, not just to soundtrack a moment, but almost perfume it. Make it linger. Make it matter.

There’s a particular feeling I keep coming back to, feeling like the only person awake in a city. It’s isolating but somehow comforting, for moments when you’re deep in your own head, and the silence starts to hum.
I don’t know if any of that comes across when you listen to it, maybe it won’t. But “What Will We Do Now” makes the most sense to me when played all the way through, start to finish, alone, late at night around 2 am.

Thanks to the artists whose voices shaped this record, Your field recordings, voices, and spirit made this project possible for me.


Tanika Charles

Z.Z. Hill

The Cliks

Tapioca

Penny Lane

Antennasia

Johnny Adams

Dreamlife

Mario Luciano

Jimmy Q

Son Lux