Auburn Jam Music | London Recording & Music Production Studio

Joe and I decided in February that we would give up TV for lent, which for us is quite a sacrifice as it’s our favourite thing to do to unwind. Thank goodness lent is over now, and we’ve got some treats to binge on, as a few of our clients have been making TV appearances of late!

Nazneen Rahman on Horizon

Firstly, tonight there is a whole entire programme dedicated to the work of the team at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research which includes our client Nazneen Rahman! Horizon on BBC2 will follow Naz and her team’s incredible work in cancer research and treatment. It’s a real privilege to work with Naz, who is not only an incredibly talented singer-songwriter, but also one of the leading geneticists in her field discovering genes which pre-dispose to cancer, which then translates into clinical practise by developing genetically-targeted treatments for cancer patients. Naz and her team have been in the news several times over the past couple of years, having discovered multiple new genes and gene variants which pre-dispose to breast cancer and childhood cancers and you can find out more about her work on Horizon tonight, BBC2 at 9pm.

As you can imagine, Nazneen doesn’t have much free time, and we feel very blessed that she decides to spend some of it with us at AJM. We work with Nazneen to record and produce ambient jazz versions of some of her favourite songs, as well as her own writing, and are currently working on an album, which we’ll be releasing and managing under our own label later this year. Nazneen decided to put up a couple of her songs on SoundCloud at the end of last year and went down a hit! She’s got nearly 900 followers, and has even had a couple of her songs picked up by established music blogger and songwriter Dave Greening. Here’s the latest track we’ve produced with Nazneen, an original song called “Lost Cause” which has already had nearly 500 plays and 130 comments in 6 days! It’s our personal favourite too – really heartfelt, expressive vocals, very moving songwriting, and Joe particularly enjoys producing ambient music and playing Fender Rhodes!

We really love working with Nazneen and can’t wait to share the completed album with the world. Make sure you check out her incredible work on Horizon tonight and give her a follow on SoundCloud.

Ross William Wild on The Voice

We also had a great clip to watch of AJM client Ross William Wild appearing on BBC music talent show The Voice. Ross came to the studio about a month ago to record a track and music video of him singing Queen’s The Show Must Go On. The video’s had plenty of hits online, and we’ve had some great feedback on Ross’ incredible vocals through our Facebook page, but unfortunately none of the judges turned round for him! If you watch the clip, though, you’ll see Tom Jones and Will.I.Am immediately regretting their decisions and wishing they’d buzzed in time!

Not to worry, Ross William Wild is due to hit our screens again soon on ITV’s Superstar, which is documenting Andrew Lloyd Webber’s search for the title role of his hit rock-opera Jesus Christ Superstar opening in the West End later this year. We’re sure Ross will do brilliantly, as he’s already understudied the lead role of Galileo in the UK tour of We Will Rock You, so rock tenor musical theatre really is his thing. Check out our music video we recorded and produced with Ross last month, and see for yourselves:

Gabriella Burnel on Britain’s Got Talent

Next up, we found a brilliant clip of long-standing client Gabriella Burnel making an appearance on Britain’s Got Talent last year! Gabriella definitely showed off her excellent topical comedy songwriting skills and beautiful voice, and secured a place for life in the judges memories, with her song penned especially for the occassion “Please Don’t Buzz Me Off”, writing a verse about each of the judges. She proved herself to be not only talented but completely original, which is so hard to do on these shows – Gabriella, we salute you!

And she got through to the next round! Gabriella has made quite a name for herself on the fringe comedy circuit with her hilarious songs on many a topical subject, and we’ve had the privilege to record and produce her songs for popular kids audiobook website storynory.com and for several theatre shows and pantomimes. Gabriella is a very talented lady and lovely, lovely person and we look forward to following her success!

That’s all for now, but we hope to be seeing more of our clients on the telly box, as so many of them deserve. In the meantime, we’ll be rooting for friend of our very good friend Franki, Jay Norton on The Voice this year. His version of Aloe Blacc’s “I Need A Dollar” got him not one, but two buzzes from Tom Jones and Will.I.Am and landed him a well deserved spot on Will.I.Am’s team. We’ve been following Jay’s ‘Spare Room Sessions’ – brilliant mash-ups, covers and originals – on YouTube for some years now and we think this guy will go far. You can download his free mixtape here. Go Jay! Over and out.

The French have Les Mis, the Geordies have Billy Elliot, the Argentineans have Evita, and now the Welsh have their own musical gift to the world in the form of My Land’s Shore, for which we’ve had the absolute pleasure to record the lead vocals here at Auburn Jam Music over the last few months.

We’ve been privileged to host some serious musical theatre talent currently performing in the West End or UK Tours in the AJM studio, including Jonathan Williams (Les Miserables), Killian Donnelly (Phantom), Kelly-Ann Gower (Blood Brothers), Andy Hockley (Phantom), Alexis James (War Of The Worlds), Sarah Lark (Oliver), Kit Orton (Spamalot), Rhiannon Sarah Porter (Les Miserables) and Gareth Richards (Thorn Birds). With such a plethora of rich vocal talent emanating from the valleys and settling itself into the casts of West End shows, we say it’s about time Wales’ incredible performers and fascinating histories were given a stage of their own, and My Land’s Shore does exactly this.

Written by Bob Gould and Christopher J Orton, this new musical follows the rebellion of the working class iron and coal workers against upper class industrialists and the British government in the Merthyr Rising of 1831, culminating in the death of Wales’ first martyr, Richard Lewis (a.k.a. Dic Penderyn). Lewis was wrongly convicted and sentenced to be “hung by the neck until dead” for stabbing a soldier in the leg with a seized bayonet in the riots. Despite much evidence to the contrary, a witness was coerced by the British government to lie under oath, and Lewis was hanged as an example of what would happen to rebels.

In Orton and Gould’s musical, the epic macro-themes of social injustice, civil rights and ‘Fighting For The Cause’ are portrayed through rousing ensemble numbers and rallying battle songs like “Make Wales Proud”. But these aren’t the main focus -they are a colourful canvas on which the soaring melodies of solos and haunting harmonies of duets and trios from the individual characters are painted, exploring the (arguably more interesting) micro-themes of moral dilemma, duty, guilt, love, parenthood and heartbreak. This presentation of personal internal conflict frequently contradicting the background of idealised rebellion prevents the musical from being a self-important civil-rights set-piece, and instead we are treated to insights into the personal costs of standing up for your beliefs.

A wife wrestling with a mixture of grief at the loss of her husband, and determination to find a new father for her child (Still Even Now – Kelly-Ann Gower); a husband’s conflict between love for his family and political duty (Love On The Edge Of Our Tears – Jonathan Williams and Rhiannon Sarah Porter); the struggle of a megalomaniacal Sheriff who doesn’t know whether he is good or bad (Play With War / War Machines – Alexis James); the anger and painful sacrifice of a woman’s love for the greater good (I Know I Love Him – Kelly-Ann Gower, Sarah Lark and Rhiannon Sarah Porter); the heart-break of two lovers realising the price of rebellion (The Honesty Of Love – Gareth Richards and Sarah Lark) – Orton & Gould create a score which calls for a huge range of vocal prowess from the whole cast, from subtle inner monologue to full-on battle-cry and everything in between. Each member of the cast delivers in abundance, showing us both their individual talents and ability to blend in that wonderfully rich way a Welsh chorus does.

The closing of the show could very easily have been a big, harmony-driven ensemble reprise of “Make Wales Proud” from the first half, the crying out of a nation’s pride and idolisation of its first martyr. But we’ve come a long way from the first half, and that’s not what this musical is about. Instead Orton & Gould bring together the cast in the very moving title song My Land’s Shore which feels more like an interweaving of individual melodies telling their personal journeys towards death and grief which are innately bound up in the earth of their homeland. My Land’s Shore tells the legend of a country, but still manages to be a gritty, realistic and many-dimensional exploration of both the personal and corporate experiences of rebellion and patriotism.

The musical has received some excellent tributes from those who know a thing or two about musical theatre, hailed as “a powerful story and beautiful soaring score, – the Welsh Les Mis” by Craig Revel Horwood, “a soaring, passionate and haunting melodic score” by Stiles and Drewe and “a show with panache, melody and a bit future” by Caroline Sheen.

So do check out this great new musical in our show-reel above, and you can get yourself a copy of the recording here.

This week we’ve been working hard to put the finishing touches on a big commission from Boosey & Hawkes. “That name rings a bell” I hear you cry? Yes indeedy, it may well do! If you ever learnt to play a woodwind or brass instrument, chances are a lot of your sheet music was published by them, your instrument may have been made by them, and you may even have had a book from their Learn As You Play series.

I learnt to play flute and oboe using these books, but the copies you and I had as children will pale in comparison to the new editions that are coming out. Today’s young musicians will have so much more fun with them than we ever did, because they don’t just get the sheet music, oh no sir-ee! They get play-along backing tracks too! And that’s exactly what we’re working on. We’re putting together 130 backing tracks to accompany all the pieces in five books from the Learn As You Play series: Flute, Oboe, Trumpet, Clarinet and Saxophone. So next time you’re in a music shop, have a look at the new editions, complete with play-along CD, and look out for Auburn Jam Music’s name inside!

“So that’s Boosey, but who’s Daphne?” you may well ask. Well, 130 backing tracks for beginners is a lot, so to break it up a bit, we’ve been getting really creative with some electronica! The Science Museum, along with Soundcoud, Goldsmiths – University of London, Sound and Music, Boomkat and the Daphne Oram Trust, have held a competition for music producers to compose a track using samples from the first ever synthesiser.

In the 1960s, Daphne Oram – the mother of electronica – developed a ground-breaking music technique she called ‘Oramics’. She built an ‘Oramics Machine’, with which she composed music for TV shows and commercials. Her dream was to one day broadcast live Oramics concerts through a network of fibreoptic cables, which at the time sounded like science fiction.

The competition closes today and we’ve uploaded our entry and are keeping our fingers crossed! You can help us by listening, sharing it with your friends and voting for us through here if you like it. We’ve enabled downloading on the player below as a treat for you and to thank you for supporting our music-making endeavours! Enjoy!

Oram Simulacrum by auburnjammusic

Tonight sees the album launch of our long-standing client David Creech at the Raynes Park Tavern, South West London. It promises to be a great night with drinks and nibbles accompanied by excellent live entertainment from a man whose music has The Beatles‘ seal of approval!

We’ve been working with David since we started Auburn Jam Music and he’s always brought us a huge variety of well-written, interesting songs to record and produce and tonight will be a showcase of the best of these. David’s new album sees his return to the music industry in which he’s already had good success as a youngster.

If you click on the newspaper clipping below to expand, you can have a read of a fascinating article which focuses on David’s early career when his band Joker was signed to The Apple – the record label started by The Beatles themselves – to find and promote new young talent in pop music. David was Joker‘s lead singer, guitarist and songwriter, and was writing music influenced by the music scene of South West London which this journalist dubs the “Penge sound”, and considered to be rivalling the famous Mersey sound which was popular at the time.

David’s career has taken him all across Europe performing his songs, seen him play at world renowned venues including Ronnie Scott’s and The Marquee, and not least backing the fabulous Gloria Gaynor at the London Palladium.

Tonight David will be performing his songs on guitar and vocals to custom backing tracks created here at Auburn Jam Music, and you’ll be able to pick up a copy of his new album “Ruff Cut” which treats you to no less than 17 tracks of David’s music, most of which were recorded, produced, mixed and mastered here at Auburn Jam Music. If you’re in the area, do pop in for a drink and a listen. Joe and I will be manning the sound desk and we’d love to see you!

We’ve recently had the pleasure of working again with animator Fern Reay to create soundtracks to two of her her latest projects, and we thought we’d share with you the first one that’s complete – a short sting for the Portobello Film Festival.

Portobello Film Festival Sting from Fern Reay on Vimeo.

The festival was started in 1996 in reaction to the “moribund status of the British Film industry”, and exists to give a platform to new film-makers and independents. The festival takes places in a disused part of the London Underground, where you can hear the rumble of the other trains – very atmospheric! Primarily attended by fashionable 30+ Guardian readers, the films are often very niche, experimental and pushing at the boundaries of mainstream film-making – an underground movement in every sense! It has been described as “the wild side of Brit Film” (Metro), and a “pioneering film festival” (Evening Standard) and we wanted to take all of this into account when composing the soundtrack.

Underground jazz bars immediately sprung to mind so we went with this feel, whilst also trying to evoke the feel of train rumblings using percussion. The jazz-bar mood matched the cool and on-trend nature of the festival’s main audience base, and also allowed for the music to be mostly improvised to give it that experimental feel to match the films.

You’ll see that the animation builds up in speed and tension as the train track appears moving forwards and going through the tunnel, before finally emerging and flowering into a tree, which then transforms into the Portobello Film Festival logo. We opened the music with bare 5ths in quick successive pairs to create suspense and edge, and then building the tension along with the train track by basing it on increasingly quick 2-5 chord progressions, which make you feel like you’re heading somewhere. Getting a gradual change in tempo and staccato to give the feel of the train accelerating, but still matching the frame changes in the animation, was the most challenging part of this composition. Then finally we arrive home into a final major chord as we emerge from the tunnel and the tree appears. We still had to do something for the transformation of the tree into the the film festival logo, so we had the saxophone wind down with a slow legato melody, landing us into a final major 7 chord to close. Lovely! We hope you like it!