New Release: Jeff Devoe - Poisonous EP
Jeff Devoe - Poisonous EP
LAMP member Jeff Devoe delivers a funky, tech house EP in 'Poisonous'. The two track release features a host of organic sounds, live instrumentals, and hours of recorded vocals and ambient layering. The EP's lead track 'Poisonous' delivers a meaty, bouncing bassline full of swing that only a live session can truly embody. Devoe enlisted the help of his close friend and bassist Chris Bafiera to lay down some infectious grooves. 'Close Encounters of the Funky Kind' is a title that can literally speak for itself. Devoe blends expertly timed vocal cuts with a driving kick and slow rolling basslines grooves embodying all the elements of an energetic tech house club tune.Devoe's investment in studio production demonstrates a firm grasp on his craft and true understanding of how a single idea can mold and morph into something much greater.
Poisonous
Close Encounters of the Funky Kind
As much as Jeff Devoe spends crafting his music, he also considers and internalizes his process and how he approaches every project. Below is the story behind the music, something we at LAMP often here in conversation but rarely get the opportunity to actually read about."When I first started work on these two tracks, they were actually one track. The concept that I wanted to play with was to weave together organic sounds and instrumentation within a tech house inspired backdrop. I started with a funky synth bassline (the one you hear in Close Encounters of the Funky Kind) and started adding live instrumentation to it. I wanted a tech house track with percussion and elements that gave you a feeling of being at a party in the middle of the dance circle.I enlisted the help of my good friend Chris Bafiera to record some standup bass. Originally the standup bass was going to be placed in the breakdown along with some live percussion and vocal loops. Then the track would drop back into the techy synth bassline for the main part of the tune. A good friend who heard this original rendition told me that it sounded like two separate tunes that got sewn together Frankenstein style. I couldn’t help but agree, so I decided to split it into two tracks. I’m really glad I did because I got two great tunes for the price of one!Now that I had split the tracks I had most of Close Encounters of the Funky Kind written. The only thing I had to change was the breakdowns because this was where I had originally placed the stand up bass. Nothing a little producing session in the desert with my LAMP crew wouldn’t fix. All the spacey effects in the breakdown I wrote on a camping trip with LAMP (we call it LAMPing btw). I guess the wide-open desert landscapes inspired me.The high pitch vocal cuts that are the centerpiece of the tune were also not there. I had a wormy hi-pitched synth part in place. I didn’t really like the sound and so decided to send the track to a vocalist friend of mine, Wonder. She did some great vocals, but I just couldn’t get them to fit right in the tune, so I started playing around with micro edits of the vocals she sent. Through some experimentation and great happy accidents I arrived at the sound that is prevalent throughout the tune. When listening to the vocal edits, I kept picturing an alien with an afro and disco boots singing its version of funk. So Close Encounters of the Funky Kind was born.Returning to Poisonous... Chris had laid down this really catchy lick on his standup bass that I knew would become the focal point of the bassline. I edited it down to a quick and bouncy 2-note pattern that runs throughout the main part of the tune. The full lick can be heard bouncing about in the breakdowns. After I fit the bass into the track, the drums and the bassline just melted right together. It became one of those tracks that you don’t mind working on for hours at a time because the beat is so catchy.To inject some more organic material in the track I spent a studio session recording my own claps, playing bottles and cans from the studio trash, and recording about 8 tracks of weird vocal loops of myself pretending I was at a dance party. I wish I had made a video of myself during this recording session. The montage would have been epic.After all this I thought the track still needed an element that the listener would remember the track by. This is why I added the main vocals, and this is where I got the name Poisonous. The lyrics were inspired by some situations I’ve encountered in my life where very negative people can seem like a poison to your being; creating a disunion to the good people in it. I had been thinking about this recently and decided to write some lyrics about it. I recorded the vocals in a spoken word style performance and then applied some pitch and filter magic to give them a sinister twist.The vocals in full are:You talk your shitYou’re poisonousDon’t speak you can’t handle itScrap your clipRaise your senseExperience togethernessInitially, when I had written the track that both of these tunes spawned from I wasn’t really excited about it. It seemed too disparate; lacking a theme that would really connect to a listener. I think with this project I really learned to persevere if I knew there was something worth saving. In the end I think I ended up with two tracks that accomplish what I originally set out to do; to inject some organic motion into the stiff template of tech house. Not only that, but particularly with Poisonous, I was able to sprinkle some substantive emotion into the tune, and accomplish much more than what I originally had intended."- Jeff Devoe