Late last year Sean Gonsalez introduced me to a song, FROM KID – “SUN”. To say that I immediately fell in love with the song seems like an understatement.
After playing it over and over I became inspired to attempt to remix it. I say “attempt” because when a song is this perfect (imo) you don’t interfere with it, however the vibe of carnival in the air, coupled with the imagery that the song was conjuring in my head made me want to do a j’ouvert morning remix of it. You know, that time of j’ouvert that everyone looks forward to, the moment when the Sun begins shine and transforms the landscape, , the official opening of the two day carnival celebrations.
When I did the first draft of the remix, I didn’t have any stems, so I filtered out the low end of the original and did my best with it. I wasn’t satisfied with this so I decided to reach out to the guys from FROM KID (kinda bold move right?). I would be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised that they actually responded to my message which makes them even much cooler now. (This wasn’t the first time that I did a remix and reached out to the artist to get a nod of approval or to get official stems so I could do a proper remix.) They loved it! In fact, they loved the draft of the remix so much that they asked me for my story, how I found out about the song etc, and they sent me all the stems, endorsing the project. It felt really good to be able to talk to a perfect stranger and connect through great music.
In the first draft of the remix I used a pan tone that I found in my sound library along with basslines that I played on the keyboard, this didn’t give me the feel that I wanted, I wanted to stay as close to the original feel of the song as possible, to compliment it, rather than having harsh, contrasting tones, so with the help of my father, A_phake and Derron Ellies I was able to achieve that, with my father coming up with the guitars for the chorus, A_phake playing the guitars on the verses as well as the bass and Derron Ellies finishing it off by playing the steelpan. I also bounced ideas off Sean, seeing that he introduced me to the original and loved the single as much as I do, I wanted to make sure that what I was doing didn’t stray from the vibe of the track.
All in all. this was a real fun remix to work on because I love the original track and I had some real good studio session vibes with A_phake and Derron Ellies.
To the guys Andrin & Gian – FROM KID, much respect fellas. Really appreciate it.
Hope you enjoy: