By El Guero Unico
I can go on and on about making money in the modern music industry and I probably will. But I promise with this post I will not do so. This post is about advertising of the good kind. My friend and fellow collaborator Matthew Mansfield owns and operates a studio in Atlanta, Georgia called Piper Street Sound. It’s named after the street in which it is located 899 Piper Street.
One day not too long ago I was messing about with a new tune I had written and originally due to laziness I never quite finished. It needed a bass line as I had already laid down the guitar and keyboards tracks. I thought wouldn’t it be brilliant to ask Matt if he’d be on board to lay down a dope bass line with his unique style. So that is exactly what I did. Matt is a multi-instrumentalist, engineer and producer. His work is solid which you can discover on your own if you visit his SoundCloud account. Here I’ll make it easy for you to find by clicking here. Did you click it? Go ahead I can wait…
Awesome you’re back. Do you see what I mean by solid production work? Of course you do. Now you understand why it was a brilliant idea of mine (uncommon for me) to invite him to input his own touches on my tune. Now I surely cannot with good conscience call it my tune anymore, no now it is ours and it wouldn’t be much of anything without Matt’s involvement. You see Matt is similar to me in that we love to play live instruments, we are inspired by a variety of cultures and styles of music, and we love to indulge ourselves in the study of them. We also approach writing and producing music in genres foreign to us by nature by not simply copying them but by bringing our own voice to them. What I mean by this is that I’ve witnessed the music of many gringos where they indulged themselves deep into the culture and basically just make the same music as if they were always there and always a part of it. I personally don’t care for their music, not saying they’re bad but their music doesn’t interest me. In those cases I will just prefer to listen to the original music from wherever they’re copying. This is where Matt and I are different from the plethora of gringos that do this. We stay true to ourselves while acquiring new influences. Matt is dub/reggae through and through. He really knows his stuff. He most definitely obviously is not limited to that sound but it’s where he’s from. I bring my influences with me too. Every time we decide to try out our skills in a foreign style we do so respectfully but we also bring in something new. That something new is us, ourselves, our history, influences, and imagination.
With all that said I bring on the song I’ve been mentioning. It turned out to be a collaborative effort made by three. Matt on bass, bandurria, mixing and mastering, Santiago Junca on congas, and myself on guitar and keys. But before I get to the song (or if you want click play and continue reading) Matt is offering his services. You see this also turned out to be an advertisement for Matt. Not only does he provide sound mastering and production but he offers bass lines to anyone interested in having an original unique bass line to their songs. So please contact Matthew Mansfield if you need such services. Let’s be honest it is an awesome service for all of us here.