Apex by Headnodic + Jazz Mafia

It started with a couple of chords that I had looping around. I then slid it under the fingers my friend Kat O1O who has the uncanny ability to inject magic into any & all music. She tracked it on the Crumar Orchestrator during a break in rehearsals for what would be Crown City Rockers’ “last(?)” show at Heiro-Day 2015.
Max MacVeety came in next and laid down the 90s Boom Bap pocket. We talked about some nuances for the fills. I wanted them to spill over the bar line
a bit, but stay “pocket” to create the feeling of falling and landing in unexpected places. Also I wanted what me & max called “Pete Rock Snares”, which was just adding another tap on the snare one 8th note before or after the 2 or 4. These were simple things, but Max MacVeety LOVEs getting into the weeds with me about beat makers. He played this one like Large Professor on the SP1200 which has a distinctly different feel than if this exact same pattern was from RZA on the ASR10. I love jibber-jabbing with Max about pocket, drummers, tones etc. He supports my excitability to spew my nerdish expertise and he’s generously patient with me when I’m flat-out full of shit (my brand of undiagnosed neuro-spiceiness).

NEXT UP… Jon Monahan on guitar!!! Good googily-moogily he NAILED this one (in 2017 ?). I like to invite players over and fill a protools session with 20 or so beats/sketches etc. and just let them loose to improvise, play “sprinkles”, or a hook etc. Loose tracking session, then I go through and “sample” things, loop things from the performances. Jon hit this track intently— not trying to find a hook or a loop, just searching. His playing had this “explorative” quality. I edited that guitar track to preserve that feeling of reaching without landing.
I flirted with turning the whole thing into a more traditional song structure — a hook, a chorus, something familiar — but it kept resisting, and honestly, that resistance became the point. So I leaned in.

Adam lined up flautist (I love that word… FLAUTIST) Rita Thies to jam over the whole thing at her studio. She crushed it amazingly. Any & all of the takes were incredible. I edited her part to take a co-starring role with the guitar, focusing on making it sound like they were in the room together as opposed to being separated by 6-7 years. When their kung-fu dance was dialed in, Adam Theis brought the blast. He filled in every crack that needed filling, and propelled the freight train along with these unexpected, interesting brass hits. Adam is quite a unicorn. I often chop and edit and fly things around, but what Adam sends me with his horn arrangements are something else entirely. They come, fully formed, blended perfectly, recorded impeccably, and are almost always an idea, I never would’ve dreamt up. On this whole record, Adam took my sketches / beats and sprinkled magic dust on them, unlocking the next steps. It’s been a blast working / co producing / co-writing / spit-balling / shaping this record with him and the other Jazz Mafiosos (Mafiosai?). The Full-Length Vinyl is out now through Be With Records (dot com)