Soom T! And reggae..

Absolutely no excuses for the blog silence on my part, I have been in rehearsals and on tour with a completely new and interesting artist called Soom T! 

Soom's style is an unusual mash of 8 bit dub reggae, pop and guzhal - however on the initial listen I had it down as pop, easy peasy, job done.  And yet, life is not that simple!  Once in rehearsals, the massive reggae influence behind her writing began to shine through and after a few more rehearsals and listening back to some recordings, the placement of the bass in the music (for me) became a bit of an obsession.  

Let me explain...

Reggae is one of those styles that I personally feel you can either play or you can't.  It's as simple as that.  The culture and vibe behind the placement of each individual note is not easily imitated and it is not as simple as simply "playing further behind the beat".  I actually found myself almost swaggering around the stage trying to find that perfect placement (which you will be able to see in videos online!).  As well as the placement, when you have the drummer on click and a quantised baseline on track, and a keyboardist's left hand hammering away..this seems like an impossible job!  However it was one that I could focus on night after night - sometimes I got it and sometimes I didn't!  A lifetime's work I think!

Anyway, please have a look at some tour highlights below. we've got a huge number of shows lined this summer and I promise I will at least try to give some updates and/or thoughts for my readers!.  

Further tour dates: https://www.facebook.com/SoomTMusic