Fernando Lagreca has made a name for himself with a number of albums and EPs under his belt and playing hardware-only live sets at festivals such as Sónar, ElectroSplash, BIME, Verboten, Manrusionica, ADE, just to name a few, and venues such as Razzmatazz, The Warehouse, Input, Laut, and Dabadaba, among others.
Today Fernando Lagreca celebrates his new album entitled ‘Infamous’ sharing 5 tips he applied to compose the tracks included.
1. Freedom to your mind
When I go to the studio, I always try to keep my mind out of other musical influences and give the most freedom as possible to the brain, so no attachments there. Of course, if you have some commitment that fulfills, such as a remix, you are a bit more limited, there is some path already initiated to follow and other artist rules that can affect a bit, but even though you still have room for be free a bit and enjoy that freedom, musically speaking.
2. Play to improvise
To compose music should be something funny, I enjoy a lot when I am at the studio, leaving all the daily matters behind and getting all the focus to play and improvise. Sometimes the best ideas start with a simple arpeggio or a basic loop, and then you can build all the rest around. The more organic and playful a track is the better, it can be a techno banger track super oriented to dance floor purposes or a super-serious ambient-IDM intricate piece, but still it has to keep that organic spirit to be real.
3. Be simple
Be brave deleting or muting leftover parts on a track in order to keep it simple. That does not mean a silly track, or a track with no arrangements, not at all. Just keep simplicity to prevail and give every element of the track the life and space it deserves, making the whole track big in the end. Sometimes to charge a lot with infinite audio regions means big issues on the mix and tons of time to spend checking, polishing and creating eternal envelopes to get all under control, instead to enjoy on the composition and make something funny and organic.
4. Put the tracks to rest
Once you have (or think you do) finalized a track, even if you want to show it to the world or just friends or start sending it to labels, for me the best thing I can do is to put it to rest, not much, but a couple of days is the ideal measure. Then you open that project again and by means of some magical condition, you will start to discover little mistakes in the mix, some parts that are not so necessary, or on the contrary, that it still needs some cymbal or efx noise to enhance that drop, or the bass (or kick) is so loud. Based on my experience, give a second hearing to a track a couple of days after is resting on the hard drive, always brings happiness!
5. Weapons of choice
Some of my favorite gear are the Elektron Analog Four MKII, Elektron Analog Rytm MKII, Elektron Digitone, Elektron Octatrack, Nord Wave, Moog Sub37, Yamaha MODX, Novation Bass Station II, Dave Smith Mopho, Access Virus Snow, and Teenage Engineering OP1.
Fernando Lagreca’s ‘Infamous’ LP is now available via Beautiful Accident. Stream the album here.
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