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And Finally Artist News Live Business
Musicians create new music out of Fyre Festival marketing notes
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 16 May 2017
Sometimes, out of destruction and chaos, something new can be created. So, while all in the world of Fyre Festival falls down in a sea of lawsuits, two composers have created a new piece of music based on the detailed notes that appeared in a leaked marketing memo from Fyre HQ sent prior to the luxury event’s amazing collapse.
The lengthy message from the festival’s marketing director, Grant Margolin, was published by Amplify earlier this month. It seemingly followed on from a meeting about a promotional video for the festival, where it had been decided that an original composition should be commissioned to soundtrack the ad in order to properly get across the essence of the island party.
Unfortunately, Margolin’s “collection of thoughts I’d find helpful if I was writing [this piece of music]” proved to do just that.
Proposing that they find a composer with “a strong theoretical background with a diverse knowledge of classical, popular and world music”, Margolin laid out his own incredibly detailed ideas for how this person should then proceed.
Switching between time signatures would be a great idea. And there should be lots of different styles. Oh, and the strings should not be “too luscious”, and there shouldn’t be any repetition. No French horns, but please don’t forget the fretless bass.
I urge you to read the email in full here. It is an amazing piece of work on its own. But now Margolin’s vision has been realised, thanks to pop duo Carol Cleveland Sings.
“If you’re like us, you can’t get enough of reading about the disaster that was the Fyre Festival and just like every other musician, we were overjoyed when the bonkers music direction for the promo video was leaked”, they say. “We were excited to realise Grant Margolin’s unique and daring musical vision for the festival promotional materials. We humbly present our attempt to channel this incredibly modern approach to the rhythm of the world”.
Detailing their process, they explain: “All the key elements from the email have been incorporated. Xylophone, ‘sudro’ and odd time signatures were utilised for the exploratory moments. We throttled down the lusciousness of the strings. We added a bassoon, but definitely not a French horn”.
“We modulate from section to section but try to keep in the more ‘consonant’ key signatures such as D and G”, they continue. “Please enjoy filtered tablas over a fretless bass groove on top of a West African kora lead and experience some heavy ‘cutting’ elements. No references to video games or anything that sounds like you might want to go fight dragons. No repetition. Effective use of reverberation”.
No word form Margolin yet on whether it meets his standards, but you can enjoy Carol Cleveland Sings’ work here:
