Sunday Rundown: BBC Introducing and London and Manchester Gigs!

Monday: On Monday I had production class at college and we were looking at recreating a house track!  Despite not being the sort of music I am planning to create, it was a great lesson as it put a lot of the things we had been learning in perspective.

Tuesday: I travelled down to Essex to go on Phoenix Radio and perform some live sessions!  This was a great experience and I really enjoyed myself!  It’s been a while since I have done a radio performance, so it was nice to get back on the horse!  I then travelled into London and stayed in a hotel ready for my gig the next day!

Wednesday: I had my gig at the Old Queen’s Head in Angel, Islington on Wednesday, so the day was taken up with rehearsals, soundcheck and then the gig itself!  I had a great time performing and the venue was lovely!  You can check out my full performance here:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FSally.Caitlin17%2Fvideos%2F1242436575902412%2F&show_text=0&width=267

Thursday: I started the day in one of my favourite places in London… Borough Markets!  I’m such a foodie (code for greedy!) so it’s my heaven!  I bought so much stuff and had an amazing pulled lamb dish!  Such a great start to the day!  Then I headed back up to Manchester ready for my weekend gig!

My Thursday Twenty is a great one this week!

1. Body Of Mine by Sally Caitlin & Sophie Smith – Thought I would include my newest single!  This is a collaboration track with Sophie about not letting people define you by your appearance and about female empowerment in general!
2. I Feel It Coming by Jillian Jacqueline – Great arrangement of this track and her vocals are so smooth and lovely to listen to!
3. I Miss You (feat. Julia Michaels) by Clean Bandit – I’m not usually a Clean Bandit fan but this track is great!  Super catchy and with awesome production!
4. Over That by Emily Vaughn
5. Not A Love Song by bulow – I looovvveee this!  Super honest, super catchy and super fresh!
6. Pictures In My Head by MJ Cole – The chorus in this song is killer…. really great vibe and it cheers me up whenever I hear it!
7. Deeper by Riton, MNEK, House Gospel Choir – Riton played this when I saw him at Warehouse Project and it’s such a great dance song! MNEK slays on vocals as usual!
8. Daylight by Gorgon City
9. Cola by CamelPhat & Elderbrook
10. I Keep Calling (Boris Dlugosch & Cassara Remix) by Wankelmut
11. Hillside Boys by Kim Petras
12. Shivers by Rachel Platten – Pretty much the perfect pop song!  Really infectious and playful!
13. Wait by Maroon 5 – No band has changed their sound quite as much as Maroon 5… I was a huge fan of Songs About Jane and the earlier material and although this is completely different, I love this track!  Their new music is so modern and influenced by trap and a lot of other trending genres, which is pretty cool as it shows their evolution as a band!
14. Give In by Vera Blue
15. Anyway by Tyron Hapi & Mimoza
16. Strongest by Ina Wroldsen – Great message about being a single mother combined with a super strong melody and great vibes!  Awesome song!
17. Not a Toy by Fanny Anderson
18. Dirty Sexy Money by David Guetta, Afrojack, Charli XCX & French Montana
19. Tip Toe by Jason Derulo & French Montana – Jason is back again with his typical club banger type track, and as usual I love it!  I can always dance to a Derulo song!
20. Jungle by Pitbull, Stereotypes, E-40 & Abraham Mateo

Friday: I went into college to learn how to use one of the studios, which was great!  I then spent a couple of hours working on my new track, followed by a steak dinner!  Not a bad day!

Saturday: Rehearsals, soundcheck and then an amazing gig at the Eagle Inn in Manchester!  Absolutely loved performing and all the other acts were absolutely amazing too!  Such a high level of talent… makes me very very proud to be from Manchester!  Perfect last gig of the year…. check out the video below!

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FSally.Caitlin17%2Fvideos%2F1244347065711363%2F&show_text=0&width=267

My single with Sophie Smith, Body Of Mine, also got played on BBC East Midlands Introducing radio show!  The radio host said he thought the track was so powerful that he was going to forward it to Radio One… so I’m crossing my fingers on that one!

Sunday:  Recovery day after a night of celebration… including watching my friends conduct an impromptu karaoke session with my PA system!

Thank you so much for reading!

Sunday Rundown: Editing, Composing and Partying!

This has been such an unbelievably tiring week!  I’ve had 20 hour edit days and have basically been functioning on zero sleep for 7 days…. However, so much has been achieved this week and I’m so so excited to share some of the developments very soon!  Sign up to my mailing list to get an exclusive preview of my next video!

Monday:  I set my goals for November, which always really helps me to focus on my career and visualise where I want to be.  I then had production class as I always do on Mondays, which was awesome as we were learning different sampling techniques.  I was also starting the plans for some upcoming videos, which is super exciting!

Tuesday: I played golf in the morning and caught up on some college work.  I also sent off some Spotify playlist submissions for my latest release, Take It All.  A lot of my day was spent tidying up the ‘studio’ from the Body of Mine shoot…. glitter for dayssss!

Wednesday:  After starting editing last week, Wednesday was day 2 of the Body of Mine edit, and it was a long one (finished at 3am)!  We made some good progress, getting the Intro, Verses and Pre-Choruses sorted.  I also had my Electronic Music Composition class in the evening, which was really fun as we were learning about drums and groove, which is probably the area I struggle with the most.

Thursday: Day 3 of the edit…. finished all but the choruses, which was a little frustrating as we were hoping to have finished completely!  In the evening I went to my golf presentation evening and won myself a cheeky trophy, which was a nice surprise!

Of course, I also sorted my Thursday Twenty for the week!

1. Burn Slow by Jaira Burns
2. Flare Guns  by Quinn XCII & Chelsea Cutler – LOVE this!  One of my favs this week… super catchy and it is definitely a topic everyone can identity with – the urge to call an ex at 2:00am is always strong!
3. Only With You by Cyn
4. Astronaut by Mansionair
5. I’ll Be There by King Henry
6. When I Was Young by MO – Great track!  I love MO as she’s always so left of centre and really unique.  This song has a really interesting structure and there are so many climaxes!
7. Ready Yet by Sasha Sloan
8. Losing Any Sleep by Elle Watson
9. Silence (Sluggo x Loote Remix) by Mike Posner & Labrinth – Another favourite!  Such a great track… the production is gorgeous and the two voices really work and bring something different to the verses.  I’m really feeling a lot of Mike Posner material these days!
10. I Feel U (feat. Rachel Salvit) 
11. cortado by anton.
12. Honest by Nataliya
13. Wolves by Selena Gomez & Marshmello – I just love Selena and I’m a big Marshmello fan too, so this was a great combo for me!  I really think the softness of Selena’s voice is very effective in this song, and the chorus is extremely catchy!
14. Better by BANKS – I genuinely think no one loves BANKS as much as me!  I went to see her last week and she was predictably amazing.  Better was one of my favourite tracks she did on the night as performance was just flooded with emotion.. it was pretty special to witness!
15. Lonely by NAV
16. California Heaven (Medasin Remix) by JAHKOY & Schoolboy Q
17. end by Jeremy Zucker
18. Buzzin by Alina Baraz
19. Badi Boum (feat. Tsunami) by Felix Snow
20. The Shine by ayokay & Chelsea Cutler

 

Friday:  I spent five hours composing in the MIDI lab at college and working on a new track!  I feel like I spend so much time promoting myself and contacting people for gigs, sending my music off places etc that I never get to actually make music anymore!  So it was just bliss to be back in that mindset and be creative!  After that it was back to editing the Body Of Mine video…. Day 3 and it didn’t end until 7am on Saturday!  Crazy stressful and we still didn’t finish!  We still had to colour grade and fix a couple of bits in the Middle 8.

Saturday:  Final edit day for Body of Mine!  Finally finished at 4:30pm after another four hours of editing and the release that came with the final export was just euphoric…. such a weight of my shoulder!  The video is now ready for the release next week 🙂 Can’t wait to share!

I also celebrated Bonfire Night with my brother and best friend and then heading into town for the Warehouse Project!  Me and Abi saw Gorgon City on their Kingdom Tour at the Albert Hall, along with Disciples, Riton and Danny Howard.  It was such a great night and just what I needed after a stressful week of editing!

Sunday:  Dinner with the family for my grandad’s birthday and a bit of much need chill time!  I need to actually sleep!

Thank you so much for reading as usual and remember to sign up to my mailing list!

 

 

 

Lead Me Down

Lead Me Down is the second single taken from my upcoming Experiments EP and is the first to get an official video.  This is definitely one of my favourite songs I have written and recorded as it feels really true to where I am in my life at the moment.  When I finished the EP, I realised that I had written a narrative running between the tracks because I had been writing about my own experiences.  For this reason I felt like all the songs were equally important and all should have videos to go with them.

The first two lines of ‘Lead Me Down’ are:

“The strobe lights flicker, lighting up your face,

I watch the patterns, watch the angles that the flashes trace.”

so when I was brainstorming ideas with the video production team, we decided it would be fun to play with lighting effects as the theme for Lead Me Down.  The video is centred around changes in lighting from strobes, to silhouettes and different colours.  The song is about meeting someone in a bar and knowing they are wrong for you but feeling like you want to be impulsive and ignore the voice of reason in your head.  The lyrics are about being reckless and doing something you know you shouldn’t do.  I think the video really captures the dark, sexy and mysterious vibe of the track and I’m extremely happy with the end result!

Check out the video on YouTube below, and Lead Me Down is available to buy/stream now on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and all other major digital retailers

 

 

Video shot, edited and produced by Cosmic Joke.

Artist: Banks

It’s hard for me to properly emphasise how much I love Banks.  I listen to her music on repeat daily, I watch videos of her performing on YouTube, I hang off her every word when she is being interviewed… I’m just the ultimate fangirl.  What I love about Banks is that her music is dark and vulnerable at the same time.  There is something so honest about both the lyrics she writes and the way she delivers them, letting us see her strengths and weaknesses simultaneously.  I find myself relating to Banks’s music in a way that is rare for me.  I can listen to her no matter what mood I am in and despite months of constantly playing the tracks from ‘Goddess’ and ‘The Altar’, I have not found myself bored with a single song.

I recently just completed my debut album, Chemistry, and found that the songs I was writing towards the end of the recording process had more of an experimental side to them.  This edge is something that I would have to attribute to how inspired I felt after listening to Banks’s most recent album, The Altar.  In the past few months I have been through a lot of changes in my life, most of which have required me to toughen up and become more independent.  Songs like ‘Weaker Girl’, ’27 Hours’ and ‘Trainwreck’ became my anthems and really resonated with me during this period.  I love how cohesive the album is whilst allowing each individual song to have it’s own voice and message.  When you watch Banks in interviews, she is so intelligent in her answers but very softly spoken and incredibly sensitive, which almost seems at odds with her persona in songs.  Her songs are extremely emotional, but they are also dripping with power in the lyrics and production.  It is clear she has grown as both an artist and as a woman between the release of the debut album ‘Goddess’ and the release of ‘The Altar’.  Don’t get me wrong, ‘Goddess’ is also a fantastic album, with killer tracks like ‘Beggin For Thread’, ‘Stick’, ‘Waiting Game’ and ‘Brain’, however, I think ‘The Altar’ is even stronger as a complete body of work.  Both albums are incredibly creative and showcase how unique she is as an artist.

As I follow Banks on Spotify, I received an email today to tell me she has released a new single, Crowded Places.  Safe to say, I literally couldn’t wait to give it a listen.  Well I have now listened to it at least five times, and whilst I am a little surprised, I am not disappointed at all!  ‘Crowded Places’ oozes emotion and honesty like every Banks song and her captivating voice is highlighted beautifully.  The lyrics are raw, relatable and wonderfully clever.  The vocals and harmonies add meaning to the words and are simply stunning in parts.  The aspect of the song that I found unexpected was the production.  I always associate Banks with darker production and a real sense of drama, but ‘Crowded Places’ is much more mellow than her previous offerings.  The layers are still there, but there is a much lighter and softer feel to this song.  I find it similar in some ways to the newer material of another favourite of mine, London Grammar.  This more delicate track, whilst a little shocking, has grown on me with every listen and has left me very intrigued as to what the next album will sound like.  I can’t wait to get another email from Spotify notifying me about the next single.  The only thing better than getting my hands on the next Banks album would be getting myself some tickets to see her live, something I didn’t manage to do when she was in Manchester last month.  But with a new album comes a new tour, and this time I will definitely be there in the crowd singing along to every song.

New single: Lead Me Down

So excited to be able share my brand new single ‘Lead Me Down’ from my upcoming Experiments EP!  It is my favourite track off the EP as it’s got a really moody and sexy vibe. I would describe it as an electro synth-pop track with a bit of an edge and a catchy, sing-a-long chorus.  The lyrics were inspired by the feeling of having nothing to lose and wanting to be reckless, even though you know it’s not the best decision.  It’s about living in the moment and doing something because it feels good and not worrying about whether you will regret it after it’s done.

Lead Me Down was released on 16th February on all major digital distributors (iTunes, Spotify, Amazon etc) and I am hoping to release the video very soon!  I recently shot videos for all the tracks on my EP and the video for Lead Me Down will be the first one I premiere… So keep your eyes peeled for that!

NEW SINGLE: Take It All

 

I am very excited to be premiering the audio to my new single, Take It All, today! Take It All is the first single from my upcoming EP, Experiments, and kicks off the launch of my new sound!  The single is strongly influenced by commercial drum and bass, whilst keeping the pop vibe my music always has had… the result is a something with a little more edge and maturity than my last EP, but the same focus on lyrics and melody!

Take It All will be available to buy and stream on all major digital retailers on November 17th and available to pre-order on iTunes on October 20th.  I really hope you enjoy it and I look forward to sharing the official video soon!

 

Autumn 2016: New Directions

Following the release of my first EP, Not Stupid Anymore, in June 2016, I thought it was time for a change in my music.  Since the time that I wrote and recorded that music, I have been through many changes in my life and in myself, which made me feel like this music wasn’t completely true to the person I had become.  So I’m going to give a little insight into the reasons behind my new music and image and, also, what to expect from the new musical offerings!

Recap! Who am I and what do I do?

I’m a 23 year old pop artist from Manchester who has been writing songs since I was 15 and releasing music for the past year.

How would I describe the EPs and singles I have already released?

The singles and the EP, Not Stupid Anymore,  featured the original mixes of the tracks, which were very poppy and girly, along with house, dub house and garage mixes.  The lyrics were all inspired by personal experiences and my emotions, making them very honest and easy to relate to, in my opinion.  There was also a running theme of relationships, love and heartbreak.

 

 

Why the change?

Although I was proud of the music I had created, I felt it wasn’t entirely the right direction for me as an artist.  As the original mixes and the remixes covered so many individual genres, I thought it seemed a little unfocused.  When I wrote the songs for ‘Not Stupid Anymore’ I was in a relationship, that I had been in for four years, so this influenced a lot of my ideas for song concepts.  However, I am now single, so my perspective on a lot of things has changed, and I wanted to put that into my music.  In addition I am a bit older now, so I felt like a more mature sound and image would suit me better and be more true to my personality.

I became very influenced by producers such as Chase and Status, The Chainsmokers and Cheat Codes and wanted to draw some inspiration from the electronic genres those artists were rooted in.  I started working with Division Productions in early summer and immediately the creative juices were flowing.

I then travelled down the East Coast of America for 5 weeks with my best friend, hitting 12 different destinations on the way and visiting 10 states.  Included in our stops were some very musical places such as New York, Nashville, Miami and New Orleans, which gave me a lot of appreciation for different genres, new directions and sounds to include in my songwriting.

 

 

What has stayed the same?

The main reason I write songs is because I like to share my feelings and stories with other people, in the hope they can empathise.  I believe music has the power to unite and inspire when it is truly heartfelt, and this is what I aim to achieve as an artist, so this underlying philosophy remains intact in my material.  The emphasis I put on the vocal line within my compositions is also very similar to my previous work, as is the pop feel to my melodies.

 

 

What to expect from my new music?

The music itself is rooted within the genre of pop, but takes influences on the production side from many other genres, giving it a bit more of an edge.  The focus has been on bringing the other genres I am influenced by, such as tropical house and drum and bass, into the actual pop songs themselves, rather than using remixes as with my previous EPs and singles.  I think this has helped to push my music to a new level and made for a selection of songs that are varied whilst remaining connected by my songwriting style.  The music has quite a commercial feel to it because I have the intention that people will want to sing along and dance to it, however, my lyrics are still heartfelt.  I want people to be able to empathise with the emotion behind my music but also have fun listening to it.

 

 

When to expect a new release…

The first single off the EP I have been working on is called Take It All and will be released on November 17th on all major retailers and available to preorder on iTunes on October 20th.  The music video to Take It All, which was shot at the start of my America trip in New York,  will also premiere on October 20th.  Following that, the EP should hopefully be released around Easter 2017 and the title will be Experiments.  I am currently writing new songs for my debut album and hope to have news on the progress of that very soon!  I shall be performing live as much as possible to promote my new sound, so check out when you can see me next!

 

 

 

 

 

Falling Back Together (Deep House Mix)

Back in March, the deep house remix of my second single, Falling Back Together, premiered on Deep Sounds Soundcloud account.  This was amazing as they have such a huge following on soundcloud and meant that my music was able to reach a wider audience!  To this date, the mix has had over 68K plays and over 1000 likes!  The deep house mix is my favourite remix of Falling Back Together, so if you like dance music I recommend you give it a listen!

iluvlive Manchester

 

 

In April 2016, I was lucky enough to be able to perform at the Fallow Cafe, Fallowfield, as part of the iluvlive Manchester showcase event.  This was a really amazing experience for me as it was the first time I had performed my original songs with a a live band.  The crowd was so friendly and supportive, so it was the perfect place to debut my newest single at the time, Not Stupid Anymore.  I felt extremely privileged to be performing alongside a group of extremely talented artists and to be invited to do such a great event!  Below is a video of me performing my first single, Stuck In Limbo, live at the event.

 

 

 

Call Me Whatever You Want

Call Me Whatever You Want was the single that I chose to use to promote the release of Not Stupid Anymore (The Deluxe Version) as it was so catchy and upbeat.  It was actually the first song that I ever professionally recorded so, for this reason, I chose to keep the imagery fairly simple and just focus on the lyrics and the message I wanted to get across.  The song is about finally having the courage to move on from a relationship and admitting to yourself that it is not working.  The concept of the person leaving not being ‘the bad guy’ but being the brave and selfless one is what I wanted to get across with this.  I felt that this was a slightly new perspective on a typical relationship milestone and something I wanted to explore.  The pink crumpled background in the video with the lyrics on top is almost like a goodbye letter that has been written and then discarded, which I thought was perfect for this song with its theme of a bittersweet farewell.