Latest news with #musicproduction
SBS Australia
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
Candice Lorrae: Leading the Way for First Nations Women in Music
A proud Jawoyn and Torres Strait Islander woman, Candice's focus is clear, to amplify the voices of First Nations women in music production. With the support of a Creative Australia Fellowship, she will continue her mission to mentor and develop emerging female First Nations producers, while expanding her own creative and professional practice. In an interview with NITV Radio's Lowanna Grant, Candice reflected on what the award means to her, sharing insights into her journey from a young girl surrounded by music to becoming a dynamic force in the Australian music scene. She also spoke about her time as one half of the duo The Merindas and Candice highlighted how collaboration and her role as performer and producer have equipped her to uplift other First Nations women in the industry.
Forbes
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Mozart AI Empowers Music Composition With A Copilot
A London startup called Mozart AI is launching today with $730,000 in pre-seed funding and a challenge to the current wave of generative music platforms. While companies like Suno and Udio promise to turn text prompts into finished pop songs in seconds, Mozart takes a very different approach: it wants to speed up the way artists already work, without taking the artist out of the process. Mozart AI founders (L to R) Pascual Merita Torres, Immanuel Rajadurai, Arjun Khanna, Sundar Arvind Mozart AI's founding team sees this as an opening. 'We're trying to eliminate friction, not creativity,' said co-founder and CEO Sundar Arvind, a former professional tennis player and teenage music prodigy who was signed to Warner Bros.' Spinnin' Records by the age of 14. 'Making music is supposed to be fun. Our tools are built by musicians who understand that. The last thing producers want is a one-click song.' Mozart's product is a full digital audio workstation (DAW) powered by natural language controls and real-time AI suggestions. It doesn't spit out completed tracks. Instead, it helps artists build songs step by step, generating ideas for chord progressions, melodies, samples, and drum kits, all guided by the user's creative direction. Want to EQ the lows out of an 8-bar euphoric loop? Just ask. Want to find that Beatles-style guitar riff buried somewhere in your own sample library? Mozart will search by vibe. Behind the scenes, the software manages the messy engineering: quantization, audio effects, sound design, and routing. But unlike Suno or Udio, the user remains in control. 'You're still producing. You're just producing with a co-pilot,' Arvind said. He gave me a demo of the system and it's impressive. As an amateur musician, with a lifetime of bad guitar playing under my belt, I could write a fully produced original song with this bespoke AI system. It will be interesting to see if non-musicians can utilize it the same way. The Mozart AI interface. You're still producing. You're just producing with a co-pilot Max Sarre, an independent music producer who has over 1m streams and 50k monthly listeners, added: 'WOW I'm still struck that this is real. I've produced for the longest time without AI, but this (Mozart) felt empowering. The speed of suggestions and iterations is insane, feels like I'm working with a AI replica of myself!' Arvind says his company will never train on copyrighted music and never generate full songs. 'We want to help artists finish more of what they start,' Arvind said. 'Eighty-five percent of music today never gets released. We're changing that by speeding up what artists already do, not replacing them with generic AI clones.' Mozart AI has been in private beta since June with over 25,000 users on the waitlist. The public release is scheduled for July 16. Investors in the round include EWOR, New Renaissance Ventures, Stefan Glaenzer ( and Atlantis Ventures. "Just 10 days after joining EWOR, Sundar, Arjun, and the team had built a first version of product. They move at light speed, and I'm excited to see how they change the way music is made." added Daniel Dippold, Founder & CEO at EWOR. Robot humanoid disc jockey at the dj mixer and turntable plays during night club party. Robot ... More android character, cyber innovations, artificial intelligence, automation, EDM, entertainment, modern music, dj festival concept. 3D illustration The AI co-production platform is aimed at independent artists and professionals who want faster workflows without sacrificing creative control. Danny White, an LA-based producer who has collaborated with legendary artists like Tiesto, said 'I was very impressed by how I could just use text prompts to perform simple tasks in an instant that would normally be tedious. I was also able to easily create chords that evoked specific feelings that I want to convey. This is the next big leap in music production, and I'm excited for its future.' This isn't Arvind's first time building with AI. Alongside co-founder Arjun Khanna, he previously launched Blitzo, an AI-driven last-mile delivery startup with £1.3 million in ARR. Khanna has won some of India's most prestigious math competitions and has represented India for professional debates at Harvard. The Mozart founding team also includes professional bassist Immanuel Rajadurai, who brings experience from both Big Tech and AI research, and Pascual Merita Torres, a University of Edinburgh-trained AI researcher who has been producing music professionally for over a decade. Their pitch is clear: fight AI with AI, but make sure the human is in charge. 'Suno starts with a song and lets you edit it after,' Arvind said. 'We start where music actually begins — with the artist's idea. You build from the bottom up, not the top down.' 'Still feels unreal, I've avoided AI in my production for years, but Mozart felt empowering. s,,' said London producer and songwriter Max Sarre, who tested the beta version in June. 'It doesn't get in the way. It just saves me time with every workflow.' Mozart AI will operate as a subscription-based service. Pricing has not yet been disclosed, but the company says it will offer early access to select beta users ahead of its official launch on the 16th of July.
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Shake It to the Max' Producers Disco Neil & Silent Addy Talk Moliy's Hot 100 Hit, Tease When Vybz Kartel Remix Is Coming
It's hard to get a hold of Bashment Sound these days. The production duo, comprised of Disco Neil and Silent Addy, is currently 'in France with some of the biggest artists, and then we move to London,' says the latter. 'We have a bunch of big records coming up; we're in music sessions every single day.' Already a popular act on the Caribbean DJ circuit, the Miami-based duo's stock rose exponentially when they made their Billboard Hot 100 debut last month. On the May 31-dated ranking, Bashment Sound landed their first Hot 100 hit with Moliy's viral dancehall smash 'Shake It to the Max (Fly).' Aided by an infectious dance challenge that's captivated everyone from J-Hope and Victoria Monét to Vic Mensa and Cash Cobain, 'Shake It to the Max' has quickly emerged as one of the leading contenders for 2025's song of the summer – and Bashment Sound has a plan to ensure it clinches that title. More from Billboard How Trinidadian Soca Artists Full Blown, Lady Lava & Tendaji Are Honoring Tradition While Charting the Genre's Next Era Lizzo Is Soundtracking Yitty Girl Summer with Her Upcoming 'My Face Hurts From Smiling' Mixtape Joe Bonamassa to Headline and Curate Florida's Sound Wave Beach Weekend As the Skillibeng–Shenseea, Gladdest and Major Lazer remixes continue to conquer different corners of the scene, Bashment Sound has several other versions in the tuck. The much buzzed-about Vybz Kartel remix will arrive in time for Wireless, while 'the soca remix, which is already done, [features] Skinny Fabulous and Lady Lava,' Disco Neil exclusively tells Billboard. 'We're holding that one for a Notting Hill/Caribana vibe. We're DJs at heart, so we're tapped in with events happening in different parts of the world, and thinking about that when we're dropping music.' Grammy-winning dancehall icon Sean Paul will also be joining the fun with his own remix, and the duo is currently exploring a Latin remix, as per Silent Addy. Now just outside the chart's top 40, 'Shake It to the Max' is just the third dancehall song to crack the Hot 100 this decade, following Byron Messia's Burna Boy-assisted 'Talibans II' (No. 99) from 2023 and Nicki Minaj's 2021 remix of Skillibeng's 'Crocodile Teeth' (No. 100). Notably, 'Shake It' sounds closer to the waist-wining riddims of dancehall's 2000s Stateside domination than the moodier sounds of contemporary trap dancehall, which makes its success even more interesting and impressive. Like 'Talibans II,' however, 'Shake It to the Max' also marks another successful collaboration between Caribbean and African acts; with Bashment Sound representing Jamaica and Moliy hailing from Ghana, the song has spent seven weeks atop U.S. Afrobeats Songs. 'Shake It to the Max' could very well be the inflection point that spurs the next U.S. crossover wave of dancehall hits, and Bashment Sound is committed to the fight for proper classification for the genre every step of the way. In a spirited conversation with Billboard, Bashment Sound's Silent Addy and Disco Neil react to their Hot 100 debut, reveal the guest artists on future 'Shake It to the Max' remixes, and share what excites them most about contemporary dancehall. When did you guys start working together? Disco Neil: Me and Addy met a while back; it'll be [over] 15 years [since then]. But we started working together more recently, maybe in the past seven or eight years. We both started off DJing in the same circles, and later, we connected and started Bashment, which is an event that we would [host] in Miami. Off of that, we formed a label called Bashment Records and started putting out our own music. That's what we've been building in Miami, New York, Toronto and Jamaica. We've been doing events in different cities and just spreading the brand. Everything has been Caribbean-based cause we're both of Jamaican background. When and where did you guys make the 'Shake It to the Max' riddim? Disco Neil: The song was made at our studio in Miami, the Bashment House, where we also live. Moliy was in Orlando at the time, and we had linked with her on another session and swapped contacts. We worked on three songs in March and then another three in August. We made 'Shake It to the Max' in the last session before she moved back to Ghana. Did you immediately know you had a hit on your hands? Disco Neil: We didn't get to sit on the song at all. We recorded it in August, it was teased [at the end of September], and it was out in December. When we recorded ['Shake It to the Max'], we definitely knew it had a special vibe. You don't know how far down the rabbit hole it's gonna go, but we felt good about it, especially off the response from the TikTok tease. That was definitely confirmation that we [had] something. Silent Addy: When Moliy first teased the song, we were already working on getting a feature. We hadn't really finished the song, so if you listen to the original, the arrangement is literally just repeats [in the production]. I always say the remix is actually the version that we wanted to put out originally. As the producers, what genre do you classify 'Shake It to the Max' as? Disco Neil: I really like the classification of modern dancehall. [The song] was also spawned a little bit from the shatta movement that's going on over in Europe, which was one of the inspirations for the vibe. Silent Addy: It's dancehall, but with some new vibes and new energy behind it. At the end of the day, the core of it is dancehall. I just feel like dancehall doesn't have the [proper] classifications [on the charts], so they put it in the Afro [category] because Afrobeats is popular right now and [Moliy's] an African artist. Afrobeats is amazing, but this is a dancehall record. It would be good if we had that classification. Maybe that's something we can make some noise about. I don't really like the term 'modern dancehall,' that would be more like [Teejay's] 'Drift' or [Byron Messia's] 'Talibans,' more trap dancehall. What was that moment like when you learned 'Shake It to the Max' cracked the Hot 100? Disco Neil: It's a blessing, honestly. It's just crazy to be a part of something that's groundbreaking in that sense and shaking up the place, no pun intended. We're letting people know that this style can work on a major scale and reminding them that it always has gotten to that major scale; it just needs to happen more consistently. This is a little moment to open people's eyes as to what's possible. From a musical standpoint, why do you think listeners have gravitated towards this song? Disco Neil: I wanted to keep the melody simple and infectious, and I feel like I definitely achieved that. The song is fun, and I feel like dancehall has been missing a lot of fun records. That is what's carrying it. That's why you can watch kids and grown people dancing to this. Are we getting the Vybz Kartel remix on streaming anytime soon? Silent Addy: We plan to release the Kartel remix closer to Wireless [Festival]. Sean Paul just started his European tour, and he wanted to add [his remix of 'Shake It to the Max'] to his set, so that's in the works as well. He shot a music video in Morocco and everything, he was super hype. But right now, we're letting the Skilli and Shenseea version breathe for a bit. Between 'Shake It to the Max,' , and , where do you think dancehall can go with this momentum? Silent Addy: I'm actually excited for the state that dancehall is in. We always tell people, '[Whether] dancehall is popping or not, we are still going to be doing it.' With ['Shake It to the Max'], a lot of the legends have been reaching out to us, from Buju [Banton] to Shaggy to Sean Paul to Bounty Killer to Elephant Man to Vybz Kartel. To get that co-sign from the legend and the people who are why we started this thing, that's all we've really asked for. Disco Neil: The legends have watched trends come and go for decades, so to have them co-sign [us], gives the whole thing a new meaning. I think the success of the song also put a battery in the newer dancehall artists' backs. We were in Jamaica recently, and a couple of young producers who have produced some of the country's biggest hits [at the moment] were like, 'We thought we were running the thing, but now we're seeing how far 'Shake It to the Max' is going.' It opened their eyes. To hear that from them on the islands made us realize that this thing is big and people are taking notice. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart
Daily Mail
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Britney Spears' son Jayden, 18, towers over her on Father's Day after estrangement
Britney Spears continued to bond with her youngest son Jayden James Federline, following a two-year estrangement, on Father's Day in a snap where his 6ft3in frame towered over her 5ft4in frame. The 43-year-old Grammy winner was so thrilled to finally reconnect with the 18-year-old high school grad, she bought him a brand new Mercedes AMG SL 63 roadster valued at $187K. 'He is [6ft3in] and his hands are so big now!' Britney - who boasts 148.4M social media followers - gushed on June 8. 'How long am I going to be in shock? It's so incredibly crazy, it's not even funny! I'm blessed! Just please be careful with my heart too!' Worryingly, Jayden never let go of his iPhone while driving the silver sportscar and glanced down at the screen at least twice during her video despite California 's hands-free driving laws. Federline is said to be pursuing a career in music production, and her team is concerned he may be taking advantage of Spears and her industry connections. 'Everybody is wary that he is using her for financial gains and for his career,' a source exclusively told the Daily Mail last Wednesday. 'The fear is this could hurt her and be the last straw for her.' Coincidentally, Jayden got back in touch with the semi-retired pop star last November - the same month she made her final $20K child support payment to second ex-husband Kevin Federline. Meanwhile, Britney and the 47-year-old former back-up dancer's 19-year-old son Sean Preston Federline remains 'guarded' after her 'favorite' son Jayden confessed to the Daily Mail in 2022 that she 'struggled giving us both attention and showing us equal love.' 'We've both been through so much pressure in the past that this is our safe place now, to process all the emotional trauma we've been through to heal, heal our mental state,' Federline explained. Spears - whose 13-year conservatorship finally ended in 2021 - divorced Kevin in 2007 after only two years of wedded bliss, and he amassed $5M in support payments during the 17 years he had primary custody of their children. In 2022, Federline posted surreptitiously-filmed footage of the Balenciaga collaborator scolding their kids at age 11 and 12 without her consent, and he later admitted it's 'tough' for teenagers to see her posting nearly nude dance videos on Instagram. Britney will soon release her first-ever jewelry brand, B. Tiny, featuring 'delicate, extremely different, and one-of-a-kind pieces.' Spears is also said to be very hands on with her fully-authorized biopic for Universal Pictures, which is still in the developmental stage. Worryingly, Jayden never let go of his iPhone while driving the silver sportscar and glanced down at the screen at least twice during her video despite California's hands-free driving laws On March 23, director Jon M. Chu shut down speculation over whether Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Millie Bobby Brown, Emma Roberts, Sydney Sweeney, Addison Rae, Florence Pugh, Tate McRae, or Olivia Holt were in contention to play the Hold Me Closer hitmaker. 'None of this is true,' the 45-year-old Wicked filmmaker tweeted. 'Sounds exciting but have not had one conversation about casting this movie yet. We are way too early in development. Sorry.' On August 1, Universal 'paid in the low eight figures' for the rights to Britney's NY Times-bestselling 2023 memoir The Woman In Me and music catalogue in the movie from producer Marc Platt. Simon & Schuster originally paid Spears a $12.5M advance (25% of the net profits) to pen the critically-acclaimed tell-all with three alleged ghostwriters - Ada Calhoun, Sam Lansky, and Luke Dempsey.
CBC
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Canadian producer Bob Ezrin on elevating Pink Floyd, taming KISS and leaving the U.S. behind
Social Sharing Bob Ezrin's resumé is as impressive as it is diverse. Over his five-decade career, the legendary Canadian music producer has worked with dozens of artists, from Alice Cooper and Jane's Addiction to Taylor Swift and Andrea Bocelli. "Most people don't understand what I do for a living," he told CBC's Ian Hanomansing in a wide-ranging interview. "You're dealing with extremely talented, often very high-strung people or complicated people, and you're trying to get the best performance out of them you possibly can on every level." For Ezrin, that work has included concept development, co-writing, arranging and sound design. But it has also required getting more intimate with a band, with Ezrin often playing the role of psychologist, confessor or protector — sometimes all in one day. That work often came at a personal cost — from being individually called out in reviews to a falling-out with an "apoplectic" Roger Waters — but his collaborations have helped create genre-defining releases, like KISS's slick Destroyer from 1976 and Pink Floyd's transcendental 1979 concept album The Wall. Now, as he celebrates receiving a Governor General Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement, the 76-year-old musical icon reflected on everything from recording with Pink Floyd to reworking KISS's sound — and why he decided to renounce his U.S. citizenship. WATCH | Ezrin explains his role: Bob Ezrin explains the role of the producer when making music 8 minutes ago Duration 0:37 Inside the recording process for The Wall One of Ezrin's career highlights came while recording The Wall. He fondly remembers working with guitarist David Gilmour when he played the iconic first solo on Comfortably Numb, one of the band's most iconic songs. Gilmour's two solos on the track are consistently regarded as some of the best of all time. Ezrin says he recognized the power of that first solo as soon as Gilmour started playing along with the track. "I did get tears in my eyes. It just blew me away," he said. "Like, it's so majestic and so melodically perfect and so serves the story, you know, in a way that just regular orchestration or other things like that could never have done." WATCH | Being in the room for Comfortably Numb: What was it like to be in the studio for the Comfortably Numb solo 8 minutes ago Duration 1:10 That moment of perfection came during a famously acrimonious period for Pink Floyd. Main lyricist Waters had started to assert his primacy within the band, Ezrin said. The project was based on Waters's life, so he had a deep, proprietary feeling about it, and was at first resistant to input from the others. 'No points for Ezrin' Even with the tension, Ezrin says there were some good times — "laughter, kibitzing, messing around" — as well as some schoolyard bullying. "There was a lot of picking on me," said Ezrin. "One day I showed up after we had taken a break and everybody had 'NOPE' buttons, N-O-P-E. And what it stood for was 'No Points for Ezrin.'" (Points meaning royalties for the album sales.) "I didn't think it was that serious, and later on I found out that they were more serious than I thought," said Ezrin, who noted that in the end he did get paid for the project. When the album wrapped, Waters and Ezrin had a major falling-out, after Ezrin inadvertently gave away some secrets about The Wall tour to a Billboard journalist. "Roger went absolutely nuclear, apoplectic," said Ezrin. "And he had every right to." The relationship between the two men has never fully recovered, and the rift may have deepened in recent years, with Ezrin even regretting parts of The Wall. "There are some parts … I wish I hadn't done," he said, calling elements of the album "almost neo-fascistic." The album includes fascist imagery to portray the protagonist's downward spiral, as he eventually hallucinates being a neo-Nazi leader. Ezrin says he used to think the references were done satirically, but he now believes Waters wasn't joking. "He wasn't kidding. He really wasn't kidding about some of that stuff," Ezrin said. In recent years, Waters has been accused of repeated antisemitism, with witnesses claiming to have heard him make derogatory references to Jews. He has publicly denied being antisemitic, and has repeatedly said that The Wall is anti-fascist. Tweaking an iconic band's image While Ezrin's production is primarily well regarded by fans and peers, critical reception hasn't always been positive. He laughs when he recalls the first time he worked with the band KISS, on their fourth studio album, Destroyer. "The first review for Destroyer was just devastating," he said. "And in fact the reviewer said something like, 'I've got a mind to go up to Toronto and punch Bob Ezrin in the nose on behalf of KISS fans everywhere.'" This sort of thing used to happen because he was often hired to change the direction of a musical act, he said. WATCH | How Ezrin made KISS get vulnerable: How Bob Ezrin convinced KISS to soften their image 8 minutes ago Duration 1:03 For KISS, Ezrin was brought in to try and broaden their audience, which he said at the time was largely "15-year-old pimply boys." He told the band they needed to show a more vulnerable side to generate interest from "the girls of America." That included reworking the song Beth, changing it from what he called a "screw-you" kind of song to a "gentle, sweet" ballad that was almost lullaby-like, adding in a piano melody and a walking bass line. He also worked to make the overall sound more polished than the band's earlier albums. It was a huge departure for KISS. And while the alterations did anger some die-hard fans, the plan worked. Destroyer became the first KISS album to be certified platinum. Returning home to Canada Ezrin says he is grateful to be recognized with the Governor General's Award. It coincides with a major move for him — he announced in February he'd be renouncing his U.S. citizenship and returning to Toronto, after four decades of living in the States. The political climate had become too polarized, he said. Several months in, he says he's comfortable with his decision. As for what his American friends think, he joked, "Many of them want to be adopted." WATCH | Ezrin on the U.S. political climate: Bob Ezrin renounced his U.S. citizenship and returned to Canada 8 minutes ago Duration 0:56 Music producer Bob Ezrin tells The National's Ian Hamomansing how his American friends reacted to his decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship and return to Canada. Now, at 76, he continues to work. He recently finished an album with the original Alice Cooper Band, and he is wrapping up a project with the English rock band Deep Purple. "Sometimes I have to sort of pinch myself. Because I just do what I do," he said. "But I really appreciate the recognition and I appreciate being appreciated.
