Selective Hearing’s Monthly Recap - July 2024

Monthly Recap Title Card July

Introduction

Wow, it’s already past the halfway point of 2024. Time sure flies. The summer has been abnormally hot where I live, so getting accustomed to the elevated temperatures has been somewhat harsh.

Unlike many people, I don’t take long summer vacations and instead make short weekend excursions somewhere until I can find a place to take an extended vacation later in the year. That said, my July was spent working from home and relaxing as much as possible in this stupid heat.

Content

There’s nothing to report here, and it’s business as usual.

Events

I didn’t go anywhere, but our friend Ellis visited KCON 2024 in Los Angeles. The podcast discussing this year’s event is coming soon.

TV Shows/Web Series

Street Woman Fighter 2 Poster

I’m not watching anything current at this time. Instead, I’m watching the second season of Street Woman Fighter. I didn’t watch it as it aired in Korea, so I’m getting through the episodes at my own pace.

Video Games

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Poster

I’m at the end of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth since I have reached the final fight with Sephiroth. However, I have failed to take him down so often that I’m taking a break from the game. Maybe I’ll try again now that I know where I’m screwing up to finish him off.

Music

Remixes

I completed three remixes in July.

The original version of Inner Dance has a chilled-out feel despite being in the higher BPM range. Its instrumental is straightforward and allows the Glow member’s vocals to add to the track’s overall ambiance.

I decided to increase the energy for my remix and build a more intense instrumental. My template was pounding four to the floor with a more pronounced bass line. Once I had that in place, I found the right sounds for the chord structure to evoke the correct mood to match the original. Then, I experimented with the melodic and harmonic elements to fill the rest out.

I know absolutely nothing about the genres that Smart takes influence from other than what I have been exposed to through R&B and House music. And I have little to no experience composing anything like Smart.
However, I had a Native Instruments expansion pack called Global Shake with many African club music sounds that I could experiment with, so I dove headfirst into figuring out what to do for this LE SSERAFIM song.

The rhythm section for my remix is 95% comprised of sounds from the Global Shake drum kits, with only a few outside samples to round out the percussion and fill in the gaps. I went heavy on the synth layering in this remix, so it sounds more like an EDM pop track than the Afropop of the original version.

I knew I wanted to try something with this song, but I needed to figure out what to do. I wanted to avoid trying to mimic the original’s New Jack Swing sound, which would defeat the purpose of putting my spin on the track.

A four-to-the-floor dance track would have been easy to follow, but it also would have provided a lesser challenge to elevate my skill set. I eventually settled on attempting something City Pop-ish to see where that would take me. The goal was to use as many acoustic instruments, softer sounds and genre-appropriate patches as possible.

The final result is different from what I had planned, and it sure didn’t end up being City Pop. As I built the instrumental layers, I scrapped many musical elements that would have steered in that direction since they didn’t fit what was happening vibe-wise.

My remix is instead a chilled pop track that complements the vocal track differently than the original’s grooving instrumental.

Below are my favourites from July 2024.

Monthly Recap July Albums 01