Song Exploder - Kelela - Rewind

Episode Date: May 31, 2018

Kelela is a singer and songwriter based in Los Angeles. In 2015, she released Hallucinogen EP, and landed on critics lists in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Pitchfork, and more. In this episode, Kelela takes apart her song “Rewind.” To make the track, she worked with five different producers, picking and choosing each for what they could best contribute to her overall vision for the song. This interview was recorded live in San Francisco at Fusion’s Real Future Fair.songexploder.net/kelela

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. In November 2015, I interviewed Kalela about her song Rewind from her debut EP. Since that EP was released, she's gone on to collaborate on songs with Gorillas and Solange, and she released her first full-length, Take Me Apart, which was named one of the top ten albums of 2017 by Vulture, Pitchfork, Cosmo, and a bunch of others. So I wanted to go back and revisit Kolella's episode, which originally came out in January. January 2016. Here it is. Kalella is a singer and songwriter based in Los Angeles.

In 2015, she released Hallucinogen and landed on critics lists in the New York Times, The Washington Post, pitchfork, and more. In this episode, Kolella takes apart her song, Rewind. To make the track, she worked with five different producers, picking and choosing each for what they could best contribute to her overall vision for the song. This interview was recorded live in San Francisco at Fusion's Real Future Fair. Now, here's Colella on Song Exploder. I take my chances, I know that I'm falling.

I had the intention to make a Miami bass inspired song that gave me butterflies or that made me feel romance, but something light and fun. It's like I wanted that ghost town DJ's feel. I received a track from a producer who goes by Obie City. He sent me a whole collection of instrumentals, and this one just jumped out at me.

It was actually the baseline that I couldn't get off of. I just sort of fixated on that, and so I kept trying to sing over the track, as is over and over and over again, and I didn't get anywhere. I left it alone, and then one day I came back to it with my friend Nugget. He's also a writer,

So I think that the advantage of working with somebody who produces and writes is that, you know, the idea doesn't have to come out disjointed. You're writing the song and you're making the song at the same time. So I told him, what I'm hearing is a Miami bass track. And I finally got stems for this song. So can you just pull the baseline out? And then he added a lead, which basically took me to Never, Never Land. And then the bass line worked against that sort of major harmony. So that lead is what anchors a lot of my melody and allowing me to improvise.

I first improvised over it and it's just, down goes a little down open my eye. And I'm just feeling it, you know? Like I know the emotion. I know what I'm saying. I don't know the words. as soon as I finished I was just like

what is that what is that feeling like what is it's nostalgic that's what we kept saying there's something like you missed it or a little bit of lamenting

but not really dwelling you know just sort of like I don't know what happened just now and then I just had this click moment because I just returned from Brazil for the first time

and one of the things that happened was I was invited to a club and my best friend met a girl. They met earlier in the day they clicked and we all went to this club

together and she didn't actually make the move. They hung out all night and then I was about to leave and I was just like I'm about to go and she was like I'm going to come with you so we were walking out the door and right when we got to the door she was like I'm going to go back

and I'm going to try to find that girl and I'm going to actually like say I like you. You know what I mean? I'm not going to pretend. And I was like, yes. I gave her all the encouragement I could. And the next morning I woke up and I was like, so like what happened?

And she was like, you know what? I never saw that girl again. I looked for her everywhere. I looked for her the whole night. She was like, I had an amazing night. It was the best, you know. But I never saw that. girl again. So it just, when she told me then, I was like, oh, that makes for such good,

that's so rich. And so we just pursued the idea and try to make it be the focal point of the chorus. I'm giving you eyes, but you miss read the signs. And I can't be fine, baby. I'll search everywhere for you. And I can't be quite, baby. Don't blink when I'm watching you and I can't be white. There was a moment where I said, if I weren't brown, I'd be blushing. I'd be blushing.

This ain't a mystery. I'm trying to keep my cool. He's staying next to me. I'm about to break the rules. I was nervous about it. This is the first time that I've ever done any talky, rapy. I don't even know what you call that. But I just, I don't know I went for it.

But I can't stop But I can't stop staring They slip my mind Oh, no I can't remember So after I created the demo with Nugget I had a very straight ahead Miami bass track I basically took those parts

And I gave them to Girl Unit And I also gave them to Kingdom and I gave Girl Unit a specific directive. Give me Miami-based sounds. Give me the drum that it's supposed to be. Give me the most in-high hat. And then I asked Kingdom to do the opposite, basically, like, take this completely out into the galaxy, basically.

You took it quite seriously, so there's rubble sounds, and it sounds like a bomb is going off in the background. And then there's this reverse sample. It's a reverse vocal that's been sped up. And I was asking him, I wanted to sound a little bit scary, maybe. And he sort of gave me this motif, this thing that kept appearing in his version. So once I gave it to Girl Unit and Kingdom, they both give me very opposite versions of the track.

I just basically put them together and tried to be as careful as possible to make them work together so that you have enough to hold on to, but you also have enough taking

it out of context and subverting it. There were a few things I still needed. It's good. I'm dancing. But when the chorus hits, I need something to make me really go off.

And I've been working with Ariel Reichstag, who is an amazing producer, and he was like, maybe clave. And I was like, clave. And he put it in the track, and it just takes it up a little bit. And then the other thing that he added was these really

fast claps. These chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. And then the other thing that he added was this pitched down can we want. It's my vocal, just pitched down a couple of octaves, I believe. That made a huge difference when that part came around.

So he sort of just helped me elevate the things that I needed elevating. A lot of times I am trying to create texture. I do want to be able to grab the people who are really pensive, like the dorks, you know, who are like, did you hear that hi-hat? I've so been that girl, so it's just kind of for the die-harts or for the people who are like what? You know? Thank you.

Now, here's Rewind by Kolella in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.net for more on Kolella. There you'll find the music video for Rewind and links to buy the track. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh, Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own. own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations

about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting to be on tour, starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city,

like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In The Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishi-kesh.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks.

If you heard about a sponsor in this episode and you want to learn more, you can always go to songexploder.net slash sponsors to find all of the current offers available to song explodeer listeners. This episode was produced by me, along with Christian Coons, with help from intern Olivia Wood. The illustrations for some of someone. Song Exploder are by Carlos Lerma. Special thanks this episode to Muj Zady.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of fiercely independent podcasts. You can learn about all of our shows at Radiotopia.fm. Let me know your thoughts on this episode. You can find Song Exploder on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Song Exploder. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.