For over eight months now, Aryn, Greg and I have written numerous songs for our EPs, collaborating and setting up challenges with each other. I’d say for the most part its been a fruitful experience which has helped us tighten our songwriting skills, learn new ways to collaborate over long distances, learned great music software and mostly to stay in contact with each other in productive ways.
So when a friend and co-worker Robin was inspired to re-interpret one of our songs (one of mine technically), the year-long effort took on a new extra layer of meaning. It’s one thing for the three of us to entertain and push ourselves, but to have others starting to be inspired by our project is, well, pretty cool.
Robin and I collaborated back in February on a song I had written called “Morning Tiger,” a song I had pretty much given up on and resigned to being a mere electro pop instrumental. But Robin saw potential in it, writing lyrics and constructing a great melody that really pushed the song over the top… It’s one of my favourite songs I contributed to that EP. So when Robin asked if he could take a stab at my song “The Imitators” I was more than happy to hear how he would treat it.
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/ep/februaryEP/CloudedSpaces/08_MorningTiger.mp3]
Sharing unfinished works can often be a temperamental thing; its hard enough to put yourself out there as it is, let alone sharing a work in progress and leaving yourself open to extra scrutiny and criticism. We also found with our June EP, that hearing our songs covered by others can be a strange thing at first, especially when the lyrics or meaning of the song can be pretty personal. While I used to find it hard to do, this project sort of encourages that openness.
In the end, I think Robin’s treatment, while a bit darker, matched the mood of the lyrics just right… Robin writes much more eloquently on his own site about the song, but I’d say its a great testament to the original and sort of an honor to have written a song that holds up in another’s hands.
With four EPs left it will be exciting to hear what sort of songs we will come up with. Stay tuned listeners…
The Imitators (from the July EP The Rundown)
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/ep/julyEP/The_Rundown/01_The_Imitators.mp3]
The Imitators (as performed and produced by Robin Hilton)
[audio:https://hellocomein.com/soundbox/hellomusic_mike/Imitators_Robin.mp3]
