‘Chronology’ comes at a cost
Chronixx travels to be at recording, mixing sessions
DURING WEDNESDAY evening’s listening session for Chronology at Anchor Studios, Chronixx said that he was at all the recoding and mixing sessions for his debut album. Based on the credits he read for just two of the songs, then saying he knows all the personnel, but it would take a long time to list them all, he would have had to travel a lot to be so involved in the process. Among the stops would have been with the Rudimental outfit in England, as well as studious in different parts of the USA.
After the music had been turned off, The Gleaner commented to Chronixx that it must have been an expensive process, and he agreed. However, he said that making Chronology came at a cost not only in money, but also in talent and resources – and it is an investment he is willing to make.
“In 2012, I would never dream that I would be able to make an album like this,” Chronixx said. And while he does not feel he has to choose between commercial success and making music that achieves his objective of continuity for Jamaican popular music, at the start of the listening session, he said, “This is the most nervous I have been sharing music.”
EXPERIMENTAL WORK
“This is a very experimental side of myself that sometimes I try to suppress,” Chronixx said, sitting at the mixing board.
He was focused on the music as the songs were played (one of the rules was no ‘pull-ups’), most times starting straight ahead and moving his hands to the beat. The album starts with Spanish Town Rockin’ and ends with the bonus track, I Know Love. The experimental side was more evident from track eight, Selassie Children, onwards, through songs such as Black Is Beautiful, Loneliness, Tell Me Now, Legend, and Christina.
Chronixx was familiar with the music well before the actual recording process, as he said, he worked out the music himself and then communicated with the musicians, something he said he has got good at. It did not hurt that “90 per cent” of the musicians on Chronology are Jamaican.
He identified Glen Browne for Black Is Beautiful, saying “we stick with who we know”, as Browne also played on a previous Chronixx song, Capture Land.
Originally slated for release on June 30, naming down sample clearances has pushed the date the public can get Chronology on CD, vinyl, or through streaming and download to July 7.