The Make Way EP is Released

After much toil and handship my brand new EP 'Make Way' is unleashed upon the world! I have created a special webpage where you can download the CD plus change the language options. The page is translated into Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Check it out!

This is a really innovative website in that it is basically an online CD. You can access all sorts of cool options such as 'Join the XYL Newsletter', 'Tell a friend' and 'Send XYL a Message'. You can also access all my social networking site profiles. It's a completely integrated all-in-one site!

So go ahead, download my music and share it with all your friends. It's free and totally legal to share with anyone! Thanks for your support =D

Working Like Crazy

There is never enough time! I have had the past 3 days off of my 'real' job and have been working full-tilt on my music career. Studying marketing and promotion, working on my Myspace page, organizing my Street Team, recording new songs and the list goes on to infinity. It gets stressful but I love it, as each day I make a little bit of progress towards my ultimate goal and that feels great.

The two new tracks I've recorded were the last ones for my upcoming 'Make Way' EP. I am very excited about them, you'll hear them on June 1st when Make Way becomes available as a free download. For now, it's more work... LOTS more work. If I don't go completely insane I might just make it.

XYL Official Website
XYL Myspace

In the Studio

I was in the studio yesterday recording a new song called 'Make Way'. These days, I am working with E.V. from A-Slam Productions (sfu.ca/aslammp) as we work effeciently and he understands exactly the sort of sound I am looking for.

I come from a musical background so my style of composition may be different than a lot of producers. I tend to write one main melody and a secondary melody on a guitar or piano and then go into the studio, play the music on E.V.'s keyboard and from that point, choose from the thousands of different sounds in his computer. After establishing the tempo and recording the primary melody, we move on to the secondary melody and then often come up with some other stuff to layer on top. Then it is time to set up the drum beat. At this point, we only have a generic one-two bass drum-snare beat going just to set the tempo so now we create a specific drumbeat and once again choose from thousands of different sound options for the snare, hi-hat, bass drum, cymbols, ect. E.V. really likes to combine different sounds together and for 'Make Way' we created a massive horn section that has nine different sounding horns together!

We also cut out a verse and chorus from the last song I recorded, 'Prolly Drunk', as it was originally over 4 minutes long. This may not seem like much but for radio play it is too long. Also, I will be shooting the video for 'Prolly Drunk' in late February or early March so four minutes is too much space to fill in a music video and maintain interest. Well, at least with my meagre 500$ budget it is. There will be more details coming for the video shoot soon.

I am very stoked about this new track 'Make Way' and I believe it has definite hit potential. The new EP will be out in Feb or March so stay tuned for further details as well as info on where to hear the tracks and where to buy it. For now, you can listen to a preview of my 'Prolly Drunk' song here: sfuc.ca/aslammp. Go to the 'Downloads' section and scroll down to track number 18.

Well that's all for now, got the 'Wordz from Tha Underground' show tommorrow (Jan.18) at the Lamplighter(210 Abbott St.) and I'll also be performing at the Columbia(303 Columbia St.) friday at like 2 AM. Should be interesting... I'll have a full report and pics up here after. Peace!

XYL Official Website
XYL Myspace