Track By Track: Bastien Keb – Dinking In The Shadows Of Zizou

There aren't many footballers grand enough to have their name featured in an album title yet there are few out there who can quarrel with the fact that Zinedine Zidane now does. Bastien Keb's new album sees him pay tribute to Zizou, though mostly in the name, as he pieces together eleven tracks filled with plenty of aural goodness for you to enjoy. Grab a taste of the album right ear and read on as Mr Keb talks us through the album one track at a time and even provides us with a photo for each track;

Blurs

Winter
Old Miles Davis and Bernard Hermann's Taxi Driver score. Always imagined New York, moody jazz, with a dissonance quality. I wrote it as a standard jazz tune, aiming for early Miles Davis sound, it was dark outside the flat. Once I'd written it, I sampled it and looped up a bit then did some musical saw and clarinet stuff overdubs. My Mum bought a clarinet but didn't really use it, I ended up getting some mad sounds out of it. Once I liked it I listened to it on loop with a cup of tea. Listen when you're a little bit buzzed walking the streets at night in a city in the rain. 

Down River

Autumn
Lots of short loops over a 8 bar rhodes progression, it was fun jamming it but it wasn't until I got the vocal in that I really liked it. Like all my songs I sketched the vocal in without words then wrote words to it. Again it was pretty late and cold when I wrote in. I was aiming for melancholy, so was pretty happy with the result. I think the lyrics make sense which is pretty rare with me.

Hum

Autumn
This one's old. I was playing around with reversing my voice, and layered the organ over it. I'd just bought a musical saw when i wrote it, so this might be the saw's first or second appearance on my tunes. The saw also appears on 'Blurs'.

Doodlebag

Winter
I was getting samples from my mates workshop and found that on the back of the P.A there was a grate, I started playing with it and recorded it on a Tascam 4 track. Once I got it home I looped up what I liked. I remember that I tried to write a bass part/chord progression and didn't like it moving anywhere so it just stays on G minor for the whole tune. I was happy with the organ riff on a battered old organ I bought for 50 quid. 
Tim Southorn mixed the album and plays the ride and snare once it drops which add a lot. Thanks Tim! It was during my Flying Lotus stage, that's the inspiration really.

Chicken Stomp

Spring
Just a basic Stax groove that I got a horn hook on, I wasn't sure what to do with it so I went mad on the bass and wrote a long sequence. It was fun making this one, I love a stax's beat. The harmony bit was inspired by the old '50s doo-wop groups. On the early versions I did some wild singing solos after the harmony bits, it almost made the cut, then I remembered I wasn't Mariah Carey. I still hear the mad vocal when I hear the tune, perhaps I should have gone full Carey. 

Beat Without A Heart

Autumn
The intro without the vocals was written for a Dove soap advert. It was really inappropriate for it… I was sorta glad because I loved the slap bit. It was around for a while before the vocals came about. I loved it once the vocals were on it. The first draft just kept looping the riff, and it had finger tapping guitar! I was aiming for Michael Jackson/Eddie Van Halen thing. Alex from One-Handed Music wasn't feeling the rocking out so I rewrote everything apart from the intro.

Peardrops

Spring
My mate gave me his sister's cello (it's alright she ain't played it for 10 years), I can't play cello and all the strings but one were broken. But it made a noise when I bowed it, that's what that strange sound is. I've since got some strings and love playing the cello proper now. Again this was a Flying Lotus inspired tune, it's a strange amount of bars for a loop I think.

Pork Belly

Summer
Initially i wrote a pretty uninteresting soul tune, but then i did the old trick of sampling you own song which is basically what this is. Once i'd looped it and drop it a semitone, i played some flute over it and sang the hook as well as getting in a nice F sharp over the D major to give it a sadder feel.   

Down Shoe Gum

Spring
This was written for a radio play that never happened. The brief for the radio play was old blaxploitation movies so I wrote a whole unreleased album of funk instrumentals. Hopefully it'll get released one day. But at least this one is out there. Just old school James Brown was the inspiration.

Love just died tonight

Winter
I got an old tune called 'Psychonaut' which I made a synth for the chord progression, I loved the synth so I sampled it and made a new chord progression the snare sound is from an old organ preset the same organ I played on 'Doodlebag'. Once I had the lead vocal line I wanted to sing it with a load of egg, like those '80s pop stars, you know Rick Astley, I added some falsetto too. The trumpet solo was meant to be well '80s too, a bit of slap bass as well.

Deer

Summer
This was written for a film called 'Circadian Rhythms' by Tom Bailey, I did a load of tunes like this, but he didn't use this one. I really liked the sound of all the tunes for the soundtrack and wanted to release it as a soundtrack. I scored the film over FA cup weekend 2014, Arsenal beaten Hull 3-2 in extra time, i made a chicken curry. It was a very good day. 90% of the songs I wrote for the soundtrack were me sample my older tunes. Even though it was a bright lovely day I think this tune is still a night time tune. Late night summer.

Dinking In The Shadows Of Zizou is out now via One-Handed Music.