Music Boats

Home Studio Setup Under $500: The No-BS 2026 Gear List
20
Aug

You have $500 and a room that is not acoustically treated. You want to record a song that does not sound like it was recorded inside a tin can. This is the exact list I would hand a friend who just asked me that question.

I have recorded in bedrooms, closets, and one very questionable basement. The gear below is what actually matters. Everything else is noise.

The Real Problem Is Not Your Gear

Most first home studios fail because people buy the wrong thing first. They buy a fancy microphone and plug it into a $20 USB adapter. Then they wonder why the recording hums like a refrigerator.

The signal chain matters more than any single piece. A $100 microphone through a proper audio interface will beat a $400 USB microphone every time. USB microphones combine the preamp, converter, and mic into one cheap box. You cannot upgrade any part of it later.

Start with an audio interface. It is the foundation. Everything plugs into it. If you buy nothing else on this list, buy the interface first.

The Interface That Actually Works

The Focusrite Scarlett Solo costs $119 new in 2026. It has one XLR input with phantom power, one instrument input, and a headphone output. The preamp is clean enough that you will not hear hiss on a quiet vocal take. Focusrite has been making these for over a decade. Drivers are stable on Windows and Mac.

The cheaper Behringer UM2 ($49) exists. I do not recommend it for vocals. The preamp gets noisy when you push the gain past about 60%. If you only record loud sources like electric guitar cabs or drums, it works. For anything quiet, spend the extra $70 on the Scarlett.

Microphone Choice: Stop Overthinking This

A cozy home studio with professional lighting equipment for a photo session.

Buy a dynamic microphone. Not a condenser. Dynamic mics reject room noise better, which matters because your room is untreated. Condensers pick up everything: the refrigerator, the neighbor’s dog, the sound of your chair creaking.

The Shure SM57 ($99) is the answer for most people. It records vocals, guitar amps, snare drums, acoustic guitar, and pretty much anything else you put in front of it. Is it the best vocal mic? No. Does it work well enough to make a record? Yes. Bruce Springsteen recorded vocals on Nebraska with an SM57. You will be fine.

If you only record vocals and want something slightly warmer, the Shure SM58 ($109) is the same mic with a built-in pop filter. The difference is small. Pick whichever is cheaper at the time.

Do not buy a cheap condenser like the Neewer NW-700. It will pick up the hum from your laptop fan and you will spend hours trying to edit it out.

Headphones: Closed-Back Only

You need closed-back headphones for tracking. Open-back headphones leak sound into the microphone. You will get bleed on every vocal take and then wonder why there is a ghost of the instrumental in your vocal track.

The Audio-Technica ATH-M40x ($99) is the best value in 2026. Flat enough to mix on, durable enough to survive being stepped on, and the cable detaches when you inevitably roll your chair over it. The M50x ($149) adds more bass but the M40x is actually flatter for mixing. Save the $50.

For a cheaper option, the Sony MDR-7506 ($89) has been the studio standard for 30 years. They are bright. You will hear every mistake. That is the point.

Do not mix on earbuds. Do not mix on Beats. Do not mix on anything that colors the sound.

The $60 Software That Runs Everything

Young black men filming a casual video with laptop and camera in a home studio setting.

You do not need Pro Tools. You do not need Ableton. You need a DAW that records audio, supports VST plugins, and does not crash.

Reaper costs $60 for a personal license. It is not a trial. It is the full program. Reaper runs on any computer made in the last decade and supports every plugin format that matters. The learning curve is real but there are thousands of free tutorials.

Free alternatives exist. GarageBand is free on Mac and genuinely good for songwriting demos. Audacity is free but it is a destructive editor, not a real DAW. You cannot run proper plugin chains in Audacity. You will outgrow it in a month.

Spend the $60 on Reaper. It is the last DAW you will need to buy for years.

What the $500 Budget Actually Looks Like

Item	Product	Price	Why It Matters
Audio Interface	Focusrite Scarlett Solo	$119	Clean preamp, stable drivers
Microphone	Shure SM57	$99	Rejects room noise, works on everything
Headphones	Audio-Technica ATH-M40x	$99	Closed-back, flat response
XLR Cable	Hosa HMIC-010	$15	Do not buy the cheapest cable
Mic Stand	On-Stage MS7701B	$25	Boom arm saves desk space
Pop Filter	Aokeo Professional	$12	Stops plosives on vocals
DAW	Reaper	$60	Full-featured, one-time purchase
Total		$429	Leaves $71 for cables or a second mic

The remaining $71 should go to a second XLR cable and maybe a used Shure SM58 if you can find one under $80. Two mics open up stereo recording and drum overheads.

The Mistakes That Ruin First Recordings

A close-up of a hand adjusting controls on a red audio interface, emphasizing technology use.

Here is what actually goes wrong, in order of frequency:

Recording too hot. Keep your input level peaking around -12dB to -6dB. Digital clipping is permanent. You cannot fix it later.
Ignoring room echo. Record in the room with the most soft surfaces. Closets with clothes work surprisingly well. Bathrooms do not.
Buying monitors before treatment. Studio monitors in an untreated room lie to you. Headphones are more honest in a bad room.
Over-processing. A raw SM57 recording through a Scarlett sounds decent. Adding 15 plugins makes it sound worse. Start with EQ and compression. Stop there.
Not backing up. Save your Reaper project to two places. Hard drives die. This is not optional.

When You Should Spend More (And When You Should Not)

If you are recording acoustic guitar and quiet vocals in a room with no treatment, add a Shure SM58 ($109) and skip the SM57. The built-in pop filter helps with plosives and the slightly warmer top end flatters acoustic sources.

If you are only making beats and never recording audio, skip the microphone entirely. Put that $99 toward a MIDI controller like the Arturia MiniLab 3 ($109). The Scarlett Solo still matters for headphone output.

If you have $700 instead of $500, the single best upgrade is acoustic treatment. Four ATS Acoustic panels ($180 for a 4-pack) will do more for your recordings than any microphone upgrade. Untreated rooms make every mic sound cheap.

The gear list above is not the ceiling. It is the floor. It is the minimum that produces a recording you would not be embarrassed to share. Everything above this is incremental improvement.

The home studio market in 2026 is flooded with cheap gear that promises professional results. Most of it is bad. The list above is boring on purpose. Boring gear works. Boring gear does not break. Boring gear lets you focus on the song instead of troubleshooting a $30 USB microphone that hums every time you move the cable.

Record the song. That is the point.

Midi Keyboard Setup Beginners: Your MIDI Keyboard Won’t Fix a Bad Song: A Beginner’s Setup for 2026
19
Aug

You bought a MIDI keyboard because someone on YouTube made it look easy. The box arrived. You plugged it into your laptop. Nothing happened. Or worse — it made a sound once, then went silent, and now you’re three hours deep in a forum thread from 2019 about driver conflicts.

This is not a gear problem. It’s a routing problem. And the fix takes about twenty minutes once you understand what the keyboard actually does.

A MIDI controller sends instructions, not audio. It says “note on, velocity 97, note off” — nothing else. Your computer turns those instructions into sound through a software instrument. If you skip that step, the keyboard is just an expensive plastic slab. This guide covers the setup path that actually works in 2026, using gear that doesn’t require a degree in audio engineering.

The Three-Part Chain: Keyboard, Driver, DAW

Every MIDI setup failure comes down to one broken link in a three-part chain. The keyboard sends data. The operating system receives it. The DAW interprets it. If any link fails, you get silence.

What the keyboard actually sends

MIDI data is tiny. A note-on message is three bytes. Your keyboard doesn’t need a powerful computer to work — a 2015 laptop handles it fine. What matters is whether the keyboard is class-compliant. Class-compliant means the operating system recognizes it without installing drivers. The Arturia KeyLab Essential 49 ($249) is class-compliant. So is the Novation Launchkey 37 ($199). The Akai MPK Mini Plus ($169) works class-compliant too. If your keyboard needs a driver download, do that first — before opening any music software.

The DAW is not optional

You need a DAW — a digital audio workstation — to hear anything. Free options in 2026 include GarageBand (Mac only), Cakewalk by BandLab (Windows), and Tracktion Waveform Free (both platforms). Paid entry points: Ableton Live Intro ($99), Logic Pro ($199, Mac only), FL Studio Fruity Edition ($99). The DAW is where you select a virtual instrument — a piano, a synth, a drum kit — and route the MIDI input to it.

The setup sequence that avoids 90% of problems

Plug in the keyboard with the USB cable it came with. Not a random cable from a drawer — some cheap USB cables are charge-only and don’t carry data.
Open your DAW. Go to Settings > MIDI Devices (or Preferences > MIDI).
Enable the keyboard as an input device. Look for a checkbox or an “Enable” button next to the keyboard’s name.
Create a new track. Select a virtual instrument from the DAW’s instrument list.
Arm the track for recording (usually a red button on the track).
Play a key. You should hear sound.

If you hear nothing at step 6, the problem is almost always step 3 or step 5. Not the keyboard.

What Actually Goes Wrong: The Failure Modes

Detailed close-up of piano keys on an electronic keyboard. Perfect for music-related content.

Here’s what nobody tells you before you buy.

Problem	What it looks like	The actual fix
Charge-only USB cable	Keyboard lights up but DAW doesn’t see it	Use the cable from the box, or buy a data-rated USB cable ($8–12)
Wrong MIDI channel	Some keys work, others don’t, or drum pads trigger wrong sounds	Set keyboard to MIDI channel 1, match it in DAW track settings
No virtual instrument loaded	DAW sees the keyboard, track is armed, still no sound	Load a software instrument on the track — the DAW doesn’t make sound by itself
Driver conflict	Keyboard works, then stops after a system update	Uninstall old drivers, download current version from manufacturer site, restart
Latency (delay between key press and sound)	You play a note, sound comes 100–300ms later	Lower buffer size in DAW audio settings (64–128 samples), or install ASIO drivers on Windows

The charge-only cable issue is the most common beginner failure I see. A cable that charges your phone will not necessarily transmit MIDI data. If your keyboard powers on but the DAW doesn’t list it, try a different cable before you return the keyboard.

Latency deserves more attention. On Windows, the default audio drivers are slow. You need ASIO4ALL (free) or the ASIO driver from your audio interface. Set the buffer to 128 samples or lower. At 256 samples, the delay becomes noticeable. At 512, it’s unplayable.

Which Keyboard to Buy in 2026 (And When Not to Buy One)

For a first controller, the Novation Launchkey 37 is the best pick right now. It costs $199, has 37 full-size keys, and includes Ableton Live Lite. The integration with Ableton is deeper than anything Arturia or Akai offers at this price. If you don’t know which DAW you’ll use, the Launchkey works fine with any of them, but it shines in Ableton.

The Akai MPK Mini Plus ($169) is the right choice if desk space is tight. It has 37 mini keys, which feel cramped for two-handed playing but work fine for bass lines, drum programming, and chord stabs. The joystick for pitch and modulation is more fun than wheels.

The Arturia KeyLab Essential 49 ($249) makes sense if you’re leaning toward Arturia’s Analog Lab software — it comes with a huge preset library that sounds genuinely good out of the box. The keybed feels slightly better than the Novation.

Skip anything with fewer than 25 keys. Skip anything without pitch and mod controls. Skip anything that requires proprietary drivers unless you’re on Mac. And if you already have a digital piano with USB MIDI out, you don’t need to buy a controller at all — that piano will work as a MIDI keyboard in any DAW.

Setting Up Your First Playable Session

A vibrant close-up view of a computer keyboard illuminated by red and blue light, emphasizing technology themes.

You’ve got the keyboard connected. The DAW sees it. Now make something that sounds like music, not a keyboard demo.

Start with a piano sound. Not a synth, not a pad — a plain piano. Pianos have a fast attack and a clear decay, which makes it obvious when your MIDI routing is working and when latency is creeping in. In GarageBand, that’s the “Grand Piano” instrument. In Ableton, it’s “Grand Piano” under Instruments. In FL Studio, it’s “FL Keys.”

Record four bars of a simple chord progression. C major, A minor, F major, G major. One chord per bar. Don’t worry about timing — you can quantize later. The point is to confirm that notes are being recorded and played back correctly.

Then switch to a drum kit. Most beginner keyboards have drum pads. Tap out a basic kick-snare pattern. If the pads trigger the wrong drums, check the pad mapping — many controllers let you reassign pad notes in the included software editor. On the Launchkey, that’s Novation Components. On the MPK Mini Plus, it’s Akai MPC Beats.

The goal of this first session is not a finished song. It’s to verify every link in the chain works. Once you’ve recorded MIDI, played it back, and edited a note or two, you’re past the setup phase. Everything after this is just learning the software.

What Nobody Tells You About MIDI Controllers

A sleek, modern office setup with a gaming PC, curved monitor, and accessories, ideal for tech enthusiasts.

Your keyboard will not make you a better musician. It won’t write melodies for you. It won’t fix a weak chord progression. What it does is remove friction between an idea and a recording. That’s the whole value proposition.

If you’re a guitarist who wants to add synth parts to demos, a 25-key controller is enough. If you’re a pianist who wants to record full arrangements, get at least 49 keys. If you’re a beatmaker, the pads matter more than the keys — the Akai MPD218 ($119) has no keyboard at all, just 16 pads, and it’s better for drum programming than any keyboard controller at double the price.

One more thing: MIDI keyboards don’t make sound without a computer. If you want standalone sounds without a laptop, you’re looking for a synthesizer, not a controller. The Korg Volca Keys ($169) or Arturia MicroFreak ($349) are actual synthesizers with built-in sounds. Different product category entirely.

You bought the keyboard because you wanted to make music. The setup takes twenty minutes. The learning curve after that is the real work — and no amount of gear shopping will skip it.

Music Journaling Prompts: Journaling for Music Fans: 7 Prompts That Fix a Scattered Brain
18
Aug

People abandon journals because they treat them like confession booths. They sit down, write “Dear Diary, today was fine,” and quit by Thursday. Music fans have an unfair advantage here. You already spend hours analyzing lyrics, comparing album versions, and arguing about production choices. That instinct is the raw material for a journaling habit that doesn’t feel like homework.

This guide gives you seven prompts built around music. No empty self-reflection. No pressure to be profound. Just structured ways to turn your listening history into a record you’ll actually want to reread.

1. The One-Song Time Machine

Pick a song you haven’t heard in at least two years. Play it once. Then write for ten minutes without stopping. Don’t describe the song. Describe where you were when it mattered. The apartment with the broken radiator. The car with the sticky gearshift. Who you were driving to see.

This prompt works because songs carry spatial memory better than almost any other trigger. Neurologists call it the reminiscence bump—music from your teens and twenties gets encoded with unusually rich contextual detail. You’re not writing about the song. You’re excavating a room you forgot you lived in.

Use a physical notebook for this one. The Leuchtturm1917 A5 dotted ($22) holds up better than a Moleskine when you’re writing fast and pressing hard. If you need structure, set a timer on your phone. Ten minutes. No editing. No crossing out.

What to write when the song doesn’t trigger anything

Write about the silence. Write about why the song feels flat now. Write about the person who recommended it to you and whether you still talk. The prompt is a door, not a destination.

2. The Album as a Mood Thermometer

A woman writes in a notebook on a table with an open book and pen.

Before you start your day, write down one album that matches your current mood. Not your aspirational mood. Your actual mood. Then write one sentence explaining the match.

Example: “The National’s Trouble Will Find Me — because I’m moving slow and everything feels slightly out of focus.”

That’s it. Two lines. Do it for 30 days and you’ll have a mood log that’s more honest than any emoji tracker. You’ll also notice patterns you’d never catch otherwise. You reach for Phoebe Bridgers on Tuesdays. You reach for Run the Jewels when you haven’t slept. The data accumulates without you trying.

This is the easiest prompt to maintain because it takes under a minute. Put the notebook next to your coffee maker. Pair it with a habit you already have.

3. Rewrite a Lyric You Disagree With

Find a lyric that bothers you. Not a bad lyric—a lyric you disagree with philosophically. Maybe it’s a love song that romanticizes control. Maybe it’s a breakup song that lets the narrator off too easy. Maybe it’s a political line that aged poorly.

Rewrite it. Keep the rhythm and syllable count. Change the meaning.

This prompt forces you to engage with songs as arguments, not just vibes. You’ll learn more about your own values by editing someone else’s words than by writing your own from scratch. It also produces genuinely surprising results. Sometimes the rewritten version reveals that the original lyric was more nuanced than you thought. Sometimes it confirms the song was always shallow.

Music criticism is a form of journaling. When you write about why a lyric fails, you’re writing about what you believe should be true instead.

4. The Listening Log (With a Twist)

A couple enjoying music together, playing guitar and singing indoors. Intimate and relaxed atmosphere.

Date	Album	Where I Listened	One Word Reaction	Would I Return?
Mon	Joni Mitchell — Hejira	Bus, window seat	Restless	Yes, but only alone
Tue	Floating Points — Promises	Kitchen, cooking	Spacious	Yes, for late nights
Wed	Charli XCX — BRAT	Gym, treadmill	Bratty	Yes, but only loud
Thu	Alice Coltrane — Journey in Satchidananda	Bedroom, 1am	Hollow	Yes, but only in winter

Most listening logs fail because they ask for too much: rating, genre, standout tracks, production notes. You stop filling them in because each entry takes five minutes.

This version asks for five fields. The “Where I Listened” column is the important one. Context changes how music lands. The same album sounds different on a bus than in a bedroom at 1am. Tracking location alongside reaction reveals that you don’t just have taste—you have situational taste. Some albums only work in specific rooms, specific weather, specific hours.

Keep this log in a spreadsheet if you want to sort by mood later. Keep it in a notebook if you want the physical act of writing to slow you down. Both work. The spreadsheet is better for spotting patterns. The notebook is better for staying consistent.

5. The Setlist You’d Build for a Stranger

Here’s the prompt: You’re making a 10-song playlist for someone you’ve never met. You only know one thing about them—their age. Build the setlist. Then write one paragraph defending every choice.

This forces you to think about music as communication, not just preference. What do you assume a 24-year-old needs to hear? What do you assume a 60-year-old already knows? The assumptions you make reveal more about you than about them.

Do this once a month. Change the age. Change the stranger’s circumstances. Build a setlist for someone going through a divorce. Build one for someone who just moved to a new city. Build one for someone who says they “don’t really listen to music.”

The defense paragraph is where the journaling happens. It’s easy to pick songs. It’s harder to explain why those songs matter in that order for that person. That explanation is a values statement disguised as a playlist.

6. The Concert You’ll Never Attend

A young girl lies on the floor writing in a notebook, with a cello in the background, creating a cozy indoor setting.

Write a review of a show that never happened. Pick any artist, living or dead. Any venue. Any era. Describe the setlist, the crowd, the moment everything went wrong, the moment everything came together.

This prompt is pure creative writing, but it’s grounded in your actual knowledge of how live music works. You know what a bad opener feels like. You know what it feels like when the headliner plays the deep cut instead of the hit. You know the difference between a crowd that’s listening and a crowd that’s waiting.

Writing a fake review sharpens your real criticism. You start noticing what you value in live performance because you have to invent it from scratch. You also produce some genuinely fun prose. The best fake reviews read like love letters to the idea of live music itself.

This is the prompt to use when you’re stuck. It removes the pressure to be honest and replaces it with the freedom to be specific.

7. The “Why Do I Keep Skipping This?” Audit

Open your streaming app. Look at your most-played songs from the last month. Then look at the albums you’ve saved but never started. Pick one of those unplayed albums and write about why you keep avoiding it.

Sometimes the answer is boring: the album is 74 minutes long and you never have 74 minutes. Sometimes the answer is uncomfortable: the artist reminds you of someone, the genre makes you feel old, the hype makes you resentful.

This prompt is a failure mode audit. It asks what your avoidance patterns say about your relationship with music. Do you only listen to new releases when someone else curates them for you? Do you save albums as a way of performing taste without actually engaging? Do you avoid anything that requires attention, reaching instead for the same 40 songs on repeat?

There’s no wrong answer. But there is a pattern. And naming the pattern is the first step toward breaking it—or accepting it. Some people are singles listeners. Some people are album listeners. Neither is morally superior. But knowing which one you are stops you from feeling guilty about the wrong thing.

What you need: notebooks, timers, and the will to write badly

You don’t need a $40 guided journal. You don’t need a fountain pen. You need a notebook you’re not afraid to ruin and a timer you’ll actually use.

For most people, the Leuchtturm1917 A5 dotted ($22) is the best balance of paper quality and price. The pages handle gel pens and rollerballs without bleeding. The dotted grid gives you structure without lines. If you want something cheaper, the Muji B5 notebook ($8) is unbeatable for the price. The paper is thinner but perfectly usable for daily writing.

Skip the Moleskine Classic ($25). The paper quality has dropped over the years, and gel pens ghost through badly. You’ll get annoyed and quit.

For timers, use your phone. The default Clock app works fine. If you want a physical timer to avoid phone distraction, the Time Timer MOD ($35) is the standard recommendation, but honestly, a $10 kitchen timer from Target does the same job.

The only real requirement is that you write badly without stopping. The prompts above are designed to be interesting enough that you don’t need to be brilliant. You just need to show up.

Comparison: Which prompt fits your goal?

Prompt	Best for	Time Required	Difficulty
One-Song Time Machine	Memory work, emotional excavation	15 min	Medium
Album as Mood Thermometer	Daily consistency, pattern tracking	1 min	Easy
Rewrite a Lyric	Values clarification, critical thinking	20 min	Hard
Listening Log	Data collection, situational awareness	3 min	Easy
Setlist for a Stranger	Communication, empathy practice	25 min	Medium
Concert You’ll Never Attend	Creative writing, critical sharpening	30 min	Hard
Skip Audit	Self-analysis, habit diagnosis	10 min	Medium

Start with the Mood Thermometer for two weeks. It’s the easiest to maintain and builds the daily habit. Then add the One-Song Time Machine once a week. Then add the Skip Audit once a month. You don’t need all seven prompts in rotation. You need two or three that you’ll actually do.

How Film Scores Turn Quiet Scenes Into Memory
27
Jul

How Film Scores Turn Quiet Scenes Into Memory looks at how music and entertainment become more rewarding when you listen for detail instead of just chasing the newest release.

For film scores, the useful question is not whether something is fashionable this week, but whether it holds attention after the first impression.

The best notes often come from pacing, texture, arrangement, and the way a performance changes a room. Those details help a playlist, album, or scene stay memorable.

A restrained theme can do more than a loud cue.
Silence before the score often makes the emotional turn land harder.
The best scores give a scene a memory even after the dialogue fades.

Use this as a starting point, then return to the track, record, or score in a different setting. Good music usually gives back more when the second listen is slower.

Electronic Albums That Sound Better After Midnight
20
Jul

Electronic Albums That Sound Better After Midnight looks at how music and entertainment become more rewarding when you listen for detail instead of just chasing the newest release.

For late-night electronic albums, the useful question is not whether something is fashionable this week, but whether it holds attention after the first impression.

The best notes often come from pacing, texture, arrangement, and the way a performance changes a room. Those details help a playlist, album, or scene stay memorable.

Look for albums with patient builds rather than constant drops.
Headphones reveal small details that speakers can blur.
A good late-night record should feel immersive without becoming background noise.

Use this as a starting point, then return to the track, record, or score in a different setting. Good music usually gives back more when the second listen is slower.

The Anatomy of a Great Summer Festival Set
14
Jul

The Anatomy of a Great Summer Festival Set looks at how music and entertainment become more rewarding when you listen for detail instead of just chasing the newest release.

For festival pacing, the useful question is not whether something is fashionable this week, but whether it holds attention after the first impression.

The best notes often come from pacing, texture, arrangement, and the way a performance changes a room. Those details help a playlist, album, or scene stay memorable.

Open with something familiar, but not the biggest song.
Use one cover or deep cut to reset attention.
End with a run of songs that rewards casual listeners and loyal fans.

Use this as a starting point, then return to the track, record, or score in a different setting. Good music usually gives back more when the second listen is slower.

Why Tiny Jazz Clubs Still Shape Big Listening Habits
9
Jul

Why Tiny Jazz Clubs Still Shape Big Listening Habits looks at how music and entertainment become more rewarding when you listen for detail instead of just chasing the newest release.

For small jazz rooms, the useful question is not whether something is fashionable this week, but whether it holds attention after the first impression.

The best notes often come from pacing, texture, arrangement, and the way a performance changes a room. Those details help a playlist, album, or scene stay memorable.

Listen for the room as much as the solo.
Notice how the rhythm section reacts when the audience is close.
Choose recordings that keep some live texture instead of polishing everything flat.

Use this as a starting point, then return to the track, record, or score in a different setting. Good music usually gives back more when the second listen is slower.

Five New Indie Tracks Worth Adding to Your July Playlist
4
Jul

Five New Indie Tracks Worth Adding to Your July Playlist looks at how music and entertainment become more rewarding when you listen for detail instead of just chasing the newest release.

For indie playlist, the useful question is not whether something is fashionable this week, but whether it holds attention after the first impression.

The best notes often come from pacing, texture, arrangement, and the way a performance changes a room. Those details help a playlist, album, or scene stay memorable.

Start with songs that reveal a clear hook in the first minute.
Keep one slower track in the middle so the list can breathe.
Save the brightest chorus for the final third of the playlist.

Use this as a starting point, then return to the track, record, or score in a different setting. Good music usually gives back more when the second listen is slower.

Nubya Garcia live at Gorilla review – a gripping jazz odyssey
27
Jun

On her first UK tour since the release of her critically-acclaimed debut album, Nubya Garcia’s complex jazz creations were finally given time and space to be explored in their full glory, aided by a stunning trio of supporting musicians that might have even outshined Garcia herself.

It’s been a while coming, but as my friend Emma and I rocked up at Gorilla on a non-descript weekday night in Manchester, my concert-going muscle memory started to kick in. For obvious reasons, my gigging habit had previously stopped almost as soon as it began. I started by catching Parcels at Brudenell Social Club in 2018 (I was luckier than I realised; 3 years later and they’re one of my favourite bands of all), and managed to fit in American rock duo of mom jeans. and Prince Daddy & the Hyena before the world ended. Now with another half-dozen under my belt – including a scream-along special with Declan McKenna in Newcastle and an incredible, enthralling night with dodie in Manchester – I’m starting to feel like a bit of an old pro. At Gorilla it didn’t take long for me to suss out the bar and the messy hubub of thirsty people that it attracted in an undefined queue, and the staff were relatively efficient in supplying my usual pint of Coke and some disposable earplugs (much unlike my nightmarish experience at nearby Victoria Warehouse a few months ago). Then was the uncomfortable task of finding a satisfactory spot to stand in the crowd. For this, Emma proved to be an expert, and effortlessly weaved her way through the bodies, miraculously reaching a spacious spot an arm’s reach from the stage edge. There’s nothing quite like getting a spot so close to the stage you can practically worship the feet of the musician in front of you, especially when the musician in question is enigmatic jazz keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones.

As a keyboardist myself, Joe inevitably got much of my attention for the night, but a more obvious performer to venerate was the woman on the ticket: Nubya Garcia, one of the headline artists amongst the much talked-about vanguard of contemporary British jazz. With a Medusa-like splay of dreadlocks and a wide stance, she was an admirably powerful figure on centre stage, wielding a tenor saxophone – alto’s musclier, more serious big brother. Ever since her debut EP Nubya’s 5ive was released in 2017, it seems like the general excitement around her ability to inspire a generation of new, young jazz fans has only grown and grown. Even the supporting players in that EP – Moses Boyd and Femi Coleoso on drums, Theon Cross on tuba – have also become major players in the new genre, bringing their own extensive range of bands and solo projects. Start researching and it’s easy to get lost in the proliferation of new, British (but, let’s be honest, mostly London) jazz, and as a young jazz player myself, it’s thrilling to watch. On walking into Gorilla, however, we were reminded that for all the growing momentum of UK jazz, it’s still far from the mainstream. Gorilla can only handle up to 700 jazzheads and the flickering LEDs behind the band hardly screamed high-budget. UK jazz is still jazz after all, with all its challenging harmony and abstract improvisation, and Garcia’s particular brand is hardly aimed at converting Ed Sheeran fans. Instead, her music digs into long and often noisy solos powered by splashy, busy drumming and colorful injections of dissonant harmony. Heads often only have slightly less improvisation than the solos themselves and hooks, while undoubtedly present, are hardly abundant.

With an audience of fans that get it (unlike Garcia’s recent televised performances at the BBC Proms or with Jools Holland), Garcia rightly had no hesitation in fully exploring every tune with epic solos and fluid song structure. Absorbing opener Source was a perfect example: the 12-minute studio version may be a bit much for some, but on the night it became a 20-minute jazz odyssey. Thankfully, it was difficult to get tired of the sticky, heavy dub reggae groove it its centre, underlined by a Daniel Casimir’s bubbly basslines and Tom Jones’ snappy sidestick. All four performers had plenty of time to make their introductions. Armon-Jones’ solo was captivating, segueing from a brief section of precise samba to a dense cacophony of glissandos and cluster chords. Daniel Casimir’s double bass solo was both the most succinct and successful solo of the bunch, adding more character and groove into his plucking than I thought was possible. A final, stupendous riff was greeted by a stunned applause, with Garcia noticeably reluctant to take back the lead.

As you can imagine, time went quickly and the band only had time to fit in a streamlined selection of six songs to play for the whole night. Garcia delivered some light-hearted and fun chat in between each tune. She had a tendency to get lost on a tangent about the origin of a song or the experience of playing her first tour post-lockdown, but even so it was lovely to see the obvious joy that performing her music to a crowd brings. “I’m in a good place right now,” she earnestly told the crowd at one point, to which we all cheered. If Queen Nubya was happy, then so were we.

The Message Continues followed a thought-provoking chat about Garcia passing on the ‘message’ of her heritage, which she encouraged us all to do too. The sparkling groove – one of Garcia’s most immediate and memorable – nods to her Guyanese and Trinidadian roots with a cumbia-informed bass riff and lightly shuffling drum work. Afterwards, Pace delivered a whole different world for the musicians to play in: a frenzied and overwhelming solo section was intended to mimic the stresses of constant touring and socialising with no rest. The eventual mayhem was made all the more impactful by what preceded it – a total bass solo from Casimir, for which the others left the stage completely. He was more than worthy of owning the stage for a few breathless minutes, each melody more beautifully adventurous than the last. I don’t think any of us wanted it to stop.

Another moment of surprising solace came with Stand With Each Other, a sparse combination of solo saxophone and tasteful afrobeat drumming. Here, Garcia’s outstanding tone was on full display; breathy, soulful and immaculately controlled. The saxophone really did seem to morph into a fifth limb – no longer merely an instrument, but a second voice through which to speak volumes more than words ever could. There was a spine-tingling sense of awe in the room as Garcia effortlessly faded out a long final note into silence.

Daniel Casimir’s solo at the start of Pace was one of the highlights

For all Garcia’s technical brilliance, it would be going too far to say her performance was flawless. Even Emma – an even stronger supporter of UK jazz than I am – admitted that her solos could get formulaic. Gradually building chromatically to ever higher, ever louder long notes seemed to be Garcia’s go-to game plan and, unlike Armon-Jones or Jones, there were few times we were wowed by her technical dexterity, even if her tone and command of her instrument is immense. A brief sortie into the squeaky and impressive-sounding altissimo range of her instrument during Pace was only partially successful, and certainly the more foghorn-like lower end of her tenor range had more impact during the big moments.

That said, Garcia doesn’t have to be John Coltrane to be an exciting artist, and seeing her and her friends create art in front of our eyes was a thrill unlike any of the over-rehearsed rock and pop concerts I’ve attended recently. As with most jazz performances, Garcia and her band of outstanding musicians were intent on creating something unique and impossible to replicate. Even Garcia’s chats were free-flowing and improvised, and the atmosphere in the room benefitted as a result. The venues and audience may remain relatively small thanks to the inaccessibility of her boundary-pushing style to the average listener, but Garcia deserves praise to sticking to what she loves. In an industry of Tiktok-pandering overnight millionaires and the same old chart-storming pop idols, a night at Gorilla was a pleasant reminder that this corner of fast-moving jazz well outside the mainstream isn’t going anywhere.

Oscar Jerome live at Belgrave Music Hall review – a night of laughs, grooves and missed potential
20
Jun

In a belated end to his UK tour, Oscar Jerome had enough strong material and bewildering virtuosity to compete with the very best of his UK jazz peers. It’s unfortunate he was let down by a patchy setlist, limiting instrumentation and questionable sound design.

For a moment I questioned whether I’d ever actually see Oscar Jerome in Leeds as we suddenly found ourselves at the front of a lengthy queue outside Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen. It wasn’t the first time; this gig in particular has been toyed with by the pandemic. It was postponed twice from its now quaintly ambitious original date in October 2020 and a third attempt a year later tragically coincided with a city-wide venue boycott amidst a completely seperate, equally uncontrollable epidemic of syringe spikings in nightclubs across the country.

It was only once we had been let in to the chic yet understated Belgrave Music Hall that reality set in for me and my friends Emma and Fionn. Despite arriving at a leisurely 8pm, we really had benefitted from a quirk in the queuing system, and sauntered up to a gloriously quiet and queueless bar like royalty before taking our pick of standing spot in front of the stage (in the middle, right at the front, of course). At one point Oscar himself even walked across the near-empty audience space (just a few feet away from us!), prompting palpatations. Shadowy in a trench coat and with his two emmaculate mirrored locks of hair, we had to check with each other our anticipation for the gig hadn’t led to hallucination. No, Emma’s astonished face confirmed, it hadn’t.

To add to our pleasant surprise, it wasn’t particularly long before the man himself was just a few metres in front of us, with his trench coat now cast aside to reveal a playful striped t-shirt behind a chunky Ibanez guitar. I’ve spent good chunk of the 18-month build up to the gig daydreaming about just how good inevitable opener Sun For Someone would sound and feel live. That purring bassline paired with Ayo Salawu’s nimble jazz-funk drumming could surely be nothing but electrifying in the flesh. Indeed it was, especially after meditative solo guitar musings of Searching for Aliens, which worked well as a calm before the blissful storm that followed.

In truth, I felt some niggling disappointment as Sun For Someone segued into the decidedly less exciting Coy Moon. The levels were all off. The kick drum and that bass line – however competently played by Tom Dreissler – swallowed up both Jerome’s guitar and vocals, leaving the melody often noticeably warped and the need for a bit of wishful thinking in order to hear one of Jerome’s finest tracks in its full glory. Whilst it was a recurring frustration on the night, on balance I think the main cause of the issues was in a lack of gigging experience from me, Emma and Fionn. In our front-of-the-queue giddiness we had inadvertently selected sonically the worst spot in the house, resulting in a face full of kick drum whilst Jerome’s dulcet tones were directed into the space behind us by speakers beside the stage. We might have been close enough to examine the glossy sheen on Jerome’s faintly dyed hair or assess whether he needs to trim his nose hairs (he doesn’t), but in return the sound would never quite feel professional quality throughout the night.

Somewhat consolingly, it wasn’t just us. I overheard talk about the haphazard levels immediately after the gig had finished, and even in the middle of the set there was evidence that there was issues for the performers too. Jerome requested his mic to be turned up during and after Sun For Someone; Dreissler needed time to fiddle with his bass between songs later on and a misbehaving kick drum mic was a repeated concern for both Jerome and Salawu, at one point completely taking the limelight from a blistering Richie Smart conga solo. Whilst I’ve learnt my lesson that the front row isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I’m sure there’s more the sound engineers could have done to make it a less significant drawback on the night.

If the jazz fans around me were annoyed by the sound issues, they didn’t show it. The mood in the room was one of celebration, with Jerome humble enough to engage with every slightly over-eager heckler. There was the obligatory marriage proposals (“I will if you can get me an EU passport,” Oscar offered) and an accepted request for happy birthday from a very possibly intoxicated fan. One man even managed to buy Oscar a pint and hand it up to him between songs. The resulting chant of “chug! chug! chug!” crossed a line. “I don’t do shit like that anymore,” Oscar laughed before taking a grateful sip.

Just as it had done for Declan McKenna, Orla Gartland and Nubya Garcia, the pandemic has created an unusually big gap between the release of Jerome’s strong debut album Breathe Deep and a subsequent tour. As a result, Jerome caved into temptation to devote a good deal of the gig to unreleased songs from the upcoming follow-up album. It’s a risky, and in my opinion a little impatient, decision to take, and the four new songs aired on the night proved to be a mixed bag. Groovy and hooky Berlin 1 was the pick of the bunch, but Feet Down South also provided a great opportunity for an arresting bass solo from Dreissler. Sweet Isolation, on the other hand, was the flattest moment of the whole evening: a drab, meandering track that did little to inspire movement from the audience beyond a polite nod of the head. Devoting so much time to new songs also meant less time for tried-and-true hits. Give Back What U Stole From Me and Fkn Happy Days ‘N’ That – both highlights from Breathe Deep – were the two most obvious set list casualties.

As the sound levels improved, the highlights came with the songs that relied most on Jerome’s guitar virtuosity. Joy is You, a heartwarming ode to his newborn nephew, saw Jerome have the stage all to himself yet still provide ample soul and colour with some dextrous plucking. “As the past slips through the window / The joy is you” he sang with a smile, revealing some tender vulnerability that was well recieved by the crowd. By contrast, sophisticated and dynamic Gravitate was powered by Salawu’s brilliant, stumbling drum groove, but still saw Jerome improvising at his scintillating best amidst sumptuous melodic bass playing from Dreissler. An extended guitar solo was the only opportunity Jerome had to display his full jazz solo prowess, developing a seed of an idea into an all-consumming spectacle before kicking into one last chorus.

Jerome’s lack of saxophonist was not as fatal as Orla Gartland’s lack of keyboardist a few months ago, but certain songs did lose a good deal of their original detail as a result. 2 Sides and fan favourite Do You Really sounded simply incomplete without the great hooks that had been offered by saxophone and backing vocals on the originals. The three of us certainly tried our best to fill in the melodic gaps with our own voices on the latter, but there was only so much we could do. That said, sax or no sax, Do You Really remains a career highlight for Jerome, and a strong chorus was rapturously recieved by the crowd, prompting demands for an encore, with which the band happily obliged.

There was mock horror just before the start of the gig when we spied on the setlist taped to the stage floor that underwhelming recent single No Need was scheduled to be the final song of the night. We were in for shock: No Need was easily one of the best tracks of the night, taking us from rapid swing to hypnotic funk and back again and at last turning Belgrave Music Hall into a proper dancefloor. Salawu’s tastefully played real drums and Jerome’s rhythmic guitar made perfect replacements for the studio version’s drum machine and wishy-washy keys, and the transition from jazz to dance was executed with a thrill lost on the original song. To my huge relief, Jerome assured us that the concert was being recorded; I’m already desperate for a second listen.

As he bid farewell with No Need‘s slap bass and pounding kick drum, I was reminded that Jerome, for all his outstanding musical ability, is still in the early stages of a very promising career. With little more than an album’s worth of material at his disposal, conjuring up a five-star set was always an uphill battle, and dealing with less experienced sound engineers at the smaller venues may just be par for the course. Even so, after having had a brief chat with him after the gig, the post-gig high was very sweet indeed. The three of us practically skipped through central Leeds and back to the car, jubilantly singing Do You Really with a tote bag full of signed vinyls swinging from my shoulder. At last, there was no gig left to postpone, no songs left to wishfully daydream. The long wait had been worth it.