Make The Ting

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2023-10-17

Label: Make The Ting

Each vinyl has a custom cover, hand designed by Elijah

The note written on the back cover:

Make The Ting is a project born out of my writing on creativity that lives online as post it style notes known as the ‘Yellow Squares’. The first square was posted to Instagram on July 31st 2021, as covid-19 restrictions were lifting in the UK and I was thinking about what the music scenes and wider creative communities are after 18 months of lockdown. The writing developed into lectures presenting them in real life, which developed into using it to explore my own creativity more broadly to challenge my own ideas in real time. My history as a DJ, Label Owner and Promoter in the Grime scene wasn’t at the forefront of these ideas, but I wanted to reconnect back to the ecosystem that inspired and gave me a creative career in the first place. Blay Vision’s ‘Cammy Riddim’ in the summer of 2022 inspired me to translate the ideas in the squares into song form. I approached Grime MC Jammz to work on what then was just going to be a one off song, and ‘Yellow Square’ was done with the core principles that I had written about so far.

6 months passed, and while on a Muay Thai retreat in Thailand in February 2023 I thought about expanding the musical side of the Yellow Squares. I text Jammz about turning this into an album that we make as quickly as possible using my writing as a guide, and his voice and creativity to turn them into songs. We gave ourselves two weeks, set up shared notes in iPhone, did two zoom meetings, one phone call and exchanged messages on iMessage. He wrote 7 songs in a week to one of his own beats. We selected the final instrumentals we liked that we thought fit the ideas from both our camps the day before recording, and he voiced 7 songs in a day at Ten 87 Studios in Tottenham.

The speed forced our hands creatively and it would have been a completely different project if we worked on it longer. Time is the creative director. Album’s don’t have to be blockbuster projects with big budgets and huge campaigns behind them. Albums are just collections of ideas. Removing the pressure of trying to make a perfect one meant it got done and released with the least stress possible. Even the business of the album took 5 mins. An equal revenue split on each song between me, Jammz, and the producer. Everyone gets paid quarterly into their own account automatically by our distributor.

On announcement of the album in March 2023, we released the acapellas for people to do their own versions, before most of the original songs had been heard by anyone. We encouraged people to Remix The Ting, and I did custom artwork for everyone that sent me a complete remix before the album came out on the 30th June 2023.

The front covers are drawn individually by me. I wanted to make the record an extension of what I do with the yellow squares online, and capture the energy of where my head is at in 2023. If it’s blank, it’s space for you to draw your own yellow square. Maybe what you think about the album, what it’s inspired for you, or just a snapshot of where your creative brain is at on the day you are picking up this record.

This could be the first of many albums, this could be a one off. Nobody knows what is going to happen next.

It all may make sense in the end

Elijah - July 2023