Just last month George Gretton announced he’ll be giving us a new ep in August titled “Ordinary Life” while also sharing its first offering ‘Morning’ which featured some guest vocal work form US rap artist theMIND.
George is returning to us this week the ep’s second lead-single, ‘Down To Earth’ which features London newcomer Luna Pines adding a lush vocal backdrop to George’s own incredible sublime melodies, and the result truly is quite heavenly.
As George reveals below, ‘Down To Earth’ is a song about feeling detached from the world and longing for some sort of normality to return.
“Down To Earth’ is about feeling distanced from the world. I wrote it during the second UK lockdown, after it had lost its novelty, and everyone was feeling a little stuck and helpless. I
remember spending a lot of time hoping that ordinary life would return but worrying about my place in it after everything had frozen.
My friend from work had given me some Kora samples as a Christmas present which I thought was really cool, and after chopping them all up and making them sound a bit weirder, the basis for the song was made. That was back in January 2020, but I couldn’t finish the rest of the song for a while afterwards. I was sending some tracks back and forth with Luna Pines when we were still in lockdown and thought they could make this one really interesting.
Lotte from Luna Pines does a really cool Imogen Heap-style vocoder on a lot of their songs, which is right up my street. She came back with all these amazing vocal layers, synths and textures which were exactly what was missing. My favourite part of the song is where she belts out “when I disappear” just before her voice disappears into the last chorus. Clever!
I like ‘Down To Earth’ because the way we made it was typical of collaborating during covid – completely virtual – but it’s all about wanting the ordinary day-to-day back but being apprehensive of where we’ll find ourselves. Lotte from Luna Pines and I are now in-person flatmates, so I guess there is a bit of a full-circle element to it!” – George Gretton
And Lotte from Luna Pines adds; “I remember hearing the original demo when we were in lockdown and I just fell in love with it. I asked George if I could have a mess around with the stems and maybe see where it goes.
I remember I just hit record and the vocals happened in one take, and then I added a couple synth bits on my Minilogue.
It was just one of those songs that was really effortless because the foundation was so strong, definitely one of my favourite collaborations between the many that George and I make together.”
‘Down To Earth’ will be available everywhere tomorrow via Mammal Sounds Records but you can give it an early listen right here right now.
out now via: Mammal Sounds Records
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