This year has been unprecedented, let’s face it. Tough for all, especially we creatives. With the world in lockdown, bars and clubs as well as DJ-ing, touring and live performances were cancelled. Not only did this choke people’s livelihoods, but you could say it brought about a cultural shift. Maybe even cultural damage?

The change in conditions resulted in a change to our craft. For us especially, collaboration projects were particularly affected. We’ve relied heavily on technology to facilitate our growth at Hexmark Records during this crazy time, like so many others. Firstly, setting up Assonance and Vinnie Mac for Finger Drum a tribal liquid funk roller, followed by Assonance and Eastern Bloc’s finest Jim Bane for Higher Stakes a jazzy dance floor track.

Finger Drum

Finger Drum, was initially composed using synthesised guitar riffs, subsequently replaced by the uber-talented Vinnie Mac. Having been provided with sheet music, Mac let rip on his Fender Strat. Next, with the bones of the track he was able to embed a lead line of epic proportions over the top. Transferring stems over the wire, with placement, until the track took shape. On release, it was well received, amassing over 200,000 plays on Spotify landing it a place on the Born in The USA playlist. A surprise to us, as it was produced by two British artists.

Higher Stakes

Next, came Higher Stakes, reuniting old pals Assonance and Manchester’s Jim Bane. Conceptualised back in the days of Band on the Wall and early Warehouse projects, it suddenly felt like the time was right; – nostalgic even to revisit that jazzy, Alex Pérez and Calibre sound.

DM’s and chats enabled the ideas to be pinned down right up until the launch! Transporting mixes for detailed critiques, testing the masters on the sound system at the legendary Eastern Bloc Records to ensure comparative quality, was an essential sound check step.

Again we hope you’ll agree that Higher Stakes with its nod to Sun-Ra and J-Dilla is as fresh today as the concept was back in the day.

With a vaccine on the horizon, it gives us hope that the music scene can recover after the clamp down. We definitely feel that even though the music industry has been knocked down, the scene will never be silenced and what 2020 has shown us that adapting and responding is the only way musicians survive.

2021

Next year, will complete the first of, we hope, many future collabs with a menacing dark core track called ‘Stitch’ by Assonance and Jim Bane. Total darkness and original story telling at its best. Hit that notification so that you don’t miss it!

Wrapping up, to all those creatives struggling to make it work; keep trying. It can only get better.

Stay safe.