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Graduate Gallery

This gallery represents a selection of work from graduates of Point Blank London's BA programmes – Music Production and Sound Engineering and Music Production and DJ Practice.

Specifically, this is work from final year Production Portfolios, this is the final module on both programmes and students are given an opportunity to plan, research and implement a substantive project within their area of interest in music.

We had our largest ever graduate cohort in 2020/21 and most of the work in this gallery was completed by students during the Covid-19 pandemic. We’re extremely proud of the work produced by students during this difficult time and are delighted to share this.

We wish all our graduates all the best in their future careers and will stay in contact to support our latest alumni.

 

Ferrenzo - Down For You

Growing up at the end of the 90s into the early 2000s, I’ve always been in love with the pop culture and music. This song came to me when was listening Ja Rule – Down 4 You hence the name, I wanted to create a nostalgic song that still incorporates modern UK garage elements. This song really represents my sound of a ‘skengy’ bassline, skippy drums, catchy vocal chops and poppy topline.

liam Stoos - 'summer 18'

This song is part of a larger body of work containing 4 songs, each relating to one of the 4 seasons with a date attached. Each song title refers to a specific memory of mine during a specific season. This song is about my memory of summer 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa (where I’m originally from) with my close group of friends. I wanted the feeling of this song to be very summer-like, something you would listen to while driving to the beach. When I listen to this song I am immediately reminded of that period of my life and for that reason I feel like this song has achieved everything I set out to achieve and is a great success.

Ghost of a sun - 'Orage'

I combine epic orchestral and energetic electronic music music under the name “Ghost Of A Sun”. 

The track “Orage” is part of a 4 track orchestral / electronic Ep. The Ep deals with darkness, anxiety, light and comfort. It is a journey into the unknown, like taking a step into an uncertain future. I tried to express how anxiety, bright and dark emotions manifest themselves throughout a difficult journey.

“Orage" is the second track in the Ep. It means thunderstorm in French and it is the darkest track of the Ep. It plays with the feeling of loosing control and getting overwhelmed, leaving the listener almost uncertain and exhausted at the end. I challenged myself to mix the Ep entirely on an SSL Duality Delty Console.

JR Graham | 4 The Brotherhood - 'green light'

So I had this song on my laptop for a while and decided to finish it and incorporate it into my final portfolio assignment at PB. Taking influence from disco, boogie and 80’s synth pop I combined these elements with modern vocal production and songwriting techniques to create something fresh. I produced, wrote and sung everything by myself and will be releasing the song within the next month. Follow me at @4thebrotherhood on socials to see the journey.

alice miller - 'bound'

‘Bound’ is a travel journey for a listener who is stuck in lockdown and unable to travel due to the Covid19 pandemic. Through the lens of my person experiences I aimed to capture an essence of Australia, Kerela, Japan, London, New York and Shanghai. Choosing the genre of lo-fi chillhop I aimed to fuse jazz and hip-hop elements/instrumentation with lo-fi effects such as distortion, saturation, noise and warp. True to lo-fi and its kinship with ambient and experimental music the tracks intentionally boast some sense of imperfection and improvisation.

Artwork by: Alice Miller
Video gif created by: Sadie St. Hilaire / sadsthil.com / @sadsthil

tendayi mutongerwa - 'living in lockdown'

This film is an artistic, music orientated documentary, serving as an artistic time capsule for the global pandemic, Covid-19 Lockdown in 2020. It consists of home videos collected from around Europe, documenting people's experiences during this unsure time

pablo Besteiro | best - 'todo por ti'

This song is part of a 3 track EP that I composed with the objective of developing my songwriting and producing skills. I took heavy influence from Pop/RnB artists like The Weeknd and aimed for a similar aesthetic with the main difference of the songs being in Spanish. The style is heavily based around 80s synths like the Yamaha CS80 and lyrically all songs present a dark and toxic mood.

sakkthivel uma pachaiyappan - 'for dad'

Being someone who finds it difficult to communicate my feelings with loved ones, I tried to construct this EP as a timeless love-letter by reminiscing about some of my earliest memories with each of them, thanking them for all they've done for me and for letting them (and myself) know that the person I'm today is because of them. I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and do something I wouldn't usually do, with this EP. Being extremely personal and challenging for me, every single phase of development was uncomfortable but I grew as an artist with each step I took. I ended up creating a piece of work that will continue to increase in value as I get older and will eventually become priceless and a part of my legacy.

JOnathan Ilsley - 'I.T.'

Whilst producing this portfolio, I intended to take as much of the live element of music and fuse this with the electronic side of production to create a three track EP exploring the ideas of intelligent dance music (IDM). I wanted to move away from classic electronic sounds I was comfortable using and see if I could push myself to make something that I normally would not. This included recording live instrumentation, working with more orchestral sounds and sampling various items around my house to create something that is far more organic yet still written in the style of dance.

 

David Harrow - 'Live solo modular performance of Terry Riley's in C'

Over the decades that followed, the movement into the digital realm and the practical restraints of the life of a working musician for hire meant I moved away from these early experimental compositional practices into a more commercial production environment. There was little room for this experimentation in the studio when 10 tunes had to be finished by Tuesday.
This course and its sound design modules have allowed me to revisit this period of experimentation and from an academic standpoint to research deeply some of the early pioneers.
I chose Terry Riley's composition of inC as my subject matter and performance piece as this seemed a perfect foil to explore these early techniques and to combine them with a digital sensibility of 2020s endless electronic possibilities.   His score and instruction seemed to fit very well into Ableton Live’s clip-based composition approach.
With today's current isolation experience, the idea of recreating the piece originally for an ensemble, to be performed solo and simultaneously broadcast into the ether via wireless video devices seemed somehow appropriate comment on our restrictive state.
This echoes back to my early experiences of being told that electronic musicians were taking away jobs from ‘real’ ones. The irony of this prophecy coming true as now being the producer, engineer, programmer, performer, broadcaster and cameraman as well as researcher/writer/designer is not lost. The rise of the machines indeed.

lar3n - 'inertia'

The Inertia EP project consists of a 3 Track EP that takes the listener through a Dub Techno musical journey. Inertia EP has been written to go counterclockwise on the circle of fifths and uses a combination of sound design and field recordings from Friedrichshain, Berlin, to achieve a sense to time and space.

 

ghada Kojok | monostate -'secret doors'

I was trying to achieve a balance between chaos and stability, taking the listener on a journey through a storyline of ups and downs. I love contrast in music and this track represented that to me.

Alessio Di Corrado | talbot - 'operate'

The exposition of my specialist project has explored the development, methodology and techniques implemented, inspired by particular movement of Dada, with a narrow music reference to the industrial techno scene, taking into account important philosophers of the Beat Generation and pioneers of industrial music.

The main intent was to accomplish three music productions by the means of recording industrial sounds coming from my industrial building, so as to convey an even more abstract and pleasant sense.


In other words, the three pieces illustrate different aspects of U-Bahn (underground), Labour and subliminal visions, rhetorically figured by the machinery and its best forms of sensuality.

Its sound characteristics assume lo-fi aesthetics, paying an in-depth attention to a rather edgy, industrial and aggressive rhythm.

"it is only a matter of time before technology renders sex between humans obsolete"
- Thomas Thorn

 

marius hoffman - 'meandering thoughts'

For my final project at Point Blank Music School, I chose to produce an EP consisting of three songs as part of the BA program. Since I am interested in downtempo music with warm organic sounds, I wanted to emulate an analogue sound using software plugins from Waves and Arturia.
After getting inspired by researching the music and philosophy of synthesizer pioneers like Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis, I wrote the songs using Ableton Live 10 Suite. Then I created stems which were all saturated using a preamp, an analogue console and a tape emulation, and these were later mixed using Ableton.
I chose the piece 'Meandering Thoughts' for the showcase because it has a hypnotic lead sound and noise that benefits well from the saturation. Generally, I also like the song's mood that reminds me of the never-ending flow of thoughts like a meandering river. I hope you enjoy it.

Steve Gregory - No Time to die (Billie eilish Remix)

Music, Production, and Mix by Steve Gregory, London UK - http://www.stevegregorymusic.com