Hey everyone! 

So my project is to release a new concept album. As the video mentioned, all of the music has been written, all the parts recorded, and three 'scenes' have even been mixed and mastered (check out the first scene 'Coda...' soundcloud.com/samueldobson/coda). But now I need some help mixing and mastering the remaining scenes, and getting it pressed.

Let me tell you a bit about the project...

The work is a concept album which follows the story of a character, Samuel, throughout the last day of his life. Each track is a scene where the listener witnesses events, both in the present and in Samuel's memory, and meets various people in his life. It's been described as somewhere between a Shakespearean tragedy, Breaking Bad and the Wu-Tang Clan.

Of the music, about half of the tracks I've written alongside my long time musical compadre Peter Farrar (AKA P Major). Peter and I have played, recorded and written music together in so many different formats over the years, and he is one of my biggest teachers, influences, and inspirations both in the worlds of jazz / improv and hip hop. It's an honour to have him on this album and I'm sure you'll agree when you hear his tracks, that he has stepped his game up so much for this project. His contributions are really so next level and I really wouldn't be here today making music if it weren't for Pete.

Check out Peter's mixtape P Major - Static On The Frequency

The other half of the album I have put together myself with help from a long list of very amazing musicians - recorded at the wonderful Richie Belkner's Free Energy Device Studio.

All live drums and percussion on these tracks were performed by Miles Thomas. But beyond that, he has also dedicated weeks to helping me edit all of the sessions (and they are massive, complicated sessions) into the final state they are in now. None of the music would have been possible without Miles' attention to detail on the drums, Pro-Tools chops, patience and friendship. A true gentleman.

This album also showcases my debut attempts at writing and arranging music for strings. Christopher Pidcock - cellist with Sydney Symphony Orchestra - has really gone above and beyond the call of duty in helping me realise this aspect of the project. Not only did he support the idea from the beginning and play on the recording himself, but he was responsible for recruiting the string section that came and played on the session - Alexander Norton - Violin, Catherine Bucknell - Violin, Carl Lee Viola and Benjamin Ward - contra bass. He was the primary organisational force behind the premiere of three pieces at his evening "Psycho Strings" with Georges Lentz - Violin, Emily Long- Violin and Amanda Verner - Viola. A master musician and a awesome friend.

Two vocalists also guest on the work, the first is Meklit Kibret. A child prodigy, born in Kenya to Ethiopian parents, raised in New Zealand and now bossing out full time in Sydney. We have been making music together for years now, and she was the first vocalist that I ever made a track with back in the days of Fat Kontrollerz and FK VOL 1 all those years back.  Feeling so blessed to have her on this project too. She was one of the first ever people to support my hip hop music and for that I'm forever thankful. If you haven't heard her yet, she has most recently been making a name for herself with the quirky future-soul outfit The Venusians. Another crew to keep an ear out for.

Check out The Venusians - Finding

 The second guest vocalist is South Australia's very own Kate Wadey. With a solid background both as a vocalist and an actor, she really brought her character to life so amazingly. Kate has been hands down the most supportive person in my life, both throughout this project, and every other time. She's had to put up with my mentalness, self centeredness, and also repeated listening to this album, and for that I'm more grateful than I can put into words. I'm very excited to share this new music we've made.


Harry Sutherland is also featured on this album. While it may only be on a couple of scenes, his appearances are really so exceptional. A prodigy of both the Jazz and $wagged out Synths, Harry played a vital part in bringing these compositions to life.



SAMUEL DOBSON
By Cyclone Wehner



Australian hip-hop has never been so bugged-out. A new wave of acts are rebelling against conventions. They're cutting music that is individualistic, innovative and hybridised. It's anything goes. Sydney's emergent Samuel Dobson – MC, singer, instrumentalist, composer and producer – is virtually a scene unto himself. You may know him as Shazza-T, the guy who both raps and plays double bass. Or you could recognise him as frontman of the Hi-Tops Brass Band. Or perhaps you've caught him singing with Triceratops, a cult alt-soul/R&B outfit. Samuel grew up in the Blue Mountains and, as a jazz prodigy, was taught that "hip-hop isn't music". "I was more into just 'weird' music – more experimental music and jazz," he recalls. "I listened to a little bit of hip-hop, but I certainly wasn't a hip-hopper."

Ironically, Samuel only embraced hip-hop while studying jazz at the prestigious Sydney Conservatorium of Music. His new open-minded college friends were hip-hop heads. Samuel felt liberated. "I thought, Oh, you mean I'm allowed to like this – this is something I can actually do?" Samuel met his longtime collaborator, Peter "P Major" Farrar – "a musical genius" who is a member of Loose Change and affiliated with Big Village Records – at one of The NOW now's experimental music events. Peter was "really heavily into hip-hop" and introduced Samuel to the underground Fan-Tas-Tic Vol 1 by Slum Village, J Dilla's original group. "I just got totally obsessive after that – and I started writing raps in my bedroom," Samuel says. "Peter was doing the same thing, but with beats – he was a sax player by day, but would go home and just experiment with making beats." The pair "hung out", laying down the Fat Kontrollerz mixtape FK Vol 1. Samuel became 'Shazza-T', a play on his nickname 'Shazzam'. He assembled his own live band, FatKid, to perform this repertoire. His street psychedelia Wires, from a self-titled solo mixtape, proved a hit on the triple j Unearthed portal. Along the way, Samuel spent time jamming in Mali, West Africa. "I heard the music and thought, Oh, well, that's the place I've gotta go!" He came home with an unusual memento: that 'T' part of his monicker – short for "toubabu", the Malian word for "white man".

Today Samuel performs with the Hi-Tops Brass Band, together with old pals from The Con. The acclaimed "Australian version" of a New Orleans hip-hop brass band just wowed audiences at WOMADelaide 2015. But Samuel remains forever artistically restless. Next he'll present a daring "concept album", A Short Story – over a year in the pipeline. "It's a story that follows
this character who I call 'Samuel'," he explains. "He's a meth dealer who lives in Sydney and it basically details the last 24 hours of his life before he kills himself." A Short Story is a gritty urban drama, or hip-hopera, with Samuel touting each song as a "scene" with distinct instrumentation – P Major produced some tunes, using samples and drum machines, but others were composed by Samuel himself for live instrumentalists (strings, brass and percussion). The cinematic undertaking covers jazz-hop, lavish retro soul, murky sub-bass, neo-Krautrock, and piano-layered rhymescapes evoking Béla Bartók, Alfred Hitchcock's composer Bernard Herrmann, and the Wu-Tang Clan. And Samuel goes beyond mere narration – he actually raps in character.

Samuel welcomes the edgy Australian hip-hop of REMI and Tkay Maidza – and a countermovement to what he playfully
refers to as "sing-along pub hip-hop music". "There's no rules," he enthuses. The Sydney polymath might be emphasising musicality in hip-hop, but he's not about to offer a reductive description of his output – mainly because it's too "tricky". "I think the only consistent thing that I do is change!," Samuel laughs. "I don't wanna say I don't care about what other people are doing or what other people think, but it doesn't really have a great deal of influence over what I do."

Mixing the remaining tracks = $6160.00
Mastering the remaining tracks = $840.00
Printing the albums = $1029.00
Total $8132