Roni Shewan 'Helen'

The title track for Roni Shewan's debut is Helen . . Helen has the distinction of being the very first song Roni and I worked on her for her solo project! It's also the most ambitious track we've done yet, mixing electric piano and organ sounds and pizzicato strings with heavily layered vocals and Japanese and Indonesian percussion!


While the basic sound of the song was conceived and produced fairly quickly, there were several iterations of the mix before it started to really come together. The main challenge was in the rhythm section and the co-existence of the massive sounding Taiko drums with the ever-suffering bass-line . . I also wanted a nice, tight and clean sound suitable for the quirky alternative pop sensibilities of the song!

Production on this piece ceased completely for a few months while I was on tour extensively with A State of Flux and Sleep Parade. This served to be a blessing in disguise as upon returning to mix the song with fresh ears/perceptions I was able to instantly identify and remedy problems in the mix and arrangement.

The mix really started to come together after I had transposed the main bass-line up an octave and sucked all the sustain out of the Taikos!! Only then was there room for Roni's fantastic vocals and keyboards and the odd pizzicato violin! The instruments still bleed over each other in a pleasing way (Joe Baressi influence maybe?) but not nearly to the extent that they did in the original mixes . .

Here's a bit of info on some of the weird-ass percussion instruments we used for this song:

Taikos have perhaps the most internationally notorious reputation of any of the drums in the Japanese percussion family. In early Japanese history, Taikos were often used as time-keepers to help motivate marching troops in battle. Taikos are most commonly constructed from large wooden barrels with some sort of animal skins stretched over both openings of the barrel.

The Lion Drums appear similar to and are constructed in the same fashion as Taikos but are much smaller. The particular ones used in this piece were hand made in the United States by a custom drum maker.

The Kendong is generally used as a lead instrument in Gamelan ensembles. This Indonesian drum is constructed of a conical-shaped wooden shell with goatskin stretched across each side. It is played with two hands, or one hand and one stick.

Written by Roni Shewan
Performed by Roni Shewan, Red Black and Mijo Biscan

Produced by Red Black
Engineered, programmed and mixed by Red Black @ Red Lodge [Melbourne, Australia]
Mastered by Joseph Carra @ Crystal Mastering [Melbourne, Australia]