M J K - Lose You

Hear The Track Here

Like a great many internet based musicians, Florida's M J K has the kind of equipment that a great many of us would recognise instantly. Not because of the thousands of dollars brandnames this equipment sports, but because of it's simple reality. He uses, or so he boasts on his website, 'a 20 dollar Sony Mic, 5 year old pc,Sony Acid 6 and plenty of VSTi's!' and ain't that true of all of us. Of course it ain't what you got, it's what you do with it that counts, and that's where no amount of expensive anything is going to help. You can either do it or not. Sure, you learn to be a musician, and you can practise being a singer but being born with some talent definitely helps enormously. It was that talent that singled M J K out for me from the starting block.

I called (in my usual understated fashion) This Is Goodbye (November 2007) 'priceless' and I meant every letter of it. It's still getting very regular workouts in my house, as are several other of his works. The over-riding musical impression I got from that track was early Stevie Wonder (say around 1975 or so) and Lose You has an even stronger resemblence to something Mr Wonder would have written. Takes a brave soul to take on such hallowed ground though, and on that score M J K is going to succeed every time. As I have mentioned before, this guy has an amazing ear for vocal arrangements and hooks and Lose You is stuffed to the gills with them.

One of the massive boons to online musicians over the past few years has been the introduction and rapid spread of the VSTi (Virtual Studio Technology instruments) standard. Essentially putting the recording studio and all its gubbings into the hands of you and me. Lose You is a textbook example of the very best use of this technology. We all like vocoders don't we? Can't help but love something that does that. Unfortunately, most of us don't know when to stop, M J K knows exactly where to draw the line between ooooh gorgeous and arrrraagghh gorgon!!. Worth the download for the vocal treatments alone.

Masterclass material. Great song, great arrangement. Highly Recommended.