We are proud to present the second episode of WeTalkMusic, produced for WeTransfer by Mistral Productions. It was recorded at Form Festival in Arcosanti Arizona, where Julia Holter and Braids joined host Thris Tian to discuss the tracks they chose to answer some unexpected questions. The episode has been played over 90k times in a month!
Find out more about the episode over at WeTransfer's This Works site.
We're proud to have produced our first piece of work for the BBC this month. Gilles Peterson presents The History of Bristol's Musical Underground, a three hour radio documentary broadcasting on January 23rd of January 2016 on BBC Radio 6Music, and available on-demand for 30 days via the BBC Radio iPlayer.
BBC iPlayer - Gilles Peterson presents the history of bristol's musical underground
“Gilles Peterson heads down to Bristol for the day to explore the city’s musical heritage. His journey takes him all around the city, tracing the lineage from reggae and dub to late 70s post-punk, through the arrival of US hip hop and the development of trip hop in the 90s, onto jungle, drum and bass and the dubstep movement, through to the bass innovations of today.
Featuring interviews with the key players involved in cultivating these underground movements, Gilles investigates how Bristol birthed such generation-defining sounds, which ultimately crossed over into the mainstream, achieving phenomenal commercial and critical success. Having left an indelible mark on the sound of modern pop culture over recent years, Gilles also looks to today’s Bristol music scene which continues to innovate, remaining as vibrant as ever. Contributors include Jabulani of Black Roots, author of Original Rockers Richard King, Janine Rainforth of Maximum Joy, Mark Stewart of The Pop Group, DJ Krust, Mo Wax label boss James Lavelle, Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, Roni Size and Appleblim.”
Mistral Productions and Gilles Peterson went to Bristol in early January, interviewing many of the key figures who have shaped, documented and witnessed the city's musical development over the last 30 years.
During the broadcast, the show was trending on Twitter across Bristol. Post-broadcast, the show has been featured by many publications and websites including Fact Magazine, Jocks & Nerds, Red Bull Music Academy, DJ Mag, The Vinyl Factory, British Council Music and On U Sounds to name a few. The show was in the top 10 most-listened-to shows on iPlayer Radio, across all BBC networks.
A blog post by Gilles Peterson has now been published on The Guardian Online, touching on themes discussed on the show, with Huck Magazine also writing a piece based on the show, featuring an extended interview edit from Jabulani of Black Roots.
In October, Mistral Productions produced an interview between Gilles Peterson and Jamie Woon, ahead of the release of Jamie's sophomore album, 'Making Time' on Polydor Records.
The 10 minute video piece was shot at the legendary Konk Studios in North London, where Jamie recorded the album with engineer Lexxx, with the pair discussing various topics including what Jamie's been up to in the 4 years since his debut LP, and what the album writing process involved this time around.
The video was premiere'ed over on Mahogany blog, and features live performances of 3 live tracks, also filmed and recorded at Konk Studios.
It's been a lively few weeks working on the content production of The Worldwide Awards 2015!
The main event was on Saturday 17th January at Koko London, with a heavy-weight line up of live music and DJs, curated by our own Gilles Peterson. Spanning the genres and generations, artists on the night ranged from 90 year old Sun Ra band leader Marshall Allen performing with the Heliocentrics, right through to up-and-coming London rapper Little Simz, who picking up an award for Best Newcomer.
With a team made up of our in-house staff, complimented by a number of trusted freelancers who joined the team for the project, Mistral Productions oversaw all the content production for the event, from promotional material in the run-up, the running of the official social media activity during the event, through to post-event content.
The Awards were streamed live online (by Flipside Productions) for the 2nd year running with boutique trainer store Footpatrol and US music blog, Okayfuture, partnering on the stream, with a second broadcast running on Thursday 29th January.
With a public vote for two of the awards, we produced content in the run up to the event to raise awareness and engagement for both. With a brand partnership secured on the Footpatrol Track of the Year Award, we produced a radio show/podcast hosted by Gilles, which Footpatrol hosted on their Soundcloud account. The 80 minute show ran through the nominees and their tracks, as well as Gilles giving an overview of the Awards in general.
We achieved record levels of engagement on Footpatrol Track of the Year, surpassing all previous votes, with many of the artists, labels and fans also sharing our content. Even the winner, Flying Lotus, sent through an acceptance speech, which of course, Footpatrol were delighted with!
For the Worldwide Awards 2015 Album of the Year, we created a playlist of videos for each nominated album, with Gilles Peterson presenting his thoughts on all the artists who made it through to the public vote long list.
By creating multiple video clips within a playlist, the content could both be shared:
This lead to over 22,000 views across the Album of the Year playlist, with record voting and engagement on the Album of the Year public vote.
Post-event, we continued to promote the Awards with a highlights video and photography from the event, with help from Clouded Vision and Theo Cottle.
Any questions regarding audio or video production, music consultancy, or our event design and production work, get in touch!
In the last few weeks we've had a number of talented musicians come to the Mistral studios to perform live sessions which we filmed and recorded in-house. Last week we had the talented Brooklyn singer/songwriter Gabriel Garzon Montano swing by to perform a couple tracks, with him on keys, vocals and a vintage Roland 707 drum machine!
He was in Europe supporting Lenny Kravitz, and as the performance shows, he's a genuine talent so expect his star to rise in 2015. It was a pleasure having him in. Here's the first of two tracks, 'Everything Is Everything' from his fanstastic debut EP/mini album, Bishoune: Alma del Huila on SUS Records. The second performance will drop in January!
And last month we had Cuban force of nature, Dayme Arocena come through to perform her collaboration with Russian producer, Rumskaya. Her debut album is due in early 2015, and we've heard some early mix downs, and it's an incredible record combining Cuban influences with Jazz and Soul. It's particularly remarkable, as it was written and performed by someone so young!
Dayme was in London for the Havana Cultura Mix - The Soundclash album launch party, so in case you missed the summary video, here it is!
