Jacob Collier: The Open-Source Genius of Music
I have a new fascination. A musical love for an artist that does things just a little bit differently. An artist who I consider to be the equivalent of open-source software, delivering great quality products and being very open about the production process at the same time.
That artist is Jacob Collier. Let me take you on a little journey.
While I don't remember exactly, I think I discovered Jacob's music through his rendition of Bridge Over Troubled Water. That's an insanely beautiful song in its original version already, but Jacob - together with John Legend and Tori Kelly - crafted it into an absolute diamond as well. Have a look:
Astonishing, isn't it? This live version is just as stunning as the recording on Jacob's latest album, Djesse Vol. 4. The intertwining of voices in combination with Jacob's multi-instrumentalism is something I think I haven't really seen before.
From here, I got recommended a next video on YouTube. That's where the real magic started to flow:
In this video, Jacob does an almost two-hour long breakdown of this very song in Logic (a digital audio workstation for macOS), where he goes over all little details and individual parts that make up this 316-track song. If open-source music ever needs an example of how to operate, this video is the best case study there is. Apart from dissection above, there is a whole list of videos in a playlist of YouTube where many more of Jacob's songs are featured. It even made me - a person who likes music but had absolutely no experience with producing it in any shape or form - want to become a musician. Although that career switch is still waiting to happen.
I already mentioned Jacob's latest album, called Djesse Vol. 4. Apart from Bridge Over Troubled Water, it contains many original pieces of the same quality. Let me make you listen to some of the highlights.
One thing Jacob is famous for, is his audience choir. On one of his latest tours, he actually recorded the audience singing all kinds of music notes and made an instrument out of it. That instrument is now available as a plugin for digital audio workstations, which is very cool. One example of using an audience choir comes from the opening track of the Djesse Vol. 4 album, called 100,000 Voices:
The next song of the album is called Little Blue, and is just such an amazing lullaby on its own. Especially the first part of the song features the quality of Jacob's voice, which is another asset of his along with his multi-instrumentalism and music production skills:
Let me highlight two more fragments. The next one is from a song called A Rock Somewhere, which made me think of Norwegian Woods by The Beatles. Probably because of the sitar, an Indian string instrument which is featured on both songs. On A Rock Somewhere, this instrument is used against an ambient backdrop, creating a dreamy and mysterious vibe which I love. This fragment is a little longer than the previous two, but all the more worth listening to:
To close off this journey, let's listen to a part of the song WELLLL. It a little more on the rock-heavy side and again shows what Jacob can do with a multitude of his voices, mixed together to form his own one-man choir. This is especially clear at the end of the following fragment:
Let's end things here. If this has not convinced you of Jacob's quality as a musician, then listening to some of his other songs probably won't either. If it has, though, there is one more artist you can add to your list of favorites. Just type "Jacob Collier" into the YouTube search bar and lose yourself for days. And if you're anything like me, you will long for the next tour he announces and a chance to watch him during one of his live shows very soon.
That's it. Fanboy out.