We go track by track on the Game Over LP with Broken Tooth Entertainments’s very own Ciecmate. Ciecmate has craftily built a stable of some of Australia’s most influential underground hip hop artists. A scene builder. It’s time for him to reveal the vision he’s been refining over the past ten years.
1.) INTRO/SANE
Ironically, this was actually the last song I did for the album. I had already made the beat and was holding it and waiting for the right time to use it. When I had finished all the other songs , I was searching for the right way to start the journey off and when I heard this beat again I knew instantly that it suited the overall theme and sound I was going for. I penned the lyrics to act as an index of sorts for the rest of the album, recorded and mixed the whole joint in less than an hour and the shit is definitely inSANE!
2.) GIVE YOU
This song is a reflection of the difference between what ‘they’ (Being our current established order of government s, overlords and overseers.) Give You and what I Give You. We’re continually being lied to by media, scientists, politicians, police, the list goes on & on. In a world where the more wicked of our desires are catered to in order to create an atmosphere of contentment, desensitization and CONTROL. Anything you want… It’s yours. Just DON’T ask questions about what’s really going on in the world around you. But me… I just give it to you how I see it, take it or leave it.
3.) I AINT THE ONE TO FUCK WITH
This one is actually about 4 – 5 years old. Classic rap braggadocio shit. Originally I recorded it over another beat I had written with the same drum pattern, so I re tweaked the instrumentation and brought it up to date with my current sound and production skills. I’ve always been a pretty self sufficient person and in regards to music, things are no different. I write my own rhymes, produce my own shit… Yeah boyeeeeeee I aint the one to fuck with!
4.) THERE GOES MY MIND AGAIN
Anyone who knows me well will attest to the fact that I occasionally fly off the handles and let my thoughts get the better of me. Life gets crazy at times and everyone has their chosen vices that provide an escape from all the stress. Mine is the trusty Herb. I always wanted to use the Onyx sample for a hook and this song just came together really nicely. Wrote it all in one session and when it was finished I stumbled upon an interview with Bob Marley where he speaks about the Herb, it’s wonderful properties and questions why the establishment have made it illegal to consume. Newsense did the remix for this and it HOT! I actually wish I used his version for the album, but he made his version after I’d sent the album of to press. It’s on iTunes though. Peep it!
5.) MAD VEXED
This beat is pure fire in my opinion! The second I finished writing the beat, the words came straight to me. Then it was straight into the booth to lay it down. I sampled parts from a film called ‘Network’ (Watch it!!) for the hook and then No Name Nathan came thru and tore up the cuts. There’s a film clip for this too!
I wrote this song because, as the title suggests I was Mad Vexed at things happening in the world and when I would speak on it with some people I care about, they don’t wanna hear it. Ever wondered what some rappers mean when they mention stuff like ‘Illuminati, New World Order, Babylon’ and so on? Look that shit up and be prepared for a lot of long nights of confusion, contemplation, doubts, fear and then finally clarity.
To quote JFK “We as a world are opposed to a ruthless, monolithic conspiracy which operates primarily by covet means…” And we all know what happened to him! That very same conspiracy he spoke of has been quietly growing all around us and as the news events play out daily in the soap opera which is our mainstream media, so do the said plans of the conspirators and their ilk. Read of these plans, you’ll be mad vexed too!
6.) PARADIGM MISFIT
This is another old song, I actually recorded it about 4 years ago and I put it out on Pre Emptive Strike under the title ‘Anti Social Anthem’ I couldn’t come up with a chorus for it for ages and then it just hit me one night and that breathed new life into the song. This song reflects my view on society in general.
7.) YOU KNOW THE SONG (Feat Maggot Mouf)
Mouf rolled to the studio for an in house session, just chillin with drinks, herb and the goal of writing a song together and recording it in the one night. We trawled through a folder of beats I had set aside for the album and picked out this one and got to work… We filmed the whole process and I sped it all up to play it on a projector while filming the clip. No Name Nathan came around to slice and dice. I gave him the samples to work with, including the drum sounds and he just went to work with it. Then I picked which cuts worked well and put them all through the song in certain spots to add some extra depth.
8.) LEAVE ME ALONE
One day in late 2009 Tornts gave me some beats on a disc to sell and I was headed home on the notorious 57 tram. Anyone who’s ever caught this tram knows you’re in for a wild ride more often than not. Anyway, as soon as I got home I listened through the beats Tornts gave me and this one stuck out to me. I wrote down what happened on the tram home, then the chorus and then thought about times I’ve been in the city and had cops hassle me or friends and I wrote down some of that too. Shit makes me laugh every time I hear it.
9.) ALL THAT THERE IS
This is the oldest beast on the album. I made the beat ages back and enlisted Bigfoot to play some guitars on it. He did all the guitars parts and daaaaaaaamn he is one talented lad. This song was so close to extinction it was endangered, but I decided to give it a second chance. I always liked it, but it was just so old to me and didn’t feel as relevant to who I am now as the other songs on the album. I relied on the good word of trusted crew to decide on if I should put it out and it was agreed that I should. So it lived to fight another day.
10.) NEVER WALK AWAY (Feat Bias B)
This was the last song done for the album. Bias B is like an older brother to me. We get along really well and he’s always been a source of inspiration and good advice for me. I wanted to get him on a song for my album and I had already recorded a few verses for this joint and thought it’d be a great song to share with the B. I played it to him and asked if he’d fill the song out with verses of his own that were on the same sort of topics as mine… Things I feel strongly about and wouldn’t walk away from. He came to the studio about 5 days later with his stuff ready to go. This has a really classic feel to it. Raw, honest, sparse and atmospheric.
11.) WIDE AWAKE
When I wrote this beat I literally sat shivering for an hour in the studio from the energy of it. The strings are so moody and the rhythm of the drums so hypnotic that the feeling I had listening back to it is indescribable. I penned the lyrics then and there. On the same tip as Mad Vexed, but less angry and more as an honest statement that I’m no longer blind to the things I used to be and that I am the only one truly responsible for where my life leads me.
Film clip for this is done, but I’m sitting on it till Mad Vexed is out first.
12.) EVERY BREATH
This here is the summer jump off, mad warm bass, hype snapping drums and that saxophone just brings it all home really nicely. I can’t be angry and suspicious 24/7 now, can I? This one is an ode to life and everything it’s brought me thus far and all it will bring in the future. No matter what my opinions on the world and our society, I’m still here in it and there’s no sense being here if I don’t enjoy myself. I’m blessed for being alive and while I’m here I plan to make it an enjoyable ride.
13.) UP, UP & AWAY
I like writing short songs like this… Makes you wanna play it over again and again. The beat for this one got me really amped up to write so I just let loose until I felt I had a strong line to end on. As it turned out, the final line provided the perfect spot on the album for the switch up into some Grime influenced music.
14.) IRON FIST (Feat Diem)
This one just had a whole momentum of it’s own… There’s no samples on this one, just crazy synth sounds I twisted and contorted beyond recognition and some ethnic instruments from the Middle East (Synthesized). Like most of the other songs on the album, I wrote the beat and lyrics within 24 hours and I let it marinate for a bit.And straight up, a grime track here in Australia isn’t a Grime track if it doesn’t have my mah’farkin bruvvah DIEM. Hands down, illest spitter I know. Glove up those Iron Fists!!
15.) GONG SAU/TALKING HANDS
My good friend Sterling found boxes of records on the side of road, so he gave them to me. When I got around to sniffing through them, the very first record I grabbed was a goldmine! I made the beat for this one then and there and it got me all hyped up to write a hype story. Gong Sau is Cantonese for Talking Hands which is a term for Challenge/Grudge Match. So I wrote the lyrics on that sort of theme, aiming to make it really graphic so you can imagine what it looks like. I’m planning on doing a clip for this one too. That’d be ill!
16.) WHERE YOU FROM
Now how much fun is this song? That guitar riff was originally something that sounded soooooooo different until I worked my magic on it. I won’t say what it was or what I did to it, but ya’ll know how it turned out once I’d written, recorded and mixed it. It’s about 4 years old. I wrote it coz at the time there were all sorts of weak ass rappers popping up that nobody seemed to know and it was just like ‘Where you from?’ plus the fact that some heads were still trying to rap in an American twang when they were born, raised and still live here in AUS, so again… I was like ‘Where you from?’
17.) NOTE TO SELF
This one was originally just for my ears only… An actual note to self that I could refer back to when I’d feel the need to reflect on my actions and where my life is heading. Rules to live by on this rock called earth and this journey called life, if you will… The beat is very energetic, with alot of atmosphere, semi-erratic drum patterns and a whole lot of subtle synthesized sounds. I leaked this one out to a few trusted crew and they pretty much made it clear that I had to put it on the album.
18.) GAME OVER
The crown chakra of the album… An amalgamation of my thoughts, who I am, where I’ve been and how I got to where I am now. I wrote and recorded this one about a week after I laced the beat, which I had done using a sample from the record stash I mentioned earlier. No Name Nathan came through yet again on the cuts and his work really brought this track out. If you listen closely to the chorus you can hear that each corresponding echo to the original cut is actually different members of my crew and associated musical cohorts. I asked DIEM to speak some words about what he thought of me and my achievements in the Hip Hop world and I was thrilled when he came back with what he did! I see it as a great compliment coming from him. Look out for his work with SMASH BROTHERS and a solo project that’ll eventually surface.
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