Drawing Jazz, Afrobeat and Deep House sensibilities into their deeply moving and carefully considered compositions, Kerrier Collective (Ben Tidy and Alfie Gidley) have been releasing music on Bandcamp since early 2021. 'Life Wants To Live' is a perfect exemplar of their eclectic sound, blending Ben's experience as part of London house production team Souled and staffer at UK dance music institution Black Market Records, with Alfie's reputation as a well respected multi-instrumentalist, built through more than 15 years performing as a live folk artist.
Rising quickly on the global underground scene, Bay Area producer Coflo turns in a vintage, Afro-tinged Deep Houe reworking of 'Live Wants to Live', making the most of the original's pristine musicianship, while adding a tough new bassline and syncopated percussion for the dancers.
"‘Life wants to live,' was one of those moments where things collided nicely" says Ben. "I (Ben) was programming some beats on the computer whilst Alfie was playing around on the piano. At one point we hit the chords and groove that you can now hear in the track. Alfie added live drums whilst I wrote and recorded the sub bassline. The cut up African choir just fell into place and matched the colour of the chords and emotions in the track. Alfie wrote and recorded the strings before the next session. When I came back in and heard it I was thinking 'wow, this is DEEEEPPPPP!' I think we were both thinking the same thing when we finished that session: we need to get Polly on this!"
"Polly Meyrick is a Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist and innovative composer, songwriter and arranger, with a love for a wide variety of genres. She has a strong sense of imagery with music, and this guides her songwriting process as a horn player and singer and she loves writing what she calls 'hedonistic horn arrangements'- horns that are blasting, grooving and sultry. We spent the weekend together writing and arranging the horns... Well, Polly wrote the horns and we sat their saying, ‘Yes! Do that.' Under Polly's expert guidance, Ian Sanderson played the Trombone part, and Josh Westrip played Trumpet on the finished recording."
"The week we finished the track, my friend sent me a Coflo track called "Lux", that came out on Local Talk. It was the best tune I'd heard in months, so I got in contact and sent him 'Life Wants To Live' to see if he'd be willing to remix it. Thankfully he was, and the package was complete."
