In this episode, John links up with Thomas Wesley Pentz, aka Wes aka Diplo, to talk about his work under various guises with Major Lazer, Sia and as Thomas Wesley.

With on-going exploration of far reaching and cross-cultural mashups at the centre of his approach, Wes reflects on how working with so many specialists from across the globe has helped him forge a diverse sound and career.

Breaking apart three songs, Wes shares his thoughts on the considerations and care that have to be taken when sampling a ‘classic’ South African song, the gatekeeping in Country music and why new sounds are emerging around the genre, and the weird and wild things that Sia often gravitates towards in a song.

Listen to find out the specific rules of Amapiano, some of the elements that are essential to any pop song, and why it’s important to fail a lot.

Tracks discussed: Mamgobhozi (Major Lazer), Wasted (Thomas Wesley), Elastic Heart (Sia)

LINKS TO EVERYTHING TAPE NOTES  

linktr.ee/tapenotes 

Listen to ‘Piano Republik’ here.

• Because Music

Listen to ‘Wasted’ here.

• Mad Decent, Columbia, Sony

Listen to ‘Elastic Heart’ here.

• RCA Records, Sony

Intro Music - Sunshine Buddy, Laurel Collective

GEAR MENTIONS

Fab Filter Plugins

Serum Synth

Synplant

Celemony Melodyne

Serato Sampler

Native Instruments Massive

Algoriddim Neural Mix

Output Arcade

Shure Mics

Teenage Engineering OP1

Operator Synth

Roland TB-303

Akai MPC3000

Whurlitzer

Ableton Mellotron Preset

Ableton Sampler

Ableton

Magix Sound Forge 

Cool Edit Pro

Logic Pro

Splice

OUR GEAR

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HELP SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you'd like to help support the show you can donate as little or as much as you'd like here, (we really appreciate your contributions :) 

Donate

TAPE NOTES TEAM

Will Brown - Executive Producer, Engineer & Editor

Tim Adam-Smith - Executive Producer

Will Lyons - Editor

Guy Nicholls - Production Assistant