Bittersweet

The story of this track starts 4 years ago with a sticker and a fascination for strange glitch sounds.

Joep and I met at the Herman Brood Academie, when we were placed in the same class. We both really liked house that incorporated new and inovating noises. That sparked the idea to create a song together.

Joep: “This collaboration started a few years ago. We worked on it, on and off since. At the start we had many, many ideas if I remember correctly. You were more in charge of the sound design, and I made the rhythms around them. Then slowly but surely, the idea became clearer. Especially after the vocal session. I remember when you came to my place to work on Bittersweet, we were a bit stuck after a while. I had a wall full of party flyers, and one of them was from a party called ‘Bitterzoet’, which is bittersweet in Dutch. Funny how that sparked an idea, because I never even went to the party haha.
After that, our own individual projects came in the way for a while. In the meantime, I also moved from Deep House to Neo-Classical music with my own project. It’s funny how that transition is also implemented in the sound of this tune. During the last session, not too long ago, we recorded my piano at home, and added the whole melodic section. After that I mixed the whole song, and you put on the finishing touches afterwards. We had a clear division of tasks from the start, and could easily bounce ideas back and forth, which is always nice when you collaborate with someone. Now that it’s finally out, I look back on all of our sessions together. I think we had a lot of fun, and learned a lot from each other, and I think you can hear that too. We should do it again soon :)”

At some point this song became a running joke because we always came up with awesome ideas, but the track just never got finished. We started this song in our first year of school, and finished it right before graduating. It was about damn time!!!! We are both so happy this song can now see the daylight.

Bittersweet. A reaction from tasting something you like with a side of nastyness. The perfect description of this song.
Listen to it right now!

https://open.spotify.com/track/4Wt4wNoXaHSvTd44TVXlJV?si=C12lQJjCR5quqh45aBcw2Q

P.S. Follow us both to stay updated @charlemmusic & @joepvanmalsen_