Hella is a DJ, producer, vocalist, host and skateboarding enthusiast based in Bristol.

Blackbird was first heard at our Hi5Ghost event in Bristol.

“The track was inspired by the death of my close friend back when I was in my early 20's. Myself and her both grew up in Southampton and separately moved here and managed to get a job at the same place where our friendship grew even stronger. She sadly passed away and it had a huge impact on me and for years I wanted to write and express what her life meant to me in a song but nothing ever came close. 

One day I found this sample which is used as the main body and the lyrics fitted my situation with her so well that I knew that would be part of a track dedicated. A year or so later I was working on said track and found a soul sample on splice which said 'Home' and knew that would be another missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle as the other sample also mentioned 'Home'. The writing process for me at this time and still is, to open up Ableton and create trap for the soul or cry in the club type music. 

I rarely make heavy club tracks, so with that in mind I created the drums first. Just to get a foundation of rhythm, after that I moved onto bass which is an 808 sample which has been ran through my Analog Heat MKII.  For chords and melodic atmospheres that was just a matter of opening up Diva. For the more sparkly synth I used Diva, A Heat MKII and an Arp to create those weird progressions after I made the loop I put it through a granular synth to make it even more rhythmically obscure. From there it was just laying it out and adding more granulated FX throughout to create more interesting layers.”

openCDR is your chance to share with the world your Work In Progress. At each of our in person sessions, there will be opportunity to hear your tracks on the club soundsystem and receive feedback from the music community. 

Whether you’re just starting your journey as a producer or you’re a seasoned DAW user, contributing to openCDR is a great way to see your development in real time. For details on how to submit before each artist talk, check out the sign up page for each artist.   

For any questions, advice or just general chit chat, please email info@createdefinerelease.com

You can follow Hella here.