nic paton composition

Sports Power – Africa Scores

Nic Paton — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:09:38 +0000

My latest production-ready themes form part of a new compilation on Mama Dance (MDML045), called “Sports Power – Africa Scores”.

This is a high energy compilation of South African sporting themes, geared at the “Big Three” – Rugby, Cricket and Football. Comes with a free virtual braai, and coaxes heretofore unheard finesse from the bad boy of international wind instruments: our own vuvuzela.

But fear not, there’s a broad based, democratically authorised selection of multi-ethnic instrumentation and sonic treatments, from strings to talking drums, from the latest digital instruments to broken rake handles from my garage, and from searing mezzo-soprano cadenzas to the best international standard refereeing practices.

Tracks on this 2 minute-ish sampler are “Nkosi Vuvuzela”, “Home in the Zone”, “Stick Fight”, “Horn of Africa” and “Epic Clash”.

Symphony of Science : Children of Africa “Singabantwana beAfrika” Remix

Nic Paton — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 07:41:40 +0000

These beings with soaring imagination
Eventually flung themselves and their machines
Into interplanetary space
[Carolyn Porco]

John Boswell’s amazing anthropological melodisation mashup project “Symphony of Science” features many top scientific voices singing a stunningly fresh litany based on the scientific enterprise. (That’s John on the right).

“Children of Africa” is one of SOS’s 11 video/musical extravaganzas and features Jacob Bronowski, Alice Roberts, Carolyn Porco, Jane Goodall, Robert Sapolsky, Neil deGrasse Tyson and David Attenborough. It explores the African origins of homo sapiens, and its message is one of the connectedness of all people.

Very notably, John has “open-sourced” his creativity, encouraging remixes of his work. So I’ve brought the composition firmly onto African soil in this Xhosa language remix with Ntuthu Nyiki and Jerome Sitengile, changing the underlying beat and arragement, and adding guitars and drums.

Hear the “Singabantwana beAfrika” Remix (audio):

Watch the original video :

“Twana Toons” : African kids moods and themes

Nic Paton — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:58:18 +0000

The fruit of the last few months is a new album of production music on Mama Dance entitled “Twana Toons”.

From the coy to the exuberant, the quizzical to the triumphant; from playful grooves and rambunctious riffs to sweet, soothing lullabies, “Twana Toons” is a scintillatingly fresh cross-over of production-ready African children’s music.

Twana comes from the Xhosa “Mntwana” for child.

Musically, theres a big variety of intrumentation: mandolin, acoustic guitars, bongos, calabash, ektara, valiha, accordian, balafon, talking drum, tuba, clarinets, charango, piano, xylophone, kalimba, music box, and vocals.

Listen to the 3 minute sampler:

Otelo Burning official trailer.

Nic Paton — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 06:27:05 +0000

“Otelo Burning” (trailer score by Nic Paton) is the opening film at this months Durban International Film Festival.

Slipstream short film

Nic Paton — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:00:47 +0000

Music from Nic Paton’s “Space and Story” album used for Jemima Spring’s intriguing “Slipstream”: a 12-minute short put together on less than the cost of a shoestring.
The Slipstream collective is on Facebook.

Langeberg Promotional Short

Nic Paton — Sun, 29 May 2011 06:33:54 +0000

The Fabulous Boomtown Boys releases 10-minute promotional short for the Langeberg municipality with score by Nic Paton – stunning footage of the Cape at its best. The film is not currently online but forms part of his showreel.