Confusion Within The Notes
Hello, my name is Taofique also known as Punkfield and this is a small part of my life, the story of me being a (self proclaimed) musician.
Music. Music is an integral part of all of our lives, everyone listens to different genres of music. Some prefer rock, some prefer classical, some prefer electronic etc. My introduction to music came as a toddler through my father, a man who had a passion for good music. I was fascinated with the process of making music at a very young age, watching my uncle who was a musician, play the guitar and produce music on his computer. It was then that the curiosity set in for the first time.
Picture: Making my First Track
Fast forward to Covid-19 lockdown 2020, after many years of not even having thoughts about making music other than playing the guitar and piano, the curiosity caught up, a reinvigorated interest in making music awakened in me. So, equipped with a low spec computer, cheap gulisthan speakers and a pair of skullcandy headphones I embarked on my music production journey. After enduring repeated failure with many DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation) that my computer couldn't handle, I discovered Bandlab. Bandlab was a DAW that ran on a web browser and could easily run on any computer without putting much stress on it.
Confined within four walls, I found bliss making music. Recovering from the tragedy of losing my father and the added trauma of contracting Covid, all alone in my room with a grieving mother who couldn't even care for her ailing son. Among other things, music was my supreme distraction. Starting new projects, tweaking things until they sound just the way I want them to sound, it wasn't always easy but I came through and created some genuine moments during that period. I took inspiration from my favorite artists Trevor Something, Grimes, AAAMYYY, Clairo, New Order, Kero Kero Bonito and The Strokes to name a few. All of my songs have elements that give homage to said artist from that particular genre.
My favorite aspect of making music has to be sampling. Sampling is when an artist takes part of another artists song and makes it their own. Sampling can be done in multiple ways, one can take a snippet and use it as is, one can put their own twist on it, one can take a melody and create something completely different from it as well. I have sampled a few artists myself, the most notable one being The Weeknd whose song The Birds Pt. 2 I sampled for my appropriately named track Bird.
Picture: Confusion Album Art
Spending my days on social media during quarantine as every teenager on earth did, I made a friend online who went by the name Fae, I found out later Fae was a phenomenal singer, her voice absolutely mesmerized me. I was adamant "We need to make a song together" I told her, She was ecstatic. Neither of us had any experience creating an original song I only knew how to make instrumentals, she only had the vocals yet we got to work, I wrote the lyrics and melody while she did the vocals and after some grueling days of writing and rehearsing Confusion was made. Confusion is still the only track in my discography that has vocals thanks to Fae. Confusion was kind of like a big rung on the ladder to me making music. I feel like this project made me want to get more serious about making music and brought me to where I am right now.
Confusion on Youtube
Confusion on Spotify
Video: Making the track "Punkri" while listening to Fae's Radiohead cover
Punkri was one of the first projects I ever worked on and it is in my opinion my best one. Punkri is a city pop track inspired by Japanese City-Pop legends Anri, Mariya Takeuchi and Taeko Onuki. It took me 3 days to make the track and mix it, at the end I was stunned at how good it actually turned out. Out of the several genres of music I have produced, City-Pop projects have always been the most enjoyable. City-Pop is just a fun genre of music I feel like that's the best way to describe it, the basslines are always the grooviest, the drums always hit the hardest and the blissful melodies always invoke euphoria.
Picture: Punkfield Spotify Artist Page
I was 17 when I started making music and a lot has changed since, I have released 3 EPs on major streaming platforms such as Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube etc. Improved myself as a musician and grown as a human being. The whole year of 2020 was one of the worst years of my life so far and making music during the COVID-19 lockdown while I was feeling down about my father's demise and other things really did help me distract myself from the tragedies even if it was only for a few months. I reckon I would've been in worse shape if I didn't have that distraction. I still make music whenever I get the time and motivation and it's really fun most of the time. I would pursue music as a career but that feels like an unrealistic goal for me right now but who knows what the future holds for me.
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