The Music – It’s All a Beautiful Noise – You can listen here…

Last January and February at the very beginning of 2020, I was recording in Victoria, BC Canada with my Producer Joby Baker at Baker Studios. I remember hearing this thing about covid 19 in the background of the recording process, but never in a million years would any of us seen this coming!

After my two weeks of recording finished, I flew back to Byron and straight into rehearsals for a 17 date tour in Australia. My dance card for the year was maxed, and finishing the album was number one. I needed to get back to Canada to record a final vocal on one last song that Mik and I wrote called, Time to Heal It. In addition, Joby and I were scheduled to travel to Mali in May to record some beautiful singers for a song called, I Am a Candle, remix I Believe in You, and then do final mixes for the two previous mentioned track before mastering the whole lot. Not too much to do really! Oh and I forgot, meet with set-designer to finalise the set and prepare for rehearsals in September.

At first the lockdown was hard. But I must say after the dust settled, its been a bit like a holiday as I’d literally been running all over the planet: meeting with a close friend and one of our producers Alex Melnyk at Storyworks in Boulder, Tigrelab, the animators in Barcelona, Lennart de Vos at Crowdled in Berlin who is providing the controller technology for my masks, Brett Jones in San Fransisco at Lightform who signed on as an in-kind sponsor – giving me the capability to use new cutting-edge projection technology for some out-the-box promotional ideas for the Bee Friendly Installations, and recording with Joby in Canada.

Yes, 2020 was a bit of a kick in the guts on a few levels: it completely halted production of our the show. IAABN was scheduled to go into rehearsals in Sept at HOTA, now the recording schedule is shot, and the money we were expecting dried up from the shows for our production (As we were only able to do four out of the 17 shows) was a massive loss to Big Mother my touring company.

However, on a brighter note, it did give me the time to focus on my Bee Friendly Installation and Reef’s 360 underwater concert (I got in the water and sang last year to the fishes). It has been wonderful to have the time to focus on them, actually. And let’s not forget covid gave me the time to travel to the Northern Territory and connect with local Aboriginal communities here.

Interesting new adventures have presented themselves to me whilst I’ve been in the NT. Now, instead of traveling to Mali to record with Joby, I will be traveling to Alice Springs, where I heard a recording of some beautiful singers who are about an hour west of Alice. I think their voices will be perfect for I am a Candle. What is crazy still – covid just locked down Alice!! Arrgh!! Still hemmed in at the moment – thanks Covid!

Relax and trust, trust, trust is my mantra and the only place to stand in within myself at the moment.

Ok, yada yada yada… let us get back the music.

I want to share with you some new music I am just loving! This is fresh vibrant music. I feel like I have grown as a songwriter and singer and storyteller. And I’ve got my radio songs for my productions!! Woohoo a huge win!! I’ve gone down sonic roads that carry a very wide landscape, and works wonderfully with animation and striking visuals.

I Am a Candle – written by Toni Childs and Joby Baker

Ok, the first song I want to share with you is I Am a Candle. This is a raw recording with Joby Baker and myself at the piano. I’m showing Joby the musical threads I am following to get the idea down. This will give you an idea of how a song comes together for us. And then, I am going to play the recording from last February 2020 with the final vocals – it’s a ruff mix without the singers in Alice Springs which I’m hoping to record this year, fingers crossed!

I Believe in You – written by Toni Childs

In this video, I introduce you to Joby Baker – a wonderful human and a great producer and songwriting partner. Joby walks us through the production elements of the song. The version of I Believe in You in the video and the version below the video is till not the final mix. I am saving that… for the final release. I am so happy in my heart to be making some really fresh music and is all mine.

In 2019, when we toured 57 regional theatres across Australia, this was the last song of my Retrospective Show. My God, the reaction at the merch table after the show was off-the-hook. People were literally on their knees – begging ways to get a copy of the song! I just love that!! People are just going crazy for it.. it is like music crack!

Love You’ve Been Looking For  – written by Toni Childs and Joby Baker

Joby and I wrote this song together from scratch. Normally, I will write on my own and bring sketches to him and we work from there. But in this instance, I just shared with Joby the direction I wanted to go in and he went from there. Joby spent about six hours on his own working on this, and in the end I loved it and audiences love it too, which makes it even more fun! Enjoy!

Stardust  and Time Dreamer – written by Toni Childs and Mik Lavage

This is two of fours songs my future-self sings in the show sings and I am singing to whales and dolphins. (to learn more about my future-self go to the blog post I Guess it Started with a Flower )

Mik is known for writing musical scores for documentary and film, as well as creating beats and dubstep landscapes which feature in our show. Mik presented me with several ambient pieces of music, I couldn’t really relate to at first. But I now know, Mik’s music created a portal for a very special part of me to show up. Life has become a very special journey indeed, and one I would have never have imagined.

I want to give you the opportunity to hear two of the songs that have inspired me to create two very unique production, IAABN and Reef 360 where I give underwater concerts for whales and dolphins.

I start with Stardust and leave you with Time Dreamer. If you’ve enjoyed this post please leave a comment.

 

#tonichildshive #beebeauty #BeeLove #BeeAware #10000Beekeepers #beekeepersofinstagram #beekeepers #bees #beeswax #yearofthebee #savethebee