The new single "Jaded" is built from beats and samples of everyday items, coupled with Tom's otherworldly talent and Paulina' infectious energy.
Collaboration is no mean feat; we’re all trying to have our say, and often we can find ourselves frustrated, misunderstood and back to square one. Not for vocalist Paulina and beatboxer Tom Thum though, whose viral collaboration “Focus On Me” helped to reignite Paulina’s workflow, while simultaneously pushing Tom into a new world creatively. The duo are back with “Jaded”, a more pared back track compared to “Focus On Me”.
Hey guys, thanks for taking the time. How did you initially connect and what made you want to collaborate?
A mutual friend of ours introduced us to each other back in 2021 at an event we were both at, and then we finally got in the studio together for the first time towards the end of 2022! We had such a fun time and basically have been creating together since. It’s also so dope that we’re both from Ipswich and that we only live like 15 minutes down the road from each other #ipswichrepresentttt hahaha
You’re both performers who are experienced at and able to improvise – how much of the new single “Jaded” was vibed out vs. more explicitly ‘written’ per se?
I remember coming into the studio to work on a different song with Tom but before we jumped into that session he pulled up this instrumental idea he’d started working on the night before. I instantly fell in love with it and hella vibed to it! I remember rushing Tom to pull up the actual Ableton session so I could lay some vocal ideas down because I had a tonne of melodic ideas come to me straight away that I didn’t want to forget. Everything just flowed so naturally with this song and was genuinely maybe the most fun I’ve ever had making a song.
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Tom, I see you use various mics to amplify and record yourself – what makes a microphone an ideal candidate for your use?
Oooh good question, well it depends what scenario I am using it in. For live I love something with a high SPL tolerance because I REALLY get personal with mics live haha. But generally I like a good bottom end response and a rounder smoother top end.
Paulina — do you find it difficult to trade off ‘lead’ parts with Tom?
No not at all! If anything I think we blend really well together and it feels really natural when we’re recording together. I think it’s because we’re both just so open to experimenting with all ideas and aren’t afraid to take the lead nor are afraid to let the other person just do their thing. Plus, I just think we both really appreciate what each other does, like I think so highly of Tom and I love to see all the random cool ideas he comes up with, which then in turn inspires me to go places with my parts where I perhaps wouldn’t usually go.
What does the recording process look like for recording beatboxing? Are you recording as you would perform or do you prefer to record parts isolated so you can have more control mixing?
Generally I will record everything in one go and then separate the elements out, i.e. splitting kicks/snares/bass and hats onto separate channels for more control. If I’m going for a more natural sound I generally compress it a fair bit and angle my face away from the diaphragm so I don’t get too much blow out (I don’t record with a pop filter), and then I’d use a transient designer and maybe roll in a bit of bass and just keep it all as one single wave.
Is there any thought of having to perform this live while you’re writing and arranging?
For our last track “Focus On Me” we were very conscious of that, however our latest tune is mostly sampled instruments and found sounds so it would probably be pretty hard to bring all the things we’d need around with us haha. So we just thought we’d stack it to high heaven!
Keep up with Paulina here, or follow Tom here.
