This week on Local Music Monday, WUKY’s DeBraun Thomas introduces us to one of the main figures in the electronic music scene.
Chuck Moreland got his start in music playing in a jazz and funk program at his middle school. Moreland started playing bass and by the age of 16 he was djing in different clubs around town. Moreland makes what is called bootlegs which he says is an attempt to stay current with music and use his diverse musical background to create in unconventional ways.
“You take the track and you just EQ out some stuff, get the bass outta there, like EQ out the vocals, a lot of times I’ll detune them to make them a little bit weirder, and then you figure out what key it’s in and start playing new bass lines that are a little bit heavier, new drums that are a little bit more dancy and what’s good about a lot of the tracks comin out now is that they’re pretty minimal anyway, you throw some big kicks and snares, it’s real easy to make something new.”
Moreland continues a trend many musicians follow in Lexington in being associated with multiple projects. Moreland has several projects that are all different from each other. One of them being a project he calls Morphology. In Morphology, Moreland incorporates live instrumentation with different production elements. Moreland says this project allows him to be more compositional and approach the music with a different feel.
“It’s arranged and recorded on a computer, it’s got hip-hop and electronic elements for sure, but if it’s a lead it’s probably an accordion with classical guitar blended with a euphonium or something, a lot of live bells, so with the Morphology thing it’s a completely different feel, I’m going for a real romantic kinda chill stuff, I create my own samples with that stuff if I need a drum sample, I’ll click on something or I’ll get a snare and I’ll hit it.”
Chuck Moreland will be DJing Funk and soul vinyl as Levon Musk every Tuesday at Cosmic Charlies. Moreland performs with several other projects including Morphology and Adaboi. More information about Chuck Moreland can be found at underlying themes.net.