I had heard his name many years ago but never set aside time to listen to his music. I saw a documentary on YouTube detailing the production process of his (then) latest album bb u ok? Always a sucker for a studio documentary or any behind-the-scenes footage of people making music, I decided to click and watch despite the fact that I hadn’t listened to the album or really any of his other work. I wasn’t expecting to be so impacted by a documentary on that random day, but it ended up being incredibly significant to me.
In the first five minutes San talks about how his music is heavily influenced by his surroundings. He grabs a Roland SP404 sampler and a buddy to go out and record the squeaking of the garden gate outside of the air BNB they booked to record this album. Almost immediately this documentary shifted from just another YouTube video to something that felt intimate, personal, and relatable.
Over the course of the one hour and seventeen minute runtime I was locked in.
From the early days of my self-discovery through sound and music I have always felt very isolated by my philosophy and thoughts behind it all. I never had friends growing up who would take the time to stop and listen to an interesting noise and think about how to incorporate it into music. Or even just how the noise makes you feel. Maybe it’s kind of weird to stand next to a rumbling air conditioning unit and think about how thankful I am to get to experience that, but it’s a process that I enjoy. I have field recorders and microphones and folders full of recordings of things that I felt were worth capturing at the time… but the funny thing is I may never listen to those recordings again. It made me feel a certain way at the time and I wanted to remember it. Something in me felt like I needed to record that, so I did.
It’s a rare feeling to hear some of your exact thoughts expressed by someone else, even things that you haven’t ever said out loud. That happened to me a handful of times throughout this documentary. Someone on camera would say something about sound or music and my only response would be to pause it and sit back in my chair and think about how nice it was to not feel alone. Hearing people - strangers - talk about things that I have felt for such a long time ended up being really impactful for me not just as an artist but as a person.
There are segments in this documentary where San and his friend Nicholas are sitting on the floor or on chairs or outside on the porch writing together. Interlaced between those clips are bits of video and audio of them talking about the importance of capturing moments. Even the subtle difference in how you play a note on the guitar makes you think of different things.
There’s a level of vulnerability in this documentary that I just haven’t seen in any other album production documentary before. This album wasn’t made in a sterile studio, everyone is hanging out in a house in Los Angeles with open windows, open doors, and instruments laying everywhere. There’s an oven and a fridge and a microwave in the background of most shots. Dogs are barking and cars are zooming down the street. They record vocals in a bedroom with a mattress blocking the window and a towel over their heads. It feels a lot more relatable for the average musician than seeing someone in a professional studio surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dollars of gear. They’re just friends making music, capturing specific moments in time.
Whether we do it intentionally or unintentionally, we all capture moments in one way or another. Sound recordings, videos, photographs, journals, letters - they’re all different forms of capturing moments. Sometimes we share them with people who we think might enjoy it, because the moment reminds us of something special or meaningful. Sometimes we take the photo, record the video, or write the journal entry, and never go back to it again. That doesn’t mean it didn’t have a purpose. The act of capturing and recording that moment was important.
There’s a clip late in the documentary when San is back at home mastering the album in his studio. After spending some time editing a breath before a line in a vocal take, he rips off his headphones and smacks his desk in frustration for being so hyper-focused on something a listener probably won’t notice. Upon hitting his desk there’s a noise that catches him by surprise, and he hits his desk again and says “That’s cool.” Just that little moment of stepping back and listening to a weird sound, even when you’re mad or frustrated, was so relatable for me.
At the end of this documentary I became a fan of San Holo. Not just his music, but him as a person. His humanness, his vulnerability, the small details of his art that he appreciates and wants to get perfect. My own music will probably never be near the same level as his, but music isn’t about comparison or success. It’s about expression. Sure you hope people will listen and enjoy it, that’s definitely a factor, but a lot of people would make music even if nobody else ever listened. Simply because they need to. Because they need to feel something and they need to capture that moment.
I hope you take some time to watch this documentary and check out his music. On top of being really introspective and profound at times, it’s also just a really great look into the production of an album. Even if it isn’t a genre that you typically enjoy, as was the case for me, I feel like this documentary will make you appreciate it more.
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