Spring Sing 2015: Common Souls

Electronic music duo Common Souls was simply “Ryan and Nick” on its Spring Sing application.

When third-year ethnomusicology student Nick Velez decided to sign up for an audition two hours before the application deadline, he asked fourth-year communication studies student Ryan Yoo to join him in creating a song for the audition in only one week.

The duo then spent 10 hours together working out the kinks in its new song “Arizona,” but spent much less time deciding on a band name before heading into the audition. Velez said the idea to look for a name in a book came from Yoo’s roommate.

In the moments before their audition, Velez and Yoo were flipping through a book of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays and poems and stumbled upon the phrase “common souls.”

“It actually was really fitting in retrospect, because it’s what we are. It’s two people coming together and making something that they want to make,” Velez said. “Usually there’s a band leader, and then you’re kind of behind. … It’s kind of nice when there’s two people who have equal say in everything.”

Velez said the duo’s sound is down-tempo electronic music, similar to U.K. artists James Blake and Mount Kimbie.

“(Our sound) incorporates a lot of different elements – we’re trying to do something different that’s not quite like what you would normally hear on the radio, something that’s a little bit more stripped down and intimate,” Velez said.

Velez said while the original draft of Common Souls’ Spring Sing entry was eerie and quasi-acoustic, he changed aspects of the song like the sound of the drums to make it more electronic. Yoo said the duo sounds like a six-piece band condensed into two people, with both members performing multiple roles at once.

The performance will feature Yoo on guitar while he creates a live vocal loop – a process that involves recording vocals in real-time, then replaying the recording repeatedly. Velez said he will be both playing synth and using a computer program with prerecorded sounds to bring their vision to life.

Velez said the program itself needs to be reprogrammed before each use, citing an occasion during the duo’s initial audition where he said a wobbly bass effect accidentally sounded like a giant fart due to technical difficulties. Since then, Velez said the song went well in tech rehearsals.

Although Velez said he is venturing out of his comfort zone because he is used to being behind his drum kit, both Velez and Yoo are Spring Sing veterans. Velez has previously performed with his band Loop Garou, which will be performing again this year, and Yoo has performed with his band The Primaries.

“More than any anxiety or trepidation, (there is) going to be adrenaline,” Yoo said. “I’m super excited because this is music I stand behind and music I believe in, and to play it on this kind of platform is a thrilling idea.”

Yoo said Common Souls’ brand of low-tempo electronic music will be different from the Spring Sing norm.

“Spring Sing has a reputation for being really receptive to pop artists, and to pop music in general, and what we’re doing is definitely more on the experimental side,” Yoo said.

Common Souls’ writing process has been collaborative, but Yoo said he is still finding his own voice as a writer and that sad music resonates with him.

“In a lot of ways, art is like a support system for life,” Yoo said. “When you’re really happy and you’re doing good, you’re fine. But when you’re really down on stuff, you can listen to that one song, and it kind of gets you through.”