Singled Out: Nok Novum's Funky Shins

Canadian instrumental band Nok Novum just released their new song "Funky Shins", and to celebrate we asked them to tell us about the track. Here is the story:

Another one of many songs that originated in Grant's Dad's basement while he and Brady were roommates, "Funky Shins" is the product of a lot of experimentation, not so careful deliberation and an iPhone autocorrect. Originally the song consisted of heavy riffs without the piano/synth intro, mid song breakdown and piano outro. As we grew older over the half decade or so this album took to record our influences grew to include extremely high brow French cinema and piano music from old black and white movies. It was either that - or the fact that there was a piano and someone that could play it living in Scott's house at the time that inspired the addition of the piano intro and outro, I don't remember which. You can hear the piano bench and sustain pedal creak at different parts of the intro which we thought gave this part a haunting vibe. Scott had also just bought a Moog Matriarch synthesizer and after a bit of f***ing around and pulling out a few locks of that gorgeous hair, came up with the synth sequence that leads into the heavier parts of the track.

The heavier parts of the song are essentially the way Grant originally wrote them over a 6 pack of Cariboo, with the rest of us adding our interpretations as we tracked. The mid song breakdown was added in a bit later and for me is a bit of an ode to pre-Black album Metallica. This part came together in the studio without all of us in the same room and was a nice dynamic break from the heavy theme of the track...until our friend Nick Johnston kicks the door open and starts melting faces!

The song title comes from a Siri autocorrect during a group chat where we were describing a particular section as 'Funky Sh*t' but was corrected to 'Funky Shins.' Felt appropriate.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here

Singled Out: Nok Novum's Funky Shins

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