ORAL FIXATION – RECESSION POP

Project Proposal

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Production Project Files (80%)

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Progress and Management Records (20%)

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Introduction

This project is a 25-minute concept album called “Recession Pop,” as part of my two-piece band, “Oral Fixation,” where I produce and my bandmate Hetsi Harpur sings. For this project my role was engineer and producer, this means the tracks were prepared with -6dB headroom, ready for mastering. The project is a modernized, conceptual reflection of post-2008 pop music emerging from the financial crisis. We used a range of intertextual references to philosophise “what would ‘recession pop’ sound like as a reflection of our current modern socio-political recession.” We planned clearly that the album would:

• Use sampling to represent constant inundation with information
• Become a balancing act between fun pop and more serious themes 
• Reference/acknowledge pop music that came before it in a “hauntological” manner
• Create a sense of community through collaboration

The album samples pop-cultural, intertextual sources from the internet to resemble the overwhelming saturation of social media posts and world news. This is further exasperated by the album’s balancing act of fun, upbeat dance-pop with darker, grungier tracks to resemble the feeling of scrolling through a social media feed, with each post being a polar opposite emotion of the previous. During this year I became infatuated with the cultural criticism of Mark Fisher, who expressed his disillusionment of post-millennium pop music through his ideas of “hauntology” and “lost futures” – arguing that we culturally “remain trapped in the 20^th century” (Fisher, 2014) (Appendix 33). We referenced this pop-cultural disillusionment through the interpolation of pre-2000s aesthetics, ranging from the 80s “Smiths”-style lead guitar and gated reverb on “Jesus Freak” to the 909 drum machine sounds alluding to 90s house and techno on tracks such as “Different Scenes” and “Everybody Thinks I’m High.” Throughout the album we aimed for a collaboration on each track, as both a means of project delegation through the collaborator’s specialism, and to create a sense of community for the project.

Project development

The project was initially intended to be a synth-based project inspired by the likes of modern “art-pop” duos such as “Jockstrap” and “Magdalena Bay.” When developing demos over the Summer, I avoided using guitars to maintain a sense of cohesiveness in the band (Appendix 5) (Appendix 4), instead opting for soft-synths found in the Arturia Collection.

Following a session with Bhupinder in the first semester, I played him a demo of the guitar-based track “Antoinette Baby,” which was very different from the clean synth pop we initially planned. Bhupinder thought it demonstrated my production strengths better and suggested we continue this grittier style. It was around this time that I started researching into “Recession Pop” from the late 2000s and the ideas of “lost futures” and “hauntology” popularised by Mark Fisher. I initially wanted to use specific reference tracks for the album to make it more cohesive, while Hetsi felt our natural, subconscious musical choices would naturally tie tracks together. After discussing with Bhupinder, I decided that having a strong concept was more important than sticking to one genre, and that using the elements previously outlined could help connect the songs thematically while allowing for sonic variety.

From then on, we agreed to have a “Blue Sky Thinking” period approach to making music, experimenting during weekly sessions. This resulted in a wide range of demos (Appendix 7) (Appendix 35). We also organised sessions in 109 with other artists to generate inspiration for the project – some of the songs from these sessions ended up being used, such as “Everybody Thinks I’m High (And I Am)” we created with Lucas and Kelan from ShotbunGullet (Appendix 14). Other collaborations did not make the cut, such as our song with artist-producer TONII – due to time constraints (Appendix 21) (Appendix 22). In March, we then decided which songs would make the cut for the final project, making sure to prioritise them over the other demos generated.

Communication, Organisation, and Management

For this project to work, Hetsi and I had to have a strong line of communication, regularly messaging on WhatsApp and maintaining a consistent, calendared schedule for working to make sure the project was completed to a high standard in time. From September 2025, we agreed to have calendared sessions every Friday for the band and Mondays for her solo work (Appendix 36). By February, we used Monday sessions for our band too, delegating mixing for her solo work throughout the week instead (Appendix 37). Collaborators were contacted in person and/or via Instagram/messaging to work on music. Apart from the ShotbunGullet collaboration, all collaborators adapted to our pre-produced demos (Appendix 25), making it easier to pick each collaborator for their specialism according to each track. I project-managed the album, approaching and recording each collaborator myself (Appendix 30), aside from bassist Rob Gjoka on “Jesus Freak”, who Hetsi co-ordinated (Appendix 27).

Whilst this was ultimately my final project, I couldn’t plan for it the same way as I did my interdisciplinary project, as I had to accommodate largely for Hetsi’s creative process and mental health. This meant adapting to periods where she was unable to write/perform – writing instrumentals/vocal parts myself for her to record later (Appendix 11) (Appendix 8) as well as generating a series of contingency plans if she was unable to continue with the project. This included developing my solo material further, as I had written solo demos over the summer (Appendix 38) as well as asking Theo Langholm to work on some contingency music (Appendix 40) due to our strong working relationship and his specialism in alternative electronic genres.

In June 2025, I had created a GANTT chart (Appendix 41) outlining a general long-term plan for the different stages of the project’s production process, starting from June 2025, when I began the demo stage for this project. This was going to be used in tandem with a short-term planning tool, such as a calendar, to plan the process of each song. However, due to the adaptive nature of this collaboration, the aims and deadlines of the GANTT chart quickly became obsolete when adapting to Hetsi’s process of collaboration. Therefore, I primarily used the calendar for short-term planning, adapting to Hetsi’s wellbeing by the week as well as objective lists that I sent to her (Appendix 42).

SS3 DIARY

Digital Technology and Processing

Reference Playlists

Evaluation

Strengths

I believe Hetsi and I made a consistent body of work that reached the aims we set of sample-based, hauntological pop music that still maintains the variety initially intended. We successfully collaborated with at least one musician on each song and wove subtle social commentary in songs such as “Jesus Freak”, “Different Scenes”, “Antoinette Baby”, and “Smoking Area Swansong” without overwhelming the enjoyability of the song. Tracks like “Everybody Thinks I’m High” resemble the hedonism an energy of post-2008 “recession pop” and “Cotton Baby Blue” creates a contrasting “pause” in the album’s high-energy to explore more downtempo, electronic textures. Hetsi’s unique vocal style creates a consistency for the wide array of electronic-based genres in the project’s 25-minute run-time.

Weaknesses

Reflecting on the project’s management, I believe there are weaknesses to amend for future projects. The biggest weakness was the time management: instead of asserting a plan for when each song would be written, recorded and mixed, I tried to adapt around Hetsi. For example, as a way to account for vocal recording and writing time contingencies, I opted to remix one of Hetsi’s solo songs, “Cotton Baby Blue,” as it had already been written and recorded. As a result, this song is a thematic anomaly in the project. Additionally, I had also originally planned to master the project, but due to the risks of worsening the songs due to the lack of time I could give for the consideration mastering requires, I decided to leave them at around -6dB headroom – ready for a mastering engineer. If I were to redo this project, I would give myself more vocal recording contingency time by creating more demos over the summer period, as we had originally planned, as well as creating a strict plan for when each song would be written, recorded and mixed, in contrast to my more “adaptable” and generalised GANTT chart.

Opportunities

Following this project, Hetsi and I plan to spend the summer workshopping the tracks into an album, working on the demos we had to scrap due to timing reasons, such as the collaboration with TONII. From there on, we plan to start gigging and sending these songs to publishers, labels, and promoters, using the album submitted for this assignment as a demo tape. We also acknowledged there is an emerging electronic pop-based scene in Leeds that we could capitalise upon with this music, reaching an expanding demographic.

Threats encountered

Due to various contingencies created out of both mine and Hetsi’s control, this led to the project not running to the GANTT chart plan I had originally set out in June. This included the planning and running of events such as the two separate writing camps I was helping organise on behalf of the Conservatoire in December, which I eventually had to step in to directly be a producer in, due to lack of producer applicants. I mitigated this by doing what written work I could during breaks at the camps, and production-based work when I got home from them in the evenings.

Conclusion

To conclude, I believe I executed this project to a high standard, creating an interpretation of the “Recession Pop” of post-2008, reflecting the “cultural recession” of the late 2020s through a wide array of sample sources, genre/mood-hopping production, and socially commentating lyrics. While there were contingencies both within and outside of my control surrounding Hetsi’s health as well as extra-curricular commitments, ultimately, I tried to account for this as much as reasonably possible, creating contingency plans and workarounds for these issues.

Credits List

Appendix

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

Appendix 5

Appendix 6

Appendix 7

Appendix 8

Appendix 9

Appendix 10

Appendix 11

Appendix 12

Appendix 13

Appendix 15

Appendix 16

Appendix 17

Appendix 18

Appendix 21

Appendix 23

Appendix 25

Appendix 34

Appendix 35

Appendix 38

Appendix 41

Bibliography

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blustre (2024). Recession Pop Is BACK. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/WqZ9O-0gVVg?si=p5gqq34DPqlMxPm5 [Accessed 5 May 2026].

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Fisher, M. (2020). Postcapitalist Desire. Watkins Media Limited.

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