Hi! Thanks for listening to my music :)
Below is the story of how Mama Ya Mama came to be.

During December 2020, I reached my lowest point in the pandemic. Performing live and connecting with an audience always gave me an incredible high, and that energy fueled me in my daily life. Cut off from this feeder of energy, I couldn’t function properly. I lost my sense of purpose and my daily inspiration for making music. After releasing my first fully self produced EP “Connect” in November 2020, I ran head first into a creative block. There were days when I couldn’t do anything. I had exerted all this effort to create an EP, yet I couldn’t share it with people in the way I desired. I couldn’t perform and put on a show. I was lost.

Sometimes, I feel like I can’t explain what I went through during the pandemic. It’s hard to communicate how much performing music meant to me, and what it felt like when my life’s passion was suddenly and unexpectedly taken away. How could I explain the energy I get from performing live and connecting with an audience. How making people dance, laugh, smile and party brought me so much happiness, energy and endless inspiration. It still makes me emotional when I think of past performances and how much I connected with my audience.

On the other hand, the pandemic offered me a chance to look inward and allow the music that was inside of me to flow freely. I’ve found that I can be very critical of myself and my music. Perhaps this criticism comes from my years studying jazz music, where many of my teachers were harshly critical of my playing and the sense of competition encouraged in jazz music really fostered negative feelings about my music. Whatever the reason, during the pandemic I was able to acknowledge this critical side of myself and see how it was blocking me from creating music freely. At the beginning of 2021, I made a promise to myself - I would spend this year making music free of judgment, criticism or negative thoughts. I would allow music to flow through me and create with a freedom from any judgments on the sounds, methods or styles coming through my music.

Thus, Mama Ya Mama was born.

Every day, working on Mama Ya Mama was an outlet for me to immerse myself into an alternate musical world and just let all my feelings go. Although the darkness of the times is reflected in Mama Ya Mama, it also feels energetic and uplifting, as if it’s offering a place of peace and positivity among a sea of darkness.

As a saxophone player, I’ve been searching for my own unique way of incorporating woodwind instruments into the electronic music that I make. In Mama Ya Mama, I began creating a new method of woodwind production. After studying synthesis and the electronic creation of sound, I began applying many of the techniques of electronic synthesis to the production of my woodwind sounds. I would record saxophone or clarinet and then manipulate the sounds using filters, envelopes, distortion and many other effects to craft my woodwind sounds into synth-like chords and melodies. Although it might not sound like it, most of the synth sounds heard on Mama Ya Mama are made from saxophone and clarinet. Besides woodwinds, I created the other sounds using two of my favorite analog synthesizers, the Elektron Analog Rytm and the Moog Grandmother. Mixed together, the woodwinds and analog synths give Mama Ya Mama a unique sound and feel.

I’d also like to thank the incredible Syrian vocalist Esmail Bnaoe, whose voice you hear on the title track. Esmail and I lived together for much of this last year and spent many evenings jamming in my studio and hanging on our rooftop. Somehow whenever we jammed, Esmail’s vocals always fit perfectly with my music and his lyrics and melodies blended seamlessly with my synths and saxophones. Mama Ya Mama would not be the same without him.

And finally, I want to express my gratitude to a group of collaborators who helped make my vision of Mama Ya Mama come to fruition. Duy Ngo, Ewa Sikorska, Max Van Boxel and Lila Tekila worked with me to create the music video of Mama Ya Mama, and I couldn’t be happier with the result. It was an inspiration working with these dear friends, and I am so thankful for their dedication to my vision. You can find the Mama Ya Mama official music video on my YouTube page.

Thanks for reading this far (if you made it) and for your support of my music!
Much love, Dillon

Instruments: Alto and Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Clarinet, Elektron Analog Rytm, Moog Grandmother, Moog Mother-32, Modular Rack.

Pedals: Eventide Space, Eventide Time Factor, Digitech Whammy, MXR Ten Band EQ