Liar is the third song I’ve worked on with dance-pop music singer-songwriter Dokter Nomi. I first met Nomi at the Song Talk Meetup group in Toronto. He has a unique approach to songwriting, compared to myself and most of the singer-songwriters I know. Nomi comes up with melodies and lyrics, but doesn’t play any instruments. He then approaches producers, like me, to build the music, develop the chord progressions, and produce the track.

Songwriting approach

For Liar, Nomi sent me a phone recording of his melody and lyric. I played it on a loop while at my keyboard to figure out the basic chord shapes, but also modified his melody so it fit better within the chord progression. I then sent him a short recording of the modified melody with simple piano chords.

Liar was different than Nomi’s earlier songs in that it was slower, with a less positive lyric. For our previous collaborations, I took an up-tempo electro-pop approach to the music. For Liar, I opted for an arrangement with more suspended and seventh chord colours.

Production approach

For most of my electro-pop productions, I start with piano to figure out the chord progressions. Then I discard the piano in favour of synth pads, basses, and lead sounds.

For Liar, I really like the piano track I developed at first. I added a softer jazz synth bass, some strings, and a soft pad to the arrangement. For the strings, I used a combination of realistic orchestral string patches and cheaper, synth-like string patches. It’s not always the premium plug-in that’s best for every purpose.

Dokter Nomi had some ideas about adding some echo vocals singing “Liar, liar, you’re just a liar” to give the second chorus a bit of difference. The vocal part then took the lead in the bridge section.

For the drums, I wanted to keep the beats and fills simple and realistic. Often in electro-pop or EDM productions, I use impossible snare drum fills (aka machine-gun fire) but opted to leave them out for this song.

Listen below and enjoy!