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Brianna Lance's 'Sensitive Men' Project | Week 4: 'Drowning' & 'Take It Easy'

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* * * Life moves fast. Luckily, good music offers a peg to hang a memory on and keep your bearings in the merciless info onslaught we're all swimming in. For the last three weeks we've received a midweek spike of good vibes courtesy Brianna Lance [I](https://www.instagram.com/breez_lance/?hl=en)—DJ, creative, and member of the empowering all-female creative collective Les Filles—who has been serving up two tracks from her recent album, _Sensitive Men_, along with videos to match. For those of you who didn’t tune in [last week](https://flaunt-mag.squarespace.com/content/music/brianna-lance-sensitive-men-week-3-change-is-hard-whatcha-want?rq=brianna), the project is Lance’s way of infusing the art world with some much-needed authenticity.  As if that isn’t reason enough to throw on the 'phones, the featured dancers also share some thoughts about what is to come for men, women, music and themselves. And, in this last installment, we have some closing quotes from Brianna on the project.  **Richie Khan** * * * **What’s next for women?** I think women are going to rule. Everyone is over men. Nobody wants to hear what they have to say. It’s women’s turn to call the shots.  **What’s next for men?** I don’t know but probably not much at this point **What’s next for music?**  Making music has become so accessible these days. There’s apps where you can make a whole song on your phone. The same way fast fashion has taken over the market, music will do the same. Artists are putting out new music everyday. I love music so I cant complain.  **What’s next for you?**  Every day new and exciting opportunities are presented to me and I definitely don’t want to limit myself. Whether it’s modeling or curating or acting. i love to push myself, and in the process I learn new things about myself as well.  * * * **Dree Hemingway** **Notes on "Sensitive Men" from Brianna Lance:** When I first started this album the whole idea was to leave my comfort zone. I had been surrounded by women in an all female band, working for an all female company, and essentially having men a part of my creative process more as guest stars rather than main characters. This female dominated work happened so organically I had never really thought about it until it was time to start something new. The extremist in me went for it and decided to make a record in a completely new way than I had before and then main ingredient having not one, but many male collaborators. It was a personal anthropological experiment. How would my creation change if I changed the process of creating. **THE NITTY GRITTY** A quick look into the process, I wrote 8 songs and then asked 8 different men to work on them. The first collaborator in place was my musical hero Dave Fridmann, known for producing and mixing the likes of Flamming Lips, Tame Impala, Cut Copy, etc. Everything he touches has a distinct Dave quality. He was the main ingredient in that it was up to me and him to make it one consistent thing. Next up were the individual guys to work on the songs, Tom Furse (The Horrors), Josh Epstein (Jr Jr), Ben Goldwasser (MGMT), Andrew Wyatt (Miike Snow), Freddie Cowan (The Vaccines), Joe Rogers (Bombz), and Laszlo Horvath (Bombz). All of these men were people who I admired and wanted to work with because of the music they made. The process that followed was, I made a song on my laptop, sent it to the collaborator, they got to then proceed however they wanted, remix the track, ask to meet up and work together, basically it was theirs now to do with what they will. Then that was sent back to me and my control again I added vocals and any changes I wanted to make, finally that was sent to Dave Fridmann and he was given creative freedom to go wild. The last step was talking then about with Dave and my collaborator, making sure we were all happy and there you have it. A psychedelic dance record was born. **LOVE THEM AND LEAVE THEM** The result of this was, to my surprise, exactly what I wanted. The biggest lesson from this, work with people you respect and trust and get something amazing in return. Another great lesson was love them and leave them. The nature of this being a one time thing was like a quickly musically with each person so it stayed special without accumulating any drama. **FEMININE ENERGY** After the whole sonic part of the album was done. The feminine energy was calling. I wanted to make a video component for the album and it was back to the babes. I asked 7 woman and one genderfluid dream boat to each make a video of themselves dancing alone to a track. This line up was Niki Takesh, Rebecca Dayan, Nicola Collie, Anna Gray, Brie Welch, Naomi Shimada, Dree Hemingway and Richie Shazam. My partner in crime for this was my music manager Bec Adams (of female collective Les Filles) who had a tough job in figuring out how to actually do this. I had already learned to trust and let go from making the record and what these babes delivered back was incredible. Trust your gals and they will deliver. **MARS VS VENUS** So the results of the study. What is the difference between men and women when it comes to creating? All in all it came much more down to the individual than the masculine vs feminine generalisation I was making. The men were much more sensitive and delicate with me than I had anticipated (hence the name of the album). The biggest unifier was everyone just wanted to make their best, but still there was some data to be gained from my study. Men communicate less, women empathize more. The reason I say this is because both are things we can learn from one another. The men I worked with said less and got the same point across, which honestly was really refreshing. It made work easier to know you would not have to do to much back and forth when decisions were made. One point to men. The women had a bigger desire to really understand what I wanted. They wanted to work together and really collaborate in the process. This makes you feel a deeper sense of trust and comfort with the person you are working with. One point to the ladies. **TEAM WORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK** So... 17 people deep (not to mention and handful of others that helped realise this whole thing) and the project is done. 8 songs, 8 videos, 1 album, and a lot of learning to work with different personalities and people. If you go into a project looking to learn from the people you are working with you are going to get a lot more out of it than you expected. You also become acutely aware of your effect on others when this many people are in play. My main lesson was, remain calm, listen, and never make assumptions.                                                * * *