Record producer and musician, Ian Tilley, has worked with singer Aled Jones for more than 20 years. Photo: Peter Lewis-Dale
It's one of the life's certainties, at least when it comes to male singers: once your voice breaks, your treble sound is gone for good – unless you can find a good record producer, someone like Ian Tilley.
Classical crossover star Aled Jones wowed audiences in the late-20th century with his heavenly boy soprano voice, including the hit song 'Walking in the Air' from the 1985 animated film The Snowman. Until it broke, as all such voices do.
Aled Jones' fourth album in the 'One Voice' series (where the Welshman sings duets with his younger self) is charting at number one in the UK. Photo: Supplied
Early in the 21st century, he re-emerged as a baritone and formed a partnership with Tilley, who produced Jones' records and live shows.
One day in 2015, travelling back from a concert in the back of a car, Jones brought up something from his past.
Speaking to RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump, Tilley recalled the impromptu listening session.
"Aled said, 'have a listen to this', and he pulled out this tape and put it on, and I said, 'wow, what is that?'...It was this recording his mum and dad had kept. His mum and dad have got this huge archive and it was this recording no one had heard of him doing, this album of folk music that was never released, and he said 'what can we do with this?'
"The idea came from that little gem really...we'd duet with himself, man and boy, and it have never been done before."
That was the beginning of the One Voice project.
Eight years later and Jones and Tilley have released the fourth and final album in the series, Full Circle, which features Jones singing light classical numbers with his pre-pubescent self.
Jones' treble rises again, and the result is heading up the UK classical charts.
Of course, it takes a bit of heavy-duty software to make it possible. The childhood Jones didn't record music in a vacuum, there's a whole 1990s orchestra (or at the very least a piano) accompanying the voice.
A crude approach is to block out the frequencies that are outside the younger Aled's vocal range. But what if he's singing the same note as the piano, or a violin?
Tilley uses software which is able to distinguish a note – say a middle C – sung by the boy-soprano Jones, from the identical note played by a piano, or any other instrument for that matter.
That software has only got better since 2015, to the extent that now when Tilley mixes 20th-century Jones with the 21st century model, the former is nothing but the pure treble sound unencumbered by any extraneous material.
But that's only the start of Tilley's wrangling of time and space.
The producer, who has a New Zealand partner, uses musicians from the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra as the backing band: the New Zealand Sinfonietta.
For the latest One Voice album, Tilley was running the show from London, while the band put their tracks down at Orange Studios in Christchurch.
Christchurch: Home of the New Zealand Sinfonietta Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
"I had to dial in and produce the session remotely...there were a few late nights for me."
Once Tilley's mixed the New Zealand Sinfonietta with the 20th century Jones, he calls in Jones' 21st century model to add the final track.
"It's quite a jigsaw puzzle."
All this at the same time what's left of The Beatles have released the song 'Now and Then', performing – thanks to the same sort of artificial intelligence software – with recordings of the two members no longer alive.
With all that talk of AI, does Tilley think artificial intelligence will do him out of a job one day?
"Oh probably, but I think it's going to do us all out of a job isn't it?"
Quasi-joking aside, Tilley thinks it'll be a while before algorithms take the place of humans when it comes to creating music.
Meanwhile, Jones has decided four One Voice albums of singing with himself is enough, leaving the market free for anyone else who might have recordings of their treble voices hanging around in the basement.
Of course, there's also the possibility recordings of you made today will be altered after your death in ways you couldn't possibly imagine, and might not even consent to – but that's another story.
