Thursday 28 November 2013

To the Bone: The Third Sessions (Tuesday)


Tuesday: I've changed the title of 'Somewhere North of Here' to 'Huckleberry Dear'. I had initially played a chugging acoustic as a guide to sing against; we decide that, although a bit rough around the edges, it's a keeper and commit to using it as the essence of the track; there's a meditative quality that's quite hypnotic. We then add some Mellotron flutes and voices. Affecting and effective; it sounds like Sparklehorse galloping through Strawberry Fields... is that a good thing? We rub our chins and decide to have a cuppa. When I return with the brew and a cheese butty Marcus has a retro 70s Roland Space Echo and a Wurlitzer reverberating. Lovely! The Scientist then plays a shaker which loosens things up nicely; ironic as it's home made from a coffee bean tin...
'Some Kind of Surrender' sounds Tex/Mex and unlike anything we've ever done before; this should dash the Blue Nile comparisons for a while at least. It's ready to go; just needs a bit of Melvin's magic.
'Fireworks' provides a moment of serendipity; on our first listen through Marcus mishits a mute button and there are no direct drum sounds, only the room overhead mic's which give the song a lovely, late night lonely ambience. It's a High 5 moment for sure. We decide to leave it as it is...
'Dream Horses' sees some spikey chords from the Epiphone semi-acoustic and then sends Marcus back to the house in search of his double bass and dog food for Willow.
We're getting messages that Melvin might be cancelling tomorrow; struck down by 'Man Flu', which is a bummer as he is the final brick in the wall before mixing commences in a couple of weeks...
We have a listen to 'Cabin Fever' which is an odd little thing; part spoken, part sung. We try and emulate the reverbed snare sound from 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. We find a snare sound that is mighty, record it in place, turn the reverb up to '11' and then remove the snare, keeping just the ghostly echo of the reverb; it works really nicely. We'll add some double bass tomorrow but it's now time for curry and beer...

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good day's work for you both. Happy Accidents - the making of many a good album. Some call it fairy dust. Just keep your fingers away from the Delete button. That doesn't work so well.

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  2. Yup, the phrase "we'll wipe that one for now" has yet to be uttered on these sessions. Maybe we're finally developed that much heralded 'sloppy' gene...

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