Studio Diary – Last Week Round up

Been a bit slack on the blog for the last week, lots of loose ends getting tied up so here’s a brief recap:

We
had some more session players in on Tuesday doing viola and double bass
on a few tracks, they were great and got everything done in the course
of the afternoon. The viola in Nearly Home is particularly lush, and
the double bass particularly “beefy”. Awesome.

Wednesday
was interrupted by the arrival of Roger, Barry and Sarah, and finally
putting pen to paper on some contracts which was a great relief to
everyone given the shenanigans of the past year! Some bubbly was had
and then we all went through for a preview listen to a few of the
tracks, in their roughest state, which was surprisingly nervewracking
as it was like listening to it with someone else’s ears. I guess we’ve
been a bit over-exposed to them over the last week.

Sarah had brought
some “mood boards” for the album artwork which were good to see and all
tied in nicely with our “brief” (which consisted primarily of random
words so it was a sterling effort to make sense of them!).

We
got Eilert and Ghosts down in between times and on Thursday, with
vocals going down in the evenings when it was a bit darker and more
relaxed in the live room. At one point the incense and candles were out
in full force, and even a bizarre projector lamp which provided some
“ambient” lighting effects on the ceiling.

Friday
saw some more vocals, and group vocals for Albino, which I abstained
from (citing the lack of headphones but more honestly, and as I moaned
at Jim, because it is a risky business letting a drummer anywhere near
a mic. Look at Phil Collins for proof of this). We were tying up loose
ends left, right and centre, with segues and intros going down. My
particular highlight was hitting a Calor gas tank for that “down by the
harbour” bell effect. Although that paled against the evening group
percussion session. There were three layers to this, firstly stamping,
then hitting pots and pans and jangling keys, coupled with myself and T
sharpening knives under the mic. After only a few million takes we had
it sorted, and Tom sneaked himself onto the record (again!) hitting a
fire extinguisher.

With the theramin – mellotron combo,
typewriter (!) and so on in place, Saturday was spent redoing guitars,
accordions and such like, adding a bit of extra “grunt” to the overall
sound. At this stage it is pretty difficult to work out what the
finished article is going to be like, as there are several things all
fighting for your ears’ attention in the control room as Ian C still
has to get each thing in it’s right place in the mix. If it turns out
anywhere near as good as his chilli that he rustled up for our “last
supper” at the studio, it’s going to be a tasty record. And pretty
spicy…

Grant and Ryan arrived
around seven and we settled down to dinner and some of Arne’s premium
cocktails, starting with Mojitos, then on to Mr Caple’s
“hairs-on-your-chest” Seabreeze, then back to Arne’s
“tastes-like-Haribo” Gin Sours. I then remembered that I had an extra
snare drum to put down which was surprisingly ok despite the cocktails.
We took it pretty easy afterwards as it was going to be an early-doors
pack and tidy up effort for the next morning.

Sunday
found us with just enough coffee and porridge left to wake everyone up,
pack the van, and clean the kitchen (the joys of self catering), then
we said our goodbyes and headed off back to Edinburgh. The time has
flown past and I could have happily stayed for another month, but it
had to get finished off at some point so it’s back to the workaday
Edinburgh week, stifling yawns and drinking coffee out of polystyrene
thimbles, until we head down to Ian’s to finish the mixing…

Debut
album – done! (best said in the style of Gordon Ramsey whilst slapping
the back of your right hand into the palm of your left, I find).

BR xxx