Monday 16 July 2012

Milo-stones

Good session on Saturday with Jude Merryweather (from Underground Zero) - 4 hours or so, with several digressions and tea breaks, but ripped through her lead vocal on one song, got down her additions to a "choir" section and recorded some spoken-word snippets - which gets one huge track to the "ready to finish" stage. Another would be there too, aside from the decision made at the weekend to use live flute on it - but I can get it as close to finished as possible, and add the flute at a later stage once I get the chance to go to Norfolk to record my "tame flautist".

Inspired by the recent burst of activity, and starting to feel the momentum a bit now, I've launched the Backroom Children page on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/BackroomChildren - please come and like!

Websites will be forthcoming this week, I hope. There will be pages on Soundawesome and Reverbnation for showcasing songs, but these are a little way away yet - need to finish some more final mixes first (always the time-consuming bit).

MB




Tuesday 10 July 2012

Sky, mainly

A grey and miserable weekend, in the main. Rain stopped play, but not playing.


Mainly working on the bass part for "Earth and Sky". I do like *playing* bass, but recording bass is more frustrating, as you then hear all the mistakes. This song is in five sections, and the fourth one was definitely a challenge for a (relatively) novice bass-player such as myself - played it right through several times before getting a take that had some good bits, then went back and did (many) drop-ins to fix the fluffs, and came back to it on Monday evening to fix a few other things that I knew I'd wince at every time heard them..... but it is, at last, done.


I also added a (programmed) flute solo using the rather good Inox Flute VST plug-in (free!) - but this may get dumped - it's not brilliant, and lying in bed later, I was thinking about a vocal in the same place. What I'd *really* like there is a sax solo, but I don't have a tame sax player to call on - although we managed to get live sax on both the Osiris albums, it was always a bit uphill. Where is Didier Malherbe when you need him...... ?

Friday 6 July 2012

Winners and Losers

Glancing back through this blog, I came across a prospective track-listing for the Osiris album I was working on at that point. So, I thought it might be interesting to confirm-or-deny which of those tracks still have life. 


Crystal Starlight - this got finished, with a vocal by Jude, and is with Dave. Since he wrote some of it, and plays bass, it's as Osiris track, and it's therefore down to him.



Today is only Yesterday's Tomorrow - again, a Dave-written track of which he has a finished mix.

Intus Extra Caput Meum - has a new lyric, and is now called Earth and Sky.It still sounds very "70s Gong".


Break The Chain (working title) - became Chain of Thought in collaboration with Bridget, and has gone for inclusion on a Spirits Burning album, as and when.


More Light - See previous blog entry.


Child of the Sable Night - Dave's original spoken-word piece. Never got anything done with it.


Jabberwocky - still live and dangerous. Violin from Cyndee, piano from Howard Boder and a cast of thousands on vocals.


Nanobots - final vocals being recorded next weekend if all goes to plan. Definitely still in the mix.




I'm not under any illusions about anyone else keeping track of any of this - but if I have any internet stalkers - Hi there :)


MB





More of the same

Quite a productive week.

Last weekend, after many abortive attempts, I managed to finish off the bass part for a revamp of "More Light" - the Osiris The Rebirth cut of this track is on the "Allies & Clansmen II" free CD available from Omenopus,.com . However - this was an edited version, and I always planned to do a better one. Having finally nailed the bass part, I got in touch with Nigel Potter , who very kindly played some rather good lead guitar, as the icing on the cake. As a result, I managed to get this track finished on Wednesday. Yes!!! A finished track!!!! As an aside - Lee Potts (of Omenopus) is also cooking an "Omenopus remix" of this track. Goody, goody.....

In other news, also last weekend, I put the finishing touches to a track for the Raspberry Silk project with my friend Kim Novak - Kim has guested on both Osiris albums, but we've been working together over 10 years, on and off on different things. Raspberry Silk is a more mainstream project, and is very much a duo. This song - "Tell Him No" was written by Kim, and recorded for her 2007 solo album "Pilot Light". We've now nabbed it, rocked it up some and merged it with a spoken-word track from her 2009 album "One Way". Sounds pretty good, and will emerge in the fullness of time.

Progress this week also on a new song, title TBC, which should be a fourth collaboration with Bridget Wishart. Previously, the Osiris The Rebirth tracks "Starlight Scorpio" and "Planetscape" featured Bridget's unique talents, and there is also a collaboration between she and I that's heading for an album under Don Falcone's "Spirits Burning" project.

This evening (Friday), I've recorded the vocals for the song "Earth and Sky", with lyrics by my old mate Duane Tate. Also, bass guitar and vocals now in from Vince Negri for his self-penned song "Exult", so this is now good to go for the final fix & mix.

Mark my words, Marcel, sinister forces are at work......


MB