So Sunday.... That happened really REALLY quickly. We were back in the wonderful Big Space Studios with Declan getting to work on the vocal tracks for the new Album 'Listen to your inner duck' and it was a session to remember.Both Stuart and Lizzie had spent the week revising lyrics, editing, reformatting and generally polishing the songs in anticipation for the day, adding that to gigs and all other amount of things that generally happen in the world it was one hell of a week, with far less sleep than you would hope for.
But anyhow, we got there at 10am and began working through the 9 songs on the album, sometimes getting a song done in quick order, and then on a few of them (Broke & Good words in particular) we actually started hearing new ideas as we were recording and went about exploring those.
And that is the joy of recording, in particular with someone like Declan. Recording is not a structured thing, it is a creative space and it was great that everyone down there was committed to that ideal, giving space to ideas as they popped into our heads and working through until we had a really good set of recordings we are happy to sign off on. Over the 8 1/2 hours we were in that vocal booth (excluding coffee breaks, and a LOT of them) we went through nearly every emotion it is possible to go through. That is part of the album though, there is a huge range of sounds in the new record, really melancholic numbers offset by faster, larger happier anthems, something for everyone. Like the first EP though that can be difficult to capture, slower, sadder songs need to draw something out of the performance, a humanity that you don't always get with bigger, more thumping songs, it is mixing the light with the dark, the warm with the cold and we are really proud of what we have achieved.
So now we have that done we are just waiting until the 28th December, when everyone else is working on digesting their Christmas dinners and spending time with family, to put the finishing touches on the album, little bits of sparkle to bring the rest of the songs out in the best possible light. A few strings, a bit of bass, maybe even a few percussion pieces. For this we will be enlisting the help of great friend, Keith Conway who has been a huge supporter of the band and it is a genuine pleasure to be working with him. Stuart has gigged with him many times before at festivals and bars and there is no one better placed to add a new dimension to these recordings.
Massive thanks has to go to Declan, a one of a kind producer who allows us all the space to be as mental as we want to be, whilst getting the work out of us, pushing us in the high points and helping us through the ineviteable lags that happen with big recording days, providing caffeine, throat sweets, anything we needed to make us happy again.
