Hollows Studio Journal
Contained on this page is the Hollows Studio Journal, which originally appeared as a blog. It is here in static form (you can't comment). There's a lot of information on how we recorded and what sounds are what, so if you don't want the magic ruined then please stop reading now.
Serious Symmetry
October 20, 2005
With my disastrous excursion to Melbourne out of the way Ness and I have wasted no time making an official start on Hollows. It's been happening in the background for a while now. We actually started it long before Serpent was even finished with a couple of ideas - being Symmetry and House. We got together the other night at the studio to record (what we currently think is) the final version of Symmetry. And that's what this post is about.
For two people who rarely talk or see each other to be in a band would seem funny to most. Bands are about hard work, close friendships and spending lots of time in grotty motels getting pissed on cheap bourbon. The only bit true for us about that is the close friendship Ness and I share (and the cheap bourbon bit applies to me too). We generally don't like hard work, and as such take our time with everything. We've never been into playing live. No, that's a lie, we'd love to but it's just too hard. After the session the other night we decided to be a studio band, like they had in the 80's, and we think it suits us.
I recorded a demo of Symmetry in December 2003. I'd not done a lot of writing in the preceding months and forced myself to actually finish something new. That was in the West End Ugly World. It nearly prompted me to pull the pin on the majority of Serpent and rewrite it with our new found groove and chunk. Thankfully I couldn't be bothered. Symmetry went on to feature in the film One Night only a month after it was recorded. The credits on One Night say "From the forthcoming album November" and that proves how old it is.
Anyway, nearly 2 years later we've finalised the song. At this stage it is going to be track one on Hollows, and what a suitable beast it is. It weighs in at 7:39 and is so very us. Listen to the sample and then I'll talk some more...
Symmetry Sample (verse 2 and chorus 1)
Vanessa has this ability to do pretty much anything. I suggested a Marianne Faithful style vocal. You know, old lady, lots of cigarettes and mature emotional pain. She put on her Numb voice and got it almost in one. We did a number of takes just to get the rhythm right (I have a habit of writing vocal lines with rhythms completely foreign to anyone but myself).
I'd worked on the track all afternoon so Ness could just come in put her vocals on. I didn't need to do much to bring it up to scratch though. I'd done separate comps from the original Acid session (synths, live drums, synth drums, heavy guitars, tremolo guitars, basses etc) that I'd forgotten I'd done. I quite enjoy working in Acid cause it means less thinking and then I can drag the comps into Pro Tools to make them sound all bright and shiny. I added minimal things, including the BOOM!!! sound I made years ago on the Korg which features just before the choruses (low rumble) and during the choruses (high but dark spacey in-a-big-mean-city-at-night sound) and the sound effects. I re-recorded my backing vocals at the end, which have come out more like co-lead vocals. I also extended the ending with one more time through the big chunky riff.
We maxed out the tracks on this one. Pro Tools LE has only 32, and damn it, that's not enough! A few things ended up in odd places, making the bulk of the mixing volume and effect automation, but very little EQ. I tried compressing and EQing the bass but it lost all it's guts. I usually like a tight punchy bass, but this time round it really damaged the song so I kept the super-low flabby bass. Vanessa's vocal effects were quite intricate also. During the verses each line has two vocals: one that is low and cold (which is then cut and manually put in place for the delay effect) and the other that is an octave above and totally saturated. The idea was that you would mainly hear the low vocal and the tail of the high vocal's reverb would be a bit disorientating. We also did a bit of literal-heavy-handedness. In the second verse, rather than the low vocal repeating the word 'eternity', it's the high and on the word 'emptiness' there are no delays or reverb tails. It's definitely a good headphone listen.
While the track was bouncing we got distracted taking silly photos of ourselves - which you can see one fruit of just up this post a little.
The Symmetry List:
(1) Those heavy guitars (there are two of them panned hard left and right) are tuned down to a power chord starting on a low A. My strings were very loose. (2) The synth drums were all done in Hammerhead. If you know what I'm talking about you're in one of two camps being 'Hammerhead is shit, get a real drum machine' or 'Hammerhead is cool cause it's simple and a shit'. (3) There are 7 guitar tracks in total, 2 bass tracks and 7 vocal tracks.
Wish I Was There
November 3, 2005
Amendment: Since I wrote this post the song has been finished but with lyrics different to what we had in mind. As a result we've changed the name of the song to "Bare Foot In The Grass" and are holding over the title "Wish I Were Here" for something else. It goes without saying now that all references in this post to "Wish I Were Here" should be read as if it says "Bare Foot In The Grass".
These things are bound to happen really, aren't they. Yesterday Vanessa and I had planned to have session number 2 and walk away with song number 2. It didn't pan out quite how we'd anticipated. I told Vanessa to not even bother coming.
After waiting in the city for Allans to open (for 2 hours) my resistence to all-things-shiny-and-new had been sufficiently beaten into the ground. I needed to buy some new strings and as it turned out they came attached to a new Epiphone. Oops. I arrived at the studio about 10am expecting to get straight to work on House. After listening to what I've already done on it a few times I realised I wasn't ready, or it wasn't ready, or we both just weren't ready to commit to a day together. I stuffed around with some other things and eventually settled on a little song I only had lyrics for called Wish I Were Here. Have a listen and we'll talk.
Bare Foot In The Grass Demo Sample (Instrumental Section)
What you heard there is the only part of the song so far that has any dynamic to it. The whole thing needs an overhaul, but it's not as disappointing as I first thought. Overall the song needs more of everything. More brightness and darkness, more shifting, more change. In its current form it is probably the most boring 8 minute song I've heard.
I recorded the Hammond first. Yes, it's all real Hammond, with a Leslie and everything. The funny thing I find about recording the Hammond in stereo is that when the Leslie is on but you're not playing anything and you're ready to go with the headhphones on the noise of the speaker sounds like someone sharpening a knife through your head. It's quite a bizarre sound and I do plan to record just that sound sometime, provided I can get enough gain out of it. The Hammond runs the whole way through the song - something that might need to be revised. I put down the electric guitars next, using the new one run through just a little bit of EQ, but played twice and panned hard left and right in the usual fashion. There are two basses on this track. One tuned down to a low low low A and the other at normal tuning. Hohner electric piano and other wiggly synth things followed. Lastly the blip was added - and despite it probably being easier to cut and paste a couple of them I did indeed play each and every blip.
The drums are the cause of most of my frustration with this song at the moment. What you hear in the clip are the same drums we used when we recorded Invisible for Serpent, not that it made it on. Coupled with a similar tempo, chord movement and arrangement all I can hear is Invisible. And it's driving me nuts! I experimented with some electronic drums but they didn't quite work either; far too poppy - it was starting to sound like a George Michael song. I haven't found a solution yet but am determined that this song won't fall to the side.
Reverb is something I have very particular tastes in at the moment. When I was little, with my 4 track and Zoom 505, I'd turn the reverb all the way up and put it on anything I could. Live, I would always be asked to "Turn off the reverb Tim, no-one can understand what she's singing!" Upon recording something for the first time in a proper studio when I was 15 I asked for the reverb to be turned up and up again. Still, at the Conservatorium, I was fascinated by big lush reverbs. You know the kind, reverbs you can really hear. I find though, that I'm not too fond of reverb much anymore. Well, that's not quite true, I love it, but I hate to hear it. I find I'm constantly striving to get lush sounds using reverb without hearing the reverb itself. I can't stand to hear that synthesised air around everything, but still want it to have space. Generally cutting the tops off the reverb works a treat, but I'm becoming more and more sensitive to it.
We've got another session planned for a fortnight, and I'll be putting in some work on Wish I Were Here between now and then so with any luck it can be all finished!
This is a Working Title
November 17, 2005
Can you successfully combine Typical Manzuma, pop, west-coast-teenage-summer-cars-and-girls-punk, industrial and trance, occurring independently in one song? The answer is no. I tried that yesterday during an epic 16 hour session at the Ugly World. I did make myself laugh a lot while I was recording, but I think it was laughing at the song not with it. I worked for 12 hours on it before Vanessa made her grand entrance at 7pm and suggested keeping a little bit and scrapping the rest. I agreed, and in about 4 hours we'd finished a little song we started writing 4 years ago. Don't give me shit, you know we take our time.
The song I'm talking about is Uncommon Dream. At this point the original title remains but will be fixed. It is so wrong for so many different reasons. Allow me to fill in the gaps. In August of 2001 I'd finished up at the Conservativorium (I quit while I was ahead; they were about to escort me from the building) and was filling in my time by writing children's songs with Julie Walton and writing songs like Fall To Earth, Mantra, A Hand In The Rail and Gentle Sport. The latter we've never recorded, but it does make a cool name for a blog. The other three are on Serpent. This little writing spree also gave birth to Uncommon Dream. Back then it was intended to be the next Edge Of A Cloud, all hopeful and fuzzy, but it didn't cut it. We worked it for so many hours but never found its spot. In mid-2002 we had another go at it, adding a new chorus and rehearsing it for live use. It has never been performed. Jump forward to June 2005 and you find Vanessa and I in the same room the song was written, recording a piano/vocal demo of it hoping that slowing it down would give it the 'thing' it's always needed. That didn't work either.
Another six months added to the song's age has obviously worked a treat. Mature now, vintage even, elderly. When I started yesterday I kept the song's original structure, but altered the darker parts to make them a little more Manzuma. The arrangement was from scratch as Larry (the laptop I've used for midi sequencing and arrangements for years) is on the blink right now. More correctly, he's not blinking anything at all. I laid out the basic structure in Acid before bringing it into Pro Tools and actually having fun. I taught myself to play slide guitar for this one too. And much like the heavy-metal-muted effect Ionesco tried to achieve on Home there were some basic techniques I'd had wrong in my head. Did you know you don't need to have the string and slide (red lighter) pushed all the way to the fret? Amazing! I put slide guitar the whole way through the song, even in the pop-punk chorus. As I said, I was laughing. I thought it was all finished, despite not being entirely happy with it and the humour of the arrangement had well worn off by hour 12. Vanessa came, and we did this:
Uncommon Dream (Verse 1, Chorus 1)
What you hear is essentially a demo. A demo that seems a little contradictory considering my recent comments on reverb. It still needs a fair bit of work, but the basics are there. There are two slide guitars in there - one Yamaha and one Epiphone, both run through the old Zoom 505. The super-compressed metal guitar has been, in usual fashion, doubled and panned. The most effective part of this song at the moment is the vocal treatment. Vanessa first sang the high melody. She then sang/spoke/whispered the same thing an octave lower twice and we panned them hard left and right. We kept the high vocal in the centre but removed all but the reverb. What you end up with is the slightly disorientating sound of hearing the high melody but getting the definition from the whispers.
This song was recorded in the same way I've been working on Julie Walton's album. That is, ensuring that everything matches the grid in Pro Tools. So long as the tempo of any original loops is correct it's incredibly easy to shuffle things around. And that's the only reason we were able to pull the song apart so quickly last night. We re-wrote the verses and choruses, keeping only little tags. Structure and basics completed, it now does not resemble the little song I wrote back in 2001. We have however kept a little chunk of it, which happens much later in the song. It's a bit weird, but we like it that way.
As mentioned up the page, we need a new name for this song. If you have any suggestions we'd really like to know. Just leave a comment.
I also must say a quick happy birthday to Vanessa's first child, Aleska, who turns 2 today.
Yet Another Movie
December 6, 2005
A gruelling schedule of Christmas parties and shopping has delayed my write up of last week's session. Please accept all apologies.
Last Wednesday's session was typical, and completely out of the ordinary all rolled into one neat 13 hour package. I've been listening to a lot of harmocially simple music lately, and it's starting to show. I arrived at the studio with nothing more than a basic chord progression in mind and a drive to make something from scratch. This was obviously helped by Vanessa and I not having much left up our sleeves as far as existing material goes.
I built the song up from my Hohner, really dirty, and a little loop I found, made from a Tic Tacs container. Slowly but surely it grew into another 7 minute beast with all the signs of a Manzuma song but disguised as an 80's power ballad. Are you confused? I am. Let's list the elements. (1) Anthemic chorus. (2) Clean muted guitar riffs. (3) Big clean acoutic drums that are slow, really slow. (4) Words that really mean nothing at all but could probably find some relevance to anyone listening. (5) The "end of a movie" factor. Emphasis on the "end of a movie" factor. Have a listen to the second chorus...
Allow me to backtrack a little bit (right now it's too hot to even breathe let alone think in logical steps). I had all the music done by about 7pm. Upon Vanessa's arrival, and after convincing a family member that looking at random old photos was not a priority, we sat with her lyric book and found nothing that would slot straight in. We looped a verse and a chorus. Listening to this I wrote the lyrics while Vanessa wrote the melody. We slammed the two together without any trouble. We recorded the vocal in one long take and went back and replaced verses, then choruses, then middle 8 (yep, we have a standard middle 8 in this one, no extended solo, no weird bits, ambient messy bits). The first verse vocal is just dirty Hohner and dirty voice. The second verse is dirty Hohner and clean voice and 80's muted guitars. The Hammond swells and the first chorus hits. Not as hard as I'd like but I'll fix that. The vocals in all choruses are doubled and panned a little. This gives it great space and the slight intonation makes it sound big. And big is what power ballads are all about. Agree? I've got my voice on this one too, and when we're done there will be a little bit more of it, right at the end. The middle 8 features some sitar and ethnic drums just so we can feel like it fits with our other material. The chorus repeats at the end and the whole song fades into a blur of strings, slide and a repeated piano note which eventually warps into a fuzzy little thing in the distance. Done.
As far as the title goes, it's another working title. If you'd like to offer suggestions just post a comment. Obviously we'll give you a free CD and some credit or something if we use it. But no money.
And it's been birthdays all round, for everyone! The day we recorded this song, November 30, was Vanessa's borthday. And she didn't tell anyone. Not even her parents.
The Full Circle List:
(1) This is the first completely new song we've written since Darker Spaces, also recorded impulsively on the second day of recording Serpent. (2) This is the first song we've used the Hohner in. It's been used numerous times on other people's music, just not Manzuma's. (3) As the album stands the shortest song is still 6 minutes something giving us a total of 30 minutes after only 4 songs. (4) This is the only song we've ever written/recorded to not have a solo/instrumental of some sort.
And in this Hottest of Hot Places
December 15, 2005
Ah, back on track, keeping up with it. Posting the day after a session is just the way it should be. We're now 4 proper songs into the album, and 28 minutes. If we keep going like this we only need another 2 songs and it will be finished. Considering my fondness for long songs and 40-something minute albums that would suit me, but not Vanessa. She wants 11 songs on Hollows. It's going to be a long album.
The 36 degree heat of the day got to me and I had to comment on it in the lyrics of the new song. I tried to write this song on Tuesday but in 8 studio hours achieved nothing. To cope with the pain of non-productivity I drank bourbon with my brother and recorded the storm that tried to break the heat. (What's better than the sound of thunder is the sound of cars driving the wet road outside the studio.) Elisha Sando came and recorded in the late evening with a new guitar and a bottle of red and I thought to myself, "Well, I didn't do anything today, but there's always tomorrow." Have a sense of humour.
Vanessa and I have continued our 80's theme with Always Tomorrow, another we composed and recorded in the one long 15 hour session. It started with a little dirty guitar riff on the Epiphone and grew into something of a cross between dark Peter Gabriel and The Rasmus. My head is already hung in shame. I worked through most of the day, but the heat finally got to me at 4:30 and I fell asleep in the studio. Evidently the 'cool change' that came through at lunch time skipped the Ugly World. Vanessa arrived as usual about 7:30 and we had a listen to the song.
Always Tomorrow Sample (Chorus 1, Verse 3)
Neither of us feel quite as inspired about this one as many of our others, but agree that it will brush up fine with some more work. What you hear in that sample is chorus 1 and verse 3. What you don't hear is verse 1 which is my current favourite bit. After the introduction (which builds with percussion, the Estey bellow organ, beats and bass) everything drops away to Vanessa's voice, some whirly, a ticking-clicking type loop and far off crash cymbals. Without any effort at all I am transported to a small dark place, and it's very very hot there.
Without writing in any logical order, jump back to 7:30. After listening to the song and having a chat about what to do with it (Vanessa: "Yes, I'm hearing some big notes in that chorus. It's a big chorus.") we again sat with a verse and chorus looped while Ness wrote notes and I wrote words. We jammed the two together and off we went to record many many vocal tracks. The mix on this was fast and will need to be done again (as will all of these samples you get to hear). It's always a bad idea to mix after recording for 15 hours.
Just to touch quickly on the overall progress of Hollows, a comment was made in the car last night about the new stuff having a lot more balls than Serpent. We're having more fun with sounds of a less-typically perfect nature. Do you agree? It's okay to leave a comment if you bother to read this. We like comments, yes.
The Always Tomorrow List:
(1) As I mentioned just then, we've used the Estey (See insert photo with insert)! At long last! So far it's been used almost exclusively by Moscowine, and on my Old Wood project (which for anyone interested is still happening, albeit slowly). Its presence will be more apparent when I've mixed the song properly. (2) There are 9 vocal tracks on this song. You wouldn't pick it, but with all the overlap we could do it no other way (3) For the most part, the lyrics on this song actually mean something. What that is I doubt you'll ever know. (4) During the instrumental section Vanessa was compelled to show off her traditional eastern-style vocalising, of which two snippets have been kept. Okay, that's not the entire truth. I convinced her to give it a go. We removed the giggles either side.
It's Ash... & Blown Away
January 6, 2006
Sometimes it's easy and other times it's not. This could well apply to anything; I could even apply it to brushing my teeth (but won't go into that). I'm referring to writing songs of course. Songs will occasionally just drop out like they've been there all along, only needing a speck of dust to be dislodged before they fall. Other songs, like Ash, and Blown Away, have to be dragged kicking and screaming. I'll never say that the end result of either process is better than the other, and in the case of Ash, and Blown Away it simply hasn't settled for long enough for me to make a call.
This one started a few weeks ago with the idea that I could record some chimes, find a loopable part and run that the length of a song. I had nothing beyond that; no notes, no words, no mood even. I recorded the chimes, found the loopable part and looped it. Success. I then grabbed what used to be the top of a cafe-style table (the base of which perished in the rain way up the backyard in Toowong). Upon discovering the incredible sound this thing made when it was struck or shook I added it to the studio. It's more frequently been a hazard than an instrument; I've cut my fingers and my feet on it more times than I've recorded it. I recorded myself hitting it with a pen, doubled it, reverse engineered it and ran it along with the chime loop. I thought it sounded great, but I still didn't have any notes - and they are fairly important. I postponed the getting of notes by recording a dodgy drum beat from the Hammond and setting it to the tempo of the song. And that is where I left it. It was too hot and I couldn't think with sweat pouring out every pore.
I returned to the song a week later and again was uninspired. If I didn't have to find notes for things then everything would be simple.
Add another week, some pressure to compose and yet more hot hot weather (but this time with a fan in the studio) and Ash, And Blown Away takes the opportunity I knew it'd been waiting for. I scrapped the tabletop loop, and the Hammond drums in favour of some drums that sound like they're straight off Bjork's Homogenic. I recorded a little melody using a glockenspeil sound on the K5000 - then had to work out what I'd played when I deemed it a sufficiently catchy base for the song. I built the song up using mainly guitars. This I find funny because I'm not a guitarist - I play guitar adequately but am really a keyboardist. I think in terms of black and white notes and scales that can only be played one way, and how there is only one middle C on a piano not 3. Regardless of my skill level I seem to be favouring guitar based things at the moment. I made the sound using the old Zoom 2020, which is normally so temperamental that the instant a distortion patch is selected it craps itself. It must have been a good day (!) as it let me use distortion AS WELL as tremolo, delay, reverb, eq. I used the same sound for all parts (that's 2 lower, 2 effect-type parts, 2 high and 2 slide parts). Hey, it works on this song. Listen now: (And it's time for a new paragraph anyway.)
Ash, & Blown Away Sample (Chorus 1)
Click for downloadAsh, and Blown Away Sample (Chorus 1) 752kbVanessa hits the highest note she's ever hit (bar one - a tone above in Edge Of A Cloud). She really spits it out, which is exactly what the song needs. Despite the fact that I hadn't even finished writing the song when she arrived (the bare Floyd-ish organ section in the middle is still not finished) we have managed something that resembles a song. Once Vanessa and I listened to the instrumental I gave her the first verse and she toddled off outside to write a melody while I sat in the studio and wrote the remaining verse lyrics. We recorded the verses but still didn't have a chorus. Vanessa went through her books but couldn't find anything suitable so I went through mine a stumbled on some words I'd written originally for Serpent. They were full of Serpent references - 'When you come and when you go' and teddy bears etc - but a couple of lines worked for Ash, and Blown Away so I poached them. And we recorded them.
After some detailed work on the vocal delays and a quick mix we ended up finishing early. Go figure. Maybe we should rush things more often. The final weight is 7:34.
As much as I'm enjoying the speed at which we're working I am feeling a bit hollow about some of the content. It feels to me like every song we've done in the last little while is like a Peter Jackson film - big and grand but with no substance. I don't think they sound like that to a listener and that's important, but it's also important that Vanessa and I have an attachment to the songs, that we put in something more than formula. Witht hat in mind I'm going to spend some time writing the words before the session and allow the words to dictate how the song sounds. Just like old times. I understand that this is a dangerous paragraph, tearing my own work apart in a public area, but someone will do it - it might as well be me. And I'm not saying that I don't like what we've done, I just don't have the same attachment to it compared with some other things I've done.
Next on the list is completing Wish I Were Here by cutting it back from 8 minutes to something more realistic and writing a faster song. Yes, a faster song.
We're on the Grass with No Shoes
January 12, 2006
It's shaping up to be a slow album. Instead of recording a faster song this week we've done the opposite and finished a song we started a while ago that's slower than anything else. I've been asked before how to write a song that's longer than 2 and a half minutes. And it's easy. It's easy to write one substantially longer, say 6:21, just by dropping the tempo and slowing your brain to suit. Bare Foot In The Grass is a prime example of a short song gone long.
The original title for this one was Wish I Were Here. We still plan to use the title, but the lyrics that Vanessa wrote for that music meant that the title was no longer suitable. If you've read that post, you'll know all about how we recorded the music for the song. Yesterday I went in to the studio to cut it back a little and give it the dynamic I was talking about. I did that by dropping things out. I know that's not my style, but I thought I could try something new. I did add an extra guitar part - just some harmonics that pop in and out. Most of my time yesterday was spent fiddling with the drums. The drums that I'd used made the song sound like a direct copy of another of our songs, Invisible (from Atmospherics), enhanced by the sine blip and Hammond. I poached some drums from Elisha's Sunlight, but (after an hour or so) it was clear that they weren't perfectly in time so I reverted to the original.
Bare Foot In The Grass Sample 2 (Last Verse)
Unlike the way we've been writing, Vanessa has had the instrumental track for Bare Foot since early November. She put some of her own lyrics to it which meant that when she arrived yesterday we (a) had to just whack 'em on and (b) had time to play with other things. There's not much to say about Bare Foot In The Grass that hasn't been said in the Wish I Were Here post, except to mention that the song is a dedication to Vanessa's aunt Lorraine who died in July 2005.
Yesterday's session was a little scattered. I finished toying with the backing for Bare Foot and, as mentioned above, played with some other things. I added a new vocal to Full Circle and adjusted the mix and even had enough time to record this. Look after that little sample by the way as you'll never hear me do something so country again. I laughed. And hope you do also. Our main focus after finishing Bare Foot In The Grass was to do some work on the middle section of Ash, and Blown Away. When we left it last week the Floyd-type middle part was nothing more than a constant ride cymbal and an organ solo. This week we added an Egyptian tabla that I played with my hand and a stick and a range of recorders and flutey things. The picture is of Vanessa playing the Dragon Flute (with approriate capitalisation). I have no idea where this instrument was born, but it is carved in the shape of a dragon, has an odd reed-type system and six finger hole things. If anyone knows the correct term for these holes please let me know - I feel inadequate at not knowing. It's been hanging around the studio since we were in Taringa the first time, but previously used only once on a track called Microwave I recorded a few years back (featuring a paint tin, mobile phone and autoharp among other things). It's a pleasure to hear it on an album.
We had a chance to chat about the direction the album is taking, which we don't mind at all but think it needs some chunkier tracks. Vanessa has almost convinced me to not have a big long song on this one. My disappointment is obvious. She said the big song in the middle (not the end like the other album) doesn't necessarily have to be long. I don't agree, but don't think I feel like writing a 15 minute epic today. And besides, I have to do some washing and mow the lawn.
Coming Soon: One 24" Red Helium Balloon
February 11, 2006
Updates have slowed for one simple reason. On January I-don't-want-to-remember-the-date I went back to work full time leaving chunks less time for music. We've kept plodding along though, and quicker than my last incident of full-timedness too. That said though, there is no photo for this post, and no samples. We demo'd 2 new songs last Wednesday night - Small Pulses and Sixteen Cranes - but I've decided not to give even a hint. They are simply not ready yet. When the album is finished I'll have some demo's available - the most exciting one being the demo of Uncommon Dream.
The other night was the first time in a long time that Vanessa and I have sat in a room and worked on something new from scratch, together. We used to write like that all the time. Or I'd write by myself. (As you should be aware) most of Hollows has come about by me recording music and the 2 of us slamming words and melody into it until it fits. It's a speedy way to work, but feels less like composing. I won't go into all the gory details of Small Pulses and Sixteen Cranes. I will wait until they are finished.
We have a photo shoot tomorrow. I'm anticipating a lot of fun will be had with the Estey organ, 4 square mirrors, swimming pool and a 24" red helium balloon. And if you're reading this, it's okay to leave a comment, really it is; I don't write this entirely for myself.
Waves of Torment / Waves of Tall Men
February 18, 2006
I can't help myself. When I do something I need to share it, tell everyone about it. I have a big mouth. Example: I was told yesterday that I've been successful in my application for a new position at work but was asked not to tell anyone until the HR manager could send out the official email. I told the first person I saw. Oops. I've held off a week and now I'm letting Small Pulses and Sixteen Cranes out. But first...!
Left of this are some candid shots from the Manzuma photo day last Sunday. What a lot of fun it was to play with the Estey outside and a big red balloon! Starting at the studio, in the courtyard, we did Estey and Mirror, Tea Party on the Lawn and Up and Away in a Big Red Balloon. Studio carpark corridor was Toy Instruments, studio inside was Typical Symmetrical Manzuma with Lights. Then to Boondall to Get All Wet, but none of those photos are there. (It was the first time I've been in a pool fully clothed as I've never been one to impulsively jump in or allow myself to be in a situation that could result in being pushed in. My mother will tell you, self preservation is my guiding light.) Mr Robert Braiden was the official photographer, but all of these images are by Log; avoiding work to play with us. When Vanessa and I are finished boiling down the 400 photos we expect to have about 4 that we'll use. And maybe more that we can use over the next couple of years. It was nothing like illegally walking all over an aeroplane late in the afternoon but was fun just the same.
Back to music! As I said in the last post, working full time has its drawbacks. We've now done 2 sessions on Sixteen Cranes and have generated only 2 minutes of music and used up all the lyrics I had written for the song. Nevertheless, I'll treat it as a demo for the purpose of this post. I have some major concerns with this song and think it's going to need some equally major surgery to bring it up to scratch. The intro sits at about 8 seconds at the moment and despite Vanessa and I wanting a song that "just comes straight in" I do think it's too short. I also think it needs a little more space between sections, some SM58 vocals run through a distortion pedal and some more general fucking-with-it type things.
Like all of the new songs, I'm still growing my relationship with this one. And that's one of the main struggles with 'pushing forward'; we were so set with the Serpent songs and they sat for so long that it's challenging getting to know new songs that are different. I console myself by saying it's good and as it should be. Have a listen...
Sixteen Cranes Demo Sample (Chorus Tail & Verse 2)
Yeah. Still needs some work. Some vocals need to be redone, but that's my fault for setting the gain too high. Slide needs to be redone, but that's my fault for hitting the high notes too hard. Do you like it? Moving on to Small Pulses. This is a real demo. This was done in only an hour a week and a half ago. I just needed to get it out of my system; the idea had been there for weeks and weeks. It was not my intention to actually like the song but I do. And Vanessa's poor articulation in the chorus (it's only poor because she was reading the lyrics for only the 2nd time as she was singing the song) has seeded an idea that'll help the song heaps. You don't know what that is and I'm not telling you. Listen now...
Small Pulses Demo Sample 1 (Verse 4, Chorus 2)
The plan with Small Pulses is to go theatrical. I'm going to record a heap of sound effects to match what's happening in the lyrics. It'll all be very literal, obvious, heavy handed. I'm going to, of course, replace the keyboard piano with Jason's white grand piano and I'd like a string quartet in there too. I'm keeping the atmospheric stuff aswell.
In the Ash post I mentioned our Peter Jackson-ness. I'm now discovering a connection with some of the new material, in particular the two songs that this post covers. The lyrics in these two songs actually mean something to me. There is meaning in most parts of all the words on Hollows, but in particular Sixteen Cranes and Small Pulses. And it's funny where inspiration can come from. Last Sunday night I was buggered and needing to watch TV (I've explained my TV habits to some people and they don't seem to understand but agree it's healthier than needing to watch all these shows every week). I watched Law & Order SVU. Enough said; but (in another contradictory moment) it is funny where inspiration comes from.
Pulling Teeth
March 15, 2006
We pulled some more teeth on Sixteen Cranes for 2 sessions after what's been heard here. We're suspended in something homeless right now and until I find a place for my studio, my self, my stuff and my cat we'll be on hold. We're not too far off finishing though - only 1 more song to record aside from the 2 little ones. And Ash... is a most beautiful 9 and a half minutes now.
It's All Right Here, Right Now
April 25, 2006
About This Post:
Without any time in the week just past to write anything about our final Hollows sessions I've been forced to leave it until now. But that's okay, because chances are you're reading this well in the future. Weekend before last, we finished the album in a marathon 5 day fix-patch-write-tidy-mix-master session. I did about 72 hours in those 5 days (and you don't have to work that out - it's a bit more than 14 hours a day). Rather than put each day into a separate post, it's all in one, broken chronologically.
Thursday April 13th, 2006: Piano Day
You'll recall the demo of Small Pulses I posted, which promised grand piano. I hope you remember that. On the date above, I trekked out to Organic Audio to record that grand piano. (Photos to the left). Jason had been shooting a clip the night before and forgot we were coming. Resisting the temptation to snap some shots in a square room, walls and floor covered with sheet music, was not easy. The studio was a bit of a mess, and Jason apologised profusely to which my thoughts were "I'm not paying you - why should you be worried about thousands of dollars worth of music and film gear lying around looking untidy."
The piano at Organic Audio is tucked away in a little room between the control room and studio; a room big enough to fit only the piano, a pianist and dedicated photographer. I used Jason's stereo Rode microphone 'cause it was easy and ran everything straight into the session on my laptop. He did offer for me to use his big-mother preamps but I declined (who really wants to use Neve gear anyway...?). The piano itself has a slight honk to it, which is so very real. I did have some trouble mixing it - it's been a while, lets face it, with a lot of keyboards in between - but what I have ended up with is a piano that sounds very much like a piano and not a crisp-perfect-128-note-polyphony-64-bit-multisample piano. It's uncomplicated. I also re-recorded the piano in Full Circle (which previously was a keyboard) and still had some time left. So I played the opening riff to Always Tomorrow, thinking I might be able to use it somewhere - perhaps The Shortest Of Years (but more on that a bit later). We were in and out in 2 hours.
The rest of my afternoon was back at Ugly World pulling my hair out over Sixteen Cranes and working on a little song called Hollow that I wrote way back in the time of Bardon. Hollow got to change its name on the last day of recording (but a bit more on that later, again). I have to say just now, too, that I've never had a song like Sixteen Cranes. I imagine giving birth to a fully grown man would hurt less. I'm sure I've said this before, but sometimes they just slip out (songs, not fully grown men) and sometimes they're the best - and others, like Sixteen Cranes, have to be coaxed out, and pulled out, and threatened. I don't particularly like talking about songs as separate from myself (Tori Amos is better at that than me) because they're not. If I can't manage to finish it then it's not the song's fault, I'm aware of that. It's usually me having a bad day, being lazy, bored and a little too conventional. But, people do seem to relate to the whole external thing; is why it's here.
Friday April 14th, 2006: More at Ugly World, Pre-Vanessa
This was Good Friday, but not going in for the Jesus thing I spent my day in the studio. Which is a bit make-shift at the moment. See, we've only just moved in here and getting the Brady-esque Galactic Funk vibe right in the house has taken precedence. I actually don't remember anything specific that happened on this day. I probably lined up the piano on Full Circle, and added 303 to Always Tomorrow. We'll never know. I remember being stressed about needing everything to be finished for Saturday - the only day Vanessa was available.
Yes, that's right. I spent most of the day on Hollow. This is a little out of sync, but an explanation is warranted. As I've said, I wrote Hollow years ago, when I still lived in Bardon, one night in the sunroom on the floor. I don't remember whether we had cats or not, but I had a loan of a friend's 12 string acoustic guitar. Anyway, these words were well-hippie and the original music was big and slow. See here:
Wish I Were Here (Original Demo)
Vanessa and I recorded that on the 16th of June, 2005. I'm sorry for the quality of it, I had the vocal patched incorrectly. We decided at about that time that the album should be called Hollows, and that Hollow should be the central piece (not to be confused with the piece in the centre). As the months went by, I started thinking how pop-in-a-bad-way it was to have a song called Hollow on an album called Hollows - and I didn't want to give the song too much weight because, despite still liking it a lot, I was feeling I'd grown out of the words. They are about 4 years old, after all. This amounted to the song needing a new name, which we gave it on the Saturday evening of this last recording block. We recycled Wish I Were Here - and that's how it will appear on the album. I'm not inserting a spreadsheet, but it goes something like this: We wrote a song called Hollow. I wrote a song called Wish I Were Here. I recorded a demo of Wish I Were Here. We kept the music from that, but Vanessa wrote new words prompting a name change to Bare Foot In The Grass. Wish I Were Here was sent back to just a title and some lyrics. We recorded the song we called Hollow, but needed to give it a different name (for the reasons listed above). We gave it the name Wish I Were Here. Now the lyrics which were attached to the title Wish I Were Here sit in a book and will never be used, because they're crap anyway. To the left is a graphic representation of how Manzuma works. Despite finishing Wish I Were Here on the Saturday, here's the sample now:
Wish I Were Here (Pre-Chorus & Chorus)
You can certainly hear the difference. This is becoming one of my favourite tracks on the album. It's got more energy than is usually in a Manzuma song - and it's the only one this album with any asymmeticality in its time sign. And I love the 80's guitar in the bridge. I didn't know I could play like that.
Saturday April 15th, 2006: Vanessa Day
As I said, Saturday was the only day Ness could make it. This was one of the longer days we've spent in the studio. We: recorded vocals on The Shortest of Years (after writing the vocal part), Wish I Were Here, Small Pulses. Patched up vocals on Bare Foot In The Grass, Sixteen Cranes (after writing the 3rd verse). Finished guitars on Wish I Were Here. There was a lot of talking, discussing, and I think Vanessa was ready to punch me at one point. That's all part of the experience.
The Shortest of Years is the other part of The Longest of Days. It did, in fact, work brilliantly with the piano playing the intro to Always Tomorrow. When I recorded the piano I didn't have the lyrics to The Shortest of Years on me, but as it turns out they mention the song Always Tomorrow. Works beautifully in my head, I like things like that. Here's a quick listen to how it turned out:
The Shortest of Years (Verse 2)
What you don't hear there is the intro - which incorporates me talking a lot of rubbish and a recording of our remote-controlled garage. I've said too much already.
Our session ended at about 9:30, I think. Which was late enough, I think. While we were bouncing some rough mixes we took some photos in similar fashion to the Symmetry session photos. We were joking about how this (to the left) is what recording a Manzuma album does to you. But we were really just pulling stupid faces. That's what we could be like if we were to not spread the album out over 6 months - which is something I haven't yet gloated about! Serpent took us 2 years, so we're happy and fat that this one took a quarter that time. 6 months still does seem like a very long time - and to most people it is, I'm sure some people could write and record 3 albums in that time, and they may well be as good or better, but for us, it's quick!
We left the session with Sixteen Cranes still in pieces and a "fix it tomorrow" promise, and everything else finished aside from The Longest of Days. We did try to record it on this Saturday, but it just didn't work out and Vanessa told me to do the vocals, which I did on...
Sunday April 16th, 2006: By myself, in the dark.
Another day of pulling hair and teeth with Sixteen Cranes left me frustrated but finished. I had had a nap in the middle of the day, just 'cause I felt like I was crumbling and we weren't going to get it finished. After my nap, and a coffee, I got all Eye of the Tiger and boxed it into shape, complete with vinyl fuzz and whole lot of extensions.
Sixteen Cranes (Verse 2, Chorus 2)
This is a similar spot to the sample I posted a while back. You can hear the difference in Vanessa's vocal, oh yes you can. This was one of those tracks that consistently gave the "You are running out of CPU power. Remove some plugins." error. On Vanessa's verse vocal it was a combination of compression, EQ, Waves Lo-Fi, short mono delay and reverb. I resisted the temptation to run all that through an aux and add more. You wish I did, don't you.
The Longest of Days was the last thing I recorded on this album. I'd recorded 2 previous versions. The first was music-box and switching-clicks on the Hammond. The second was huge and lush empty-warehouse sounding with music-box at end. The third was sort of both:
I recorded my Whirly against the original clicking of the switches on the Hammond and laid a vocal on, with similar effect settings to Vanessa's vocal on The Shortest of Years. Coupled with her talking (to balance mine on the corresponding song), it makes for a nice interlude. I wanted to get pissed when I'd finished, but had to mix the next day so decided it was best to save myself.
Monday April 17th, 2006: Mix
It's all blending in to one long day now, despite having broken it into pieces for you already. I'll wrap this up as quickly as I can. My focus during mixing was mainly to not compromise. I was disappointed with some elements of the mix on Serpent, and didn't want the same for this album. One thing I really wanted was a clean, deep, tight bass. Which is what I got. On Always Tomorrow the bass line can really be heard. I don't remember pulling any tricks while I was mixing. I just remember it taking a much shorter amount of time than I'd expected. I mean, we're so good that everything was pretty much done.
(The photo is of where I mixed the album. I dragged everything upstairs so I could see the mountains and the pool.) The most intricate work was done when I was mastering it on Monday night. Now, I know that mastering is an incredibly specialised field that requires specialised tools and years of experience and doing it ourselves isn't really to prove anything, it's just easier. Regardless of whether I've done it right or not, I've still mastered it, okay. And I'm happy with it, which is the most important thing. The whole structure of this album is based on a love of palindromes. I don't have that love, but surely I can poach the idea of that love... yeah? As best we could, the album is symmetrical - without simply running the first half backwards to make it the second half of the album. Each song has a corresponding song on the other side of the album. Track 1 corresponds to track 11, track 2 to track 10 and so on until you get to Ash, & Blown Away (which at track 6, sits right in the middle). Each song is exactly the same length as it's equal on the other side of Ash, and (stop me if I've already explained this) in the middle of Ash there is a short section which does run forwards then backwards, and this is the exact half way point, not only of the song, but the album. Get it? It was fucken difficult. I had to not think in seconds, but hundredths of seconds, when sequencing the songs. And they all flow beautifully, with the links and segues having more impact than anything we've done previously.
My computer nearly packed it in during the mastering. Could not cope. It took about 5 hours to convert the final mixdown, which is way too long for there to be nothing up. On Tuesday morning I split the session into the individual tracks, burnt a few discs and got everything on the drive off and onto an external disc. I burnt 2 DVD backups of the album and ran a defrag on the main drive. All that was just in time. The studio computer has now, after 4 years of loyal service, decided it needs a break. It's stuffed I think, won't even boot up properly. How lucky is that! Not to mention that if we were still working on the album (assuming the computer was still ticking away) we've had 4 days now of a boy jack hammering a new retaining wall just outside the studio.
