2009-10-28

mixing the album - the synchronicity of 5


i'm writing this from the sofa in the control room at valley wood studio, where we're mixing the no.5 album. all of it. in a day. big ask - but kinda fun, and certainly in keeping with the general idea of the project. do it all, do it now, keep it raw, keep it honest, don't spend too long on any of it, lest the energy is lost.

listening back you can't help hearing your mistakes - the things you might have done another way. and then you realise that you're completely missing the point of the thing by thinking that way. we're not mixing perfect performances here, we're mixing an energy captured at a moment in time. then it sounds right.

we're also still collecting 5 snaps for the wall of 5. there are millions of them in this one room. it's getting quite silly just how many. barkley (the engineer) is working on the project in digital performer, version 5. kirsty's vocal is sitting on the desk at almost exactly the +5 mark, except when we dip the signal while she's not singing. then it sits at -5, naturally. we've made a little explanatory video, with a lovely voiceover from the engineer (who understands what he's talking about, of course).

it's lunchtime and we're three songs in. 'sandman', 'omaha', 'dust devils'. starting with the downbeat numbers and working up to deal with the liveliness of the room on the louder numbers with full bellies. at the moment it's sounding lovely and smoky, dark and late-nightish. the vibe is infectious and we're loving the audience more with every cheer.

just beginning now to mix 'faith', and the studio cat, tinker, has joined us to make sure everything's up to scratch. i captured a fleeting moment of interest on camera. something must be working for her. it's interesting that the songs we seem to be picking to mix first are mainly songs that are on 'the kansas sessions' - the album is looking about half and half old and new. i would say though that the 'kansas' songs are definitely skewed differently, with different musicians and the weight of two years' touring resting against them. i think the two albums will be sufficiently different to be truly interesting.



man, the reception at the end of that song is amazing - it was the end of the set. you can hear the crowd's feet rumbling for more. nice.

and so we're moving onto some of those more torch-like duende / saudade type songs. 'last orders', the new dark anti-war song with the interplay between fretless banjo, harmonica and bass clarinet, and 'bliss' from the first album. these are harder to get right. the dynamic range is important - keeping it dark and slightly uncomfortable. chris' playing is just lovely - never predictable, all about tone and texture - he rasps his way through the underbelly of 'last orders' on bass clarinet like an undersea current; and he's poised on the edge of 'bliss' throughout - fragile and delicate, connected to the vocal. he earns the namecheck you can hear kirsty give him over the applause at the end.



the middle section of 'bliss' gives us some trouble. the sound is so much fuller and richer than the rest of the song, with nick bowing the double bass. barkley's magic riding of the faders as we print the mix creates a result that draws the breath right out of me and then drops me into the last section of the song with a palpable sense of relief. result.

another new song, 'the last to understand' (see our podcast for the preview from the rehearsals) seems to mix itself after that. it goes really well after bliss, too (note to self re. tracklisting the album).

so onto the last two tracks of the day - the loud ones, where we will have to work a bit harder to get the thing to sit right. 'stonefruit' and 'alibi blues', both featuring inspired electric guitar work from james steel. soloing the tracks to get the sound right we're realising just how inspired actually. nice work that brute.



we'll have to wait and see still how it hangs together as a whole, but i'm quietly confident that the energy of this record is just right. maybe we'll have time before the day is out to mix one last track not on the original list - details of which we'll keep to ourselves for now...

2009-10-26

first photos back from no.5 recording session




so we finally managed to get through several hundred photos taken at the session for 'no.5' on october 10th. the shoot lasted all day, while we set up, tested the levels, soundchecked, ran through the show, hung out backstage, blindfolded james, etc, etc. the usual stuff.



we've picked about 100 that show the atmosphere in the day and during the show, and we've put half of those up as an album on facebook (and on the website soon) - we'll put the second lot up in a bit. there's plenty to be going on with.

looking back at these we're becoming aware of the event in a different way. we aren't so busy getting it done now, and you can see that everything is pretty relaxed. so happy now that we stuck with the small space at contact despite invitations to go somewhere bigger or do two nights etc - the size and space were just right, and the decision not to use a stage, apart from helping with the sound of the recording, made for a real connection with the room which i am appreciating all the more seeing these pictures now. as if the connection between the players extended beyond a defined performance space and included the audience. you can hear it on the recordings, too - creaky floorboards and all. fab!



the energy in the performance is pretty clear too from these shots. we had to be careful on the night not to stray too far from the mics that were recording us, so we couldn't turn around and move towards each other as much as we usually like to, but again those connections look and feel good here. we're just putting a few of these up here to give you a taster, but do hop over to the full album and leave us some comments. we're excited that things are starting to come back from the night already.




2009-10-25

what happens now - since 10.10.09




october 10th was a big deal on the hobopop calendar - anyone who was anywhere near us in real or cyber-life will recall that between organising bringing guests up for rehearsals and performances and trying to explain that the show had been sold out for weeks to lovely people who wanted tickets we also had to write a set-list and play it through a few times. just a few, mind. it was busy, since we were (as always) organising the promotion and whatnot ourselves too, radio sessions here and there, and poster drops all over town...

we made a decision early on not to allocate the usual reams of press seats to give away to people in the hope of reviews. these are hard to fill and guarantee nothing. rather, we thought, put the energy into making a great show and filling the room with people who really wanted to be involved, in the hope that their energy would spill out of the room and that they would be not only the essence of the recording but also our publicity after the show. we certainly got an amazing amount of great feedback, and had a room full to bursting with genuine excitement and enthusiasm.

so, we worked hard - well what do you expect i guess. we always do. and i must say it was damned good fun too. the last minute additions of clive mellor on harmonica and the wonderful baba israel (artistic director at contact) who agreed to compere the night for us were worth the extra rehearsals and meetings etc. we do think it came off about as well as it could have done - and got that vibe back off everyone in the room too.

so what happens after that (apart from the aftershow with one of the best DJ sets i've ever heard james from the brute chorus play, i mean)? to be honest, we've been hiding away a bit. we skipped the country only days later, switched our phones off and spent a week with family halfway up a spanish mountain. we'd earned it.

but things have gone on in the meantime. just before we left we hooked up again with barkley, our recording engineer, to listen back to the show over soup and chocolate, and pick the tracks he was going to mix down for us while we were away - we're hoping to hook up again this week and put the finishing touches to the work, ready for mastering. at that point we'll come back here and give you a tracklisting for the record. exciting.

we actually got more than we hoped, too - the plan was for a mini-album, maybe 7 songs, but now it's looking like we'll have about 40mn of stuff we just don't want to get rid of. that's pretty much a whole album (are there rules about how long things should be etc?). it's all pretty honest - like we said from the start, we're not interested in doing any overdubs, repairs etc - it's all going down on disc exactly as it was on the night, despite the technical gremlins and the inspired wrong notes. the energy was right. that's what counts.

so now we are having fun with ideas, preparing some little interviews for the web, getting other plans in the pipeline (gonna be doing some fun internet stuff next year i think), putting the finishing touches to the tour for the spring, and collecting 5s:



just for fun, you understand - but if you fancy contributing to our 'wall of 5' please send your pictures to us and we'll keep growing the collage. maybe we could reward particularly awesome ones with CDs or tickets... pictures of you wearing your no.5 jewellery from wonderhaus also most welcome. it's to be available from the hoboshop in time for christmas.

more soon...

2009-10-24

welcome to the no.5 blog

we've decided to set this little thing up here for those who want to track the progress of the album we made, live in one take, on october 10th. maybe you were there in the audience, maybe you were one of those who couldn't make it or couldn't get a ticket, maybe you just want to know more about what happens to bring something like this about... whatever reason you may have, this is here if you'd like to drop by.

there are all the usual rss feed thingies to be had, or you can just pop back in from time to time and see how we're doing. we'll try and link back here when we've done something new so for those of you who follow on facebook or twitter - keep an eye out.

we'll be checking in irregularly ('we' being kirsty mcgee and/or mat martin as usual), we can almost guarantee the 'irregularly' part of that. but every time we have something new to share that relates to the album in one way or another, we'll drop by. please comment or email as much as you like, and let us know what you'd like to see here.

that's it for now... we'll post some video and pictures etc as soon as we can. been working on the artwork for the record already and will be giving some previews soon, for now you'll have to carry on looking at the banner at the top of the page.

thanks!