This morning, I walked round to Lachlan's house and popped the rough musical sketches of West Brunswick (The album), the one's you've been listening to, into his letterbox. Nine songs that in a few weeks will be ready to record. Nine songs? There are some I haven't shown you. I thought I'd leave them for a surprise when you finally hear the finished album.
Lachlan is a great sound engineer who co-produced The Bride. He used to be my next door neighbour. I hope he likes the tracks. I felt quite self conscious handing over my inferior recording attempts to an expert, but he's a good fella and won't really care one bit. We've talked about recording the songs straight to tape, like we used to before the advent of digital technology. I like old school ways, they're more familiar. Analogue creates a warmer tone and has some really interesting limitations that I quite like. It is better suited to a musician that plays the whole song from beginning to end without dropping in than to a musician that likes digital recording because of it allows one to stop and start throughout the song.
The whole idea of recording to tape reconnects me with my younger self going to Bakehouse studios in Richmond in the mid 80's before it was Bakehouse. I recorded a demo of songs straight to tape One or two takes for each song. 6-10 songs in one session including a mix down. Simple! I like that. I don't know whatever became of the demo. I do know I had no idea what to do with it after I made it.
This was before community radio had really taken a foothold so there weren't a lot of places to send demos to other than 3XY or Michael Gudinski and I didn't believe I was pretty enough or skinny enough to even get a look in. So for a shy, suburban girl like me, it was never going to be sent to anyone, I was too afraid of some sort of perceived cruel rejection. Truth be told, I just didn't have the guts.
So, my adult life has been as much about getting up the guts to do what that 18 year old could'n't. West Brunswick is the next step along the way. It is as much for that shy girl of 18, who hoped for something wonderful but had no idea where that something wonderful was, as it is for the suburb and my friends who live there. I hope they all like it. Mostly, I hope that by the end of the process, I still do.
Onward and upward as Mr Lewis said.
Lachlan is a great sound engineer who co-produced The Bride. He used to be my next door neighbour. I hope he likes the tracks. I felt quite self conscious handing over my inferior recording attempts to an expert, but he's a good fella and won't really care one bit. We've talked about recording the songs straight to tape, like we used to before the advent of digital technology. I like old school ways, they're more familiar. Analogue creates a warmer tone and has some really interesting limitations that I quite like. It is better suited to a musician that plays the whole song from beginning to end without dropping in than to a musician that likes digital recording because of it allows one to stop and start throughout the song.
The whole idea of recording to tape reconnects me with my younger self going to Bakehouse studios in Richmond in the mid 80's before it was Bakehouse. I recorded a demo of songs straight to tape One or two takes for each song. 6-10 songs in one session including a mix down. Simple! I like that. I don't know whatever became of the demo. I do know I had no idea what to do with it after I made it.
This was before community radio had really taken a foothold so there weren't a lot of places to send demos to other than 3XY or Michael Gudinski and I didn't believe I was pretty enough or skinny enough to even get a look in. So for a shy, suburban girl like me, it was never going to be sent to anyone, I was too afraid of some sort of perceived cruel rejection. Truth be told, I just didn't have the guts.
So, my adult life has been as much about getting up the guts to do what that 18 year old could'n't. West Brunswick is the next step along the way. It is as much for that shy girl of 18, who hoped for something wonderful but had no idea where that something wonderful was, as it is for the suburb and my friends who live there. I hope they all like it. Mostly, I hope that by the end of the process, I still do.
Onward and upward as Mr Lewis said.
No comments:
Post a Comment