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Background to Our Songs: Whisper and Angel of the Dark
Written by Jimmy
Whisper and Angel by AbubillaMusic
Gus is in that stage of life where music is just bursting from him – every hour, every second. The music is usually ahead of the words, but every once in a while, lyrical gems spring forth that are extraordinary. That’s the case with Whisper and Angel of the Dark.Both songs represent the best of Gus + the Saturday Morning Canasta Club. Gus is an amazing talent, coming with song and after song. He plays all with his acoustic guitar and all sound great. But what the band does is pull these songs apart and take them in new directions . Both Whisper and Angel of the Dark had a similar feel to each other and both sung in typical Gus solo style — see for example Step Up.
Now, listen to what happens when you get the Saturday Morning Canasta Club involved…
Whisper
Gus comes in with Whisper. Acoustic, hard driving, wonderful song. Starts with a little riff on the acoustic guitar. Martyn listens and says, ‘that riff should be done’ by a cello. And so it began. The song was stripped down to nothing. Gus singing this song of absolute tortured love – ‘Because you and I are adrift on a sea of feelings and I’m not rowing out to save you. I’ll observe from afar as you drift away on the waves of our love.’ Wow. He sings and the cello plays the riff. Andy then started adding more and more bizzare percussion and atmospherics. This song became so empty, so tortured and so powerful. Less is more. We spent a long time in Spain getting this percussion pulse right and Andy then spent another several months getting the sound perfect. We also spent a lot of time in Spain working on a video that involved several religious forms of execution. Less said, the better.
Angel of the Dark
Born in the studio in Spain on June 26th 2010, Angel of the Dark is a Gus classic. Arrived almost finished, but the band helped hugely to give it the driving beat and the wonderful girl bvox, a little ‘do do do do do do do’ from the piano hook developed by Andy. Straight Walk on the Wild Side, but we didn’t blend to the Sax (which we will get to). In addition to great ‘do do’s’ from the ladies Andy adds great vocals toward the end. We then brought this back into the London studio in early autumn and played the full band in a live take. Mike is key to this – song is fairly one directional – starts slowly and builds and builds and builds. So Mike had to lead us through this and does so with a great drum riff that he builds continuously. We judged the take by foot tapping. This take we tapped a lot.
And Angel of the Dark has the great Gus lyrical moment: ‘The best things in life are unseen. That’s why when we kiss, we hug, we dream, we close our eyes.’
The role of Artist, the role of the Saturday Morning Canasta Club. If you are looking for a reason to join Abubilla Music, these two songs should be it. Bring great music and we’ll stretch it, take it into new directions. It starts with great music and hopefully ends with better music. After all, it’s all about the music.
Jimmy