Abubilla Music

11.07.17 This Week in the Studio

Written by Jimmy

OD’s.  Yep.  Over dubs.  For the last three Saturdays we’ve been doing lots of over-dubs, mixing and liner notes for the next album, so I’ll put all this together into one update.  So this one, for the record covers three Saturdays. 

The Music:   In June, we decided to break our cycle of a new album before each new Spanish Jam.  We held off on album 4 and we down  to Spain for the June Jam to work on songs, add a couple new ones and prepare for King Henry’s Tears.  Good call. Since the Spanish Jam, we have spent 3 of the last five Saturdays ‘over dubbing a way to get set for the album.  Here are the main highlights, which will also take you roughly through some of the songs on the album:

• King Henry’s Tears:  The studio version of our live little diddy from the Autumn 2010 Jam.  Mostly, we’ve worked on mixing.  Ed re-did his ‘Oh E Oh’s’ in London, having not been happy with his ‘Oh E Oh’s down in Spain.  Ed is very particular about his ‘Oh E Oh’s’ as you know from the video on King Henry’s Tears from the Autumn Jam:

• One Way Home:  From our Autumn 2010 Jam, the companion piece to Agatha’s 18th – both Gus vocals, most recorded during some late nights.  .  Mainly focused on adding a set of guitars to pull the song together. Ed led this.  Here’s the v ideo for Agatha’s 18th, which will remain single version only and not on this album:

• Sarah, Why?  This is our Elton John meets Billy Joel meets Dexter song from Autumn 2010 Jam.  We’ve been going back and forth on Andy’s vocals.  Originally, they were sunny vocals telling a very dark story, about a bastard who is not very nice to Sarah.   We then decided to do really dark vocals to a dark story.  But then we decided sunny vocals of an evil lyric works much better.    And the best ever example of this?  You got it, enjoy below:

• Floating:  Our little Juno number, featuring Hannah and Michael on vocals.  Lots and lots of work getting its Mojo right and Andy has sufferered massively trying to get the guitars to remotely line up.  He dreads that Jimmy ever listened to Ed and Mike the first day of recording, ‘Click track?  We don’t need a click track. This is all about funk and instinctive groove.’  Andy has reminded Jimmy that he is to ignore such hubris in the future.  Now, we could give you the Juno track here, but we’ll give you something different.   One of the many sound effects we record on this (in addition to Jimmy’s duck and slide whistles) is Toby the stupid dog.  he does a moan that we’ve got perfect for the ‘our dog is sick’ verse.  Reminds us exactly of this moan:

• Ballad of Paul and Linda:   A product of the Summer 2011 jam, with Sophie and Jimmy sharing vocals.  To warn you, this might not make it. Still work in progress and we’re not sure yet.  Cool song, but doesn’t quite have its Mojo.   We’ve been re-doing both our vocals to make it work.
• I’ve Just Seen A Face:    Another fund raiser for Abubilla Music Foundation.  We’ve re-done all the guitars and added more Hannah vocals.   Hannah and Charlotte’s vocals work quite well together.  Added a couple shakers and did a lot of mixing.  We’re working hard to have this become the Beatles meet Beta Band.  All about our Dry the Rain moment.  Please give Dry the Rain a chance as it has to be the coolest, chillist thing you’ve heard (until you hear our cover of I’ve Just Seen a Face, at least):

• Time was Kind Again:  Born of the Autumn 2011 Spanish Jam, it is the story of time from the perspective of all important woman in Jimmy’s family.  We’ve focused on getting a Coldplay guitar on it, courtesy of Ed and re-doing Jimmy’s vocals.

Everything Else:  Our goal from the beginning with Abubilla Music was to let you into the sausage factory.  The problem with saugages, of course, is you like to eat them, but it ain’t always fun to see them get made or to know what goes in them.  So this is an educational experience that might not be doing the saugage maker any favours.  So if you want to enjoy the music, you might need to look away now.

• The massive debates about production:   We’re also a believer in the book Outliers, that you need 10,000 hours of experience at anything before you get good at it.  We are on 2,456 studio hours so well on our way.  Just think how good our 16th album might be?  I would say our journey to date can be characterised by four core debates which we imagine entertains groups everywhere; these are:
  • Minimimalist vs. Big:   Rob and Sophie are minimalists.   Fewest tracks, so Hammond Organ plug in’s.  If Breathe just as Andy and Rob and it’s good, stop.  Jimmy and Ed are ‘big’ always searching for God Only Knows.  Mike is our drummer and just hits things.   And Martyn, well he just keeps losing his reading glasses.  But the result is your never done.  Andy is in the middle.  But it means each take is reviewed by two people as ‘strip out, take out’ and two people who say, Add or Do this track over.  Andy is stuck in the middle.   Our models for each are George Harrison on minimalist (critics say you can’t take away a single note of his from a Beatles track) and Brian Wilson for ‘Big.’  So, what would George or Brian do now is a good part of our conversations.
  • inspiration vs. Perfection:  There’s a real tension in a studio, especially when time is limited between ‘flowing with it’ and getting the vibe down vs. really making sure the fundamentals of what you get down are perfect. This is especially true when you go from demo to album tracks. Do you start over or build on what you have.  For full time bands this is less an issue – but our community is a group of artists with day jobs.  Saying you’ll start over isn’t easy if the drummer can’t make it for a couple weeks.  We know we have to start with the fundamentals absolutely right. The guitars have to be in tune, the mics have to be set up and spill controlled.  We need to get timing’s spot on.  Equally, we might have a great groove going and you want to add some instruments to see where the song might go. Stopping it all to reset mics, re-tune, get everything to a perfect click can kill Mojo dead in its tracks.
  • Click vs. Funk, Studio vs. Live:  All bands face this. Go with the groove, go with the feel or follow the click. If you know you can deliver the performance in a go, groove is good.   if you know you are going to have to return to parts you’ve got to have the click to sort out things later.  Boy we’ve paid the price at times.  A lot of this is also about the classic debate of studio vs. live – can you create a live band feel all playing at once, or do you go track by track and how you balance.

While we generally get a long, maybe sometimes it feels a bit like this. 

• • The massive effort in liner notes:   We are committed, maybe as dinasaurs, to the liner note, which tells about the songs, gives the lyrics.  So we spend millions of hours getting words, photos right.  We still have this vision of folks opening the album, putting it on, and spending a half hour of their lives listening to what the artists’ intended. As an art form, music is that rare thing – artists spend 200 hours preparing for five minutes and the art lovers spends five minutes, often while doing something else judging it.  it takes five minutes to write preface to a novel and the art lover will give it their undivided attention, and then forgive the author at least another hour to make his/her case on whether to read the whole book.  Why don’t we give albums the same bit of attention?  I blame it entirely on this:

• Lining it all up: And then there’s that make the CD thing.  So you have to line up:  the mixer hand off to the masterer, the masterer hand off to the CD manufacturer.  You have to sure art work lines up with song … don’t even begin to ask us what happens when we drop at song at the last minute.  Cascades through about 100 liner note changes… Makes Rob  and Andy look like this:

That’s it.

Jimmy