Today we rewrote the projected title track of the next album. It's the one we've been having such trouble recording over the past couple of years(!) We thought the issue was that the drum track wasn't right but increasingly I've been feeling that the song was the problem. It had a great riff and a killer middle eight...but I was coming to the conclusion that that's all it had. So we changed it. I haven't heard the rehearsal tapes but I think we've nailed it now, and it's changed completely. It's the same words, and some of the same notes (but not the same key), but now it's properly a song. I'm not sure if the title doesn't need to change but I guess we'll talk about that.
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I've just got back from shooting a video for 'Message Ends', which we're planning to put out on the web once it's finished. After some initial camera hassles everything went surprisingly smoothly and what we shot looked really good to me on playback...it's all in Victoria's hands now as she's doing the edit. Mike, the owner of Pick'N'Styx studio, was really helpful, making all sorts of useful suggestions and lending us staging, equipment and some fantastic lights which really transformed the look of the shoot. There's a small album of snapshots on our Facebook page.
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I've just got back from two days recording at Stealing Eve. The bad news is that (1) we've decided to scrap one track and re-record it because we're not happy with what we've got; and (2) we've had to put back the final mixing of the new album until next year. The good news is that what we recorded yesterday and today sounds bleeding excellent. We're also all fired up for shooting a video the weekend after next and putting out some new material on the web very soon. Watch this space.
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Hmmm. I've got a session at Stealing Eve next week during which I have committed to do (1) plinky guitars on Bleak; (2) a distort track on Come As You Were; (3) a widdly-widdly lead line on Far From Faith; (4) a simple lead line on Station One that I nonetheless managed to f&ck up last time; and (5) about 3,000 overlays* on a mystery track about the destination of water. I've done all the relevant calculations and it's all completely feasible. I'm going to play all the parts really fast an octave too high and either Andrew or Victoria (whoever loses the 'engineering Aidan' toss this time) will run the tape at double speed and we'll just slow it down later. As if all this wasn't enough I've managed to f&ck up one of my fingers. Luckily it's not the one I play guitar with. So no problems, really.
*May contain exaggeration.
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A truly monumental recording session today at Stealing Eve. We laid down all the guitar tracks for Bleak and Station One. Everything from maximum thrash to some really mental oscillator effects using a trick with a noise gate explained to us by the great David Wrench. I'm still deaf on one side but it was worth it for the quality of feedback we got. Much fun was also had with synthesisers, chiefly Andrew's venerable SH101, which is very much a God amongst grey things with knobs and sliders on...flick a switch and you're Gary Numan...twiddle a knob and you're OMD...add some portamento and some noise and you get The Hoover of Fear which is possibly my favourite noise of all time, soon to be available on a Waterglass track near you.
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I've just got back after a day's recording at Stealing Eve. The day didn't get off to too promising a start as the mixing desk was in one of its funny moods (we weren't laughing) and various other bits and bobs got infested with gremlins, so lots of time was spent chasing down faults before we could get down to the business of recording drums. Fortunately things improved rapidly thereafter. Andrew put down three excellent drum tracks today - which means the 'hitting things' part of recording the album is basically done. In addition to the final two tracks slated for the album we've also started work on a new version of an old friend...although we're not yet sure what we're going to do with the finished article.
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It's taken us a while (no suprises there), but we've finally got round to editing some video footage of our gig at the Camden Underworld back in 2002. We've put up 'Come as you were' which was the last song from our set.
Come as you were was written after Wisdom Like Silence (our 2002 album) was finished, but it will be appearing on our new album, when we get it done!
The line up here features Victoria on vocals, Aidan on bass, Andy on guitar, Rose on keys and Andew on drums. Sound engineer for the gig was Wombat. Video made by Mol.
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Rehearsing again today. Things are sounding really good - we brought 'Come As You Were' back into the live set today. Victoria was never previously happy about playing it (the bass part *is* pretty demanding) but she really nailed it today and the vocal is also sounding lovely. We've got a video of us doing this song live from the first night of the Wisdom Like Silence tour (courtesy of Mol - thanks!) and Andrew is looking at cutting a version for YouTube...more as this happens. We've also rearranged 'Departure' and it's actually sounding better than it used to. Now we're really raring to play live. There's a possibility of a gig in Wales in about a month's time but logistics may not allow us to do it; more on this if anything happens. Apart from that we're back in the studio next weekend to lay down some more drums for the new album.
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We played together today. I wish we could do this more. The live sound is coming together really well. Andrew has sorted out a Cubase setup that lets us add some synthesisers where needed, and this has opened up the sound on some of the new material. But mainly it's the old magic reasserting itself. We prepared a live setlist covering material from 'Found', 'Wisdom Like Silence' and the new album that clocks in at about 30 minutes and sounds *really* good. Even the changeovers didn't stink too much. We had 20 minutes left at the end of the session and, on a whim, had a go at 'Departure', which we haven't played (I think) since 2002. Unexpectedly, it sounded brilliant, so it's back in the set. The downside of this is that Victoria now realises just how easy my bass player's job was in the 'Wisdom' days (for this song you will mostly need 'D' and 'G').
Now to sort out some gigs.
Reply
After what seems like a long silence we're finally waking up. The new album is maybe 3/4 finished and we're starting to think seriously about how to get it heard, hence all the recent activity on ReverbNation and Facebook.
All the tracks from our 2002 album Wisdom Like Silence are now available for download from our ReverbNation store and we've put up a rough mix of the track 'Seventeen' from our forthcoming one.
We're also playing together more regularly now and the live sound is starting to come together - rehearsal last weekend sounded great. Now to think about playing some gigs.
Reply
Waterglass / Blog
Decades
Today we rewrote the projected title track of the next album. It's the one we've been having such trouble recording over the past couple of years(!) We thought the issue was that the drum track wasn't right but increasingly I've been feeling that the song was the problem. It had a great riff and a killer middle eight...but I was coming to the conclusion that that's all it had. So we changed it. I haven't heard the rehearsal tapes but I think we've nailed it now, and it's changed completely. It's the same words, and some of the same notes (but not the same key), but now it's properly a song. I'm not sure if the title doesn't need to change but I guess we'll talk about that.
Reply
Making Movies
I've just got back from shooting a video for 'Message Ends', which we're planning to put out on the web once it's finished. After some initial camera hassles everything went surprisingly smoothly and what we shot looked really good to me on playback...it's all in Victoria's hands now as she's doing the edit. Mike, the owner of Pick'N'Styx studio, was really helpful, making all sorts of useful suggestions and lending us staging, equipment and some fantastic lights which really transformed the look of the shoot. There's a small album of snapshots on our Facebook page.
Reply
A good session
I've just got back from two days recording at Stealing Eve. The bad news is that (1) we've decided to scrap one track and re-record it because we're not happy with what we've got; and (2) we've had to put back the final mixing of the new album until next year. The good news is that what we recorded yesterday and today sounds bleeding excellent. We're also all fired up for shooting a video the weekend after next and putting out some new material on the web very soon. Watch this space.
Reply
Ambitious recording schedule
Hmmm. I've got a session at Stealing Eve next week during which I have committed to do (1) plinky guitars on Bleak; (2) a distort track on Come As You Were; (3) a widdly-widdly lead line on Far From Faith; (4) a simple lead line on Station One that I nonetheless managed to f&ck up last time; and (5) about 3,000 overlays* on a mystery track about the destination of water. I've done all the relevant calculations and it's all completely feasible. I'm going to play all the parts really fast an octave too high and either Andrew or Victoria (whoever loses the 'engineering Aidan' toss this time) will run the tape at double speed and we'll just slow it down later. As if all this wasn't enough I've managed to f&ck up one of my fingers. Luckily it's not the one I play guitar with. So no problems, really. *May contain exaggeration.
Reply
The Hoover of Fear
A truly monumental recording session today at Stealing Eve. We laid down all the guitar tracks for Bleak and Station One. Everything from maximum thrash to some really mental oscillator effects using a trick with a noise gate explained to us by the great David Wrench. I'm still deaf on one side but it was worth it for the quality of feedback we got. Much fun was also had with synthesisers, chiefly Andrew's venerable SH101, which is very much a God amongst grey things with knobs and sliders on...flick a switch and you're Gary Numan...twiddle a knob and you're OMD...add some portamento and some noise and you get The Hoover of Fear which is possibly my favourite noise of all time, soon to be available on a Waterglass track near you.
Reply
Recording at Stealing Eve
I've just got back after a day's recording at Stealing Eve. The day didn't get off to too promising a start as the mixing desk was in one of its funny moods (we weren't laughing) and various other bits and bobs got infested with gremlins, so lots of time was spent chasing down faults before we could get down to the business of recording drums. Fortunately things improved rapidly thereafter. Andrew put down three excellent drum tracks today - which means the 'hitting things' part of recording the album is basically done. In addition to the final two tracks slated for the album we've also started work on a new version of an old friend...although we're not yet sure what we're going to do with the finished article.
Reply
Finally on You Tube!
It's taken us a while (no suprises there), but we've finally got round to editing some video footage of our gig at the Camden Underworld back in 2002. We've put up 'Come as you were' which was the last song from our set.
Come as you were was written after Wisdom Like Silence (our 2002 album) was finished, but it will be appearing on our new album, when we get it done!
The line up here features Victoria on vocals, Aidan on bass, Andy on guitar, Rose on keys and Andew on drums. Sound engineer for the gig was Wombat. Video made by Mol.
Reply
More activity
Rehearsing again today. Things are sounding really good - we brought 'Come As You Were' back into the live set today. Victoria was never previously happy about playing it (the bass part *is* pretty demanding) but she really nailed it today and the vocal is also sounding lovely. We've got a video of us doing this song live from the first night of the Wisdom Like Silence tour (courtesy of Mol - thanks!) and Andrew is looking at cutting a version for YouTube...more as this happens. We've also rearranged 'Departure' and it's actually sounding better than it used to. Now we're really raring to play live. There's a possibility of a gig in Wales in about a month's time but logistics may not allow us to do it; more on this if anything happens. Apart from that we're back in the studio next weekend to lay down some more drums for the new album.
Reply
Good rehearsal
We played together today. I wish we could do this more. The live sound is coming together really well. Andrew has sorted out a Cubase setup that lets us add some synthesisers where needed, and this has opened up the sound on some of the new material. But mainly it's the old magic reasserting itself. We prepared a live setlist covering material from 'Found', 'Wisdom Like Silence' and the new album that clocks in at about 30 minutes and sounds *really* good. Even the changeovers didn't stink too much. We had 20 minutes left at the end of the session and, on a whim, had a go at 'Departure', which we haven't played (I think) since 2002. Unexpectedly, it sounded brilliant, so it's back in the set. The downside of this is that Victoria now realises just how easy my bass player's job was in the 'Wisdom' days (for this song you will mostly need 'D' and 'G').
Now to sort out some gigs.
Reply
Waking up
After what seems like a long silence we're finally waking up. The new album is maybe 3/4 finished and we're starting to think seriously about how to get it heard, hence all the recent activity on ReverbNation and Facebook.
All the tracks from our 2002 album Wisdom Like Silence are now available for download from our ReverbNation store and we've put up a rough mix of the track 'Seventeen' from our forthcoming one.
We're also playing together more regularly now and the live sound is starting to come together - rehearsal last weekend sounded great. Now to think about playing some gigs.
Reply