Things have been different since we got that enormous mirror
All this spontaneity has obviously spurred Matt on, because he comes in today with freshly prepared words for the last mystery song, The Lake.
We'd dabbled with The Lake in rehearsals. It's very beautiful - gothic and serpentine. What we came up with took it into High Camp via Muse, with lots of Germanic guitar and ghastly toy piano. It was excellent, but once again having the actual tune and words suggested a more subtle approach.
Unusually, the first thing we did was some choral backing vocals with our two piping trebles and Dave's mighty bass. It was a fairly tricky part but it was a real pleasure to work it out. There's something uniquely satisfying about singing in harmony, something about the way it makes your head vibrate. Then we added a few more dollars to our debt to the Beach Boys with a moving part that sounded like something out of Cabinessence.
Matt had asked Dave to bring lots of wood in, with the idea of recreating the piano part by hitting bits of random wood. Dave did indeed seem to have a lot of random bits of wood at his disposal, including some bars from a defunct xylophone and some bamboo. The bamboo proved to be useful for blowing and making eerie whispers through. The bits of xylophone ended up being a xylophone, albeit one with the bars gaffer-taped to a bit of foam, plinking away around the piano.
Also during our voyage of aural discovery, we found that Dave's wooden beaters could be clacked together to make a smooth, pebbly sound like stones being struck. With this and a few other bleats and pings we had a very interesting track.
Last task of the day was the fulfilment of a long-standing agreement between Matt and his manager Phil that Phil should contribute some bassoon to the record. Phil claims not to have played the bassoon for fifteen years, and insists that we should not expect too much. He plays his three notes on Blood on our Hands with great aplomb, however, and then Matt encourages him to 'just play random shit' at the end, which sounds like someone strangling a space hopper in a bathtub.
