Matt and Dave spent the end of last week revisiting the drums for Human Shield and Blood on our Hands, but it's becoming apparent that those two songs are falling off the album. It seems odd, especially because Human Shield was the first song written for it, but there's no doubt that they're the two that are working least well.
In a way, it's a relief. A few times during the break I'd listened through everything and found it exhausting - too much information too densely packed. Not that we were intending to put thirteen tracks on the album, but I'd imagined we'd have a terrible struggle to decide what would go and what would stay, like when you forget the combination on your bike lock and have to go through all the permutations (or get a chisel). But happily, there's no need because the decision has been made for us.
The next big decision is about who we're going to get to mix all this stuff. Mixing is really a matter of taste - it's possible for a recording to be mixed in many different ways, so it's important to find someone who understands your aesthetic, otherwise everything you hold dear about what you've done might be made to sound like Bucks Fizz. And that would never be good, even if you were in Bucks Fizz.
Choosing a mix producer is also something A&R can get involved in, since they'll be paying. So far, and to their credit, A&R have stayed in New York and kept their opinions to themselves (aside from the opinion that they think what we're doing is good and they can hear 'several singles', which is what A&R people eat). Matt and Columbia made a shortlist of five possible producers, and had set about seeing who was interested. Gratifyingly, they were all interested, but only three were available. Matt spoke with all of them and decided on Eric Valentine from LA, who had worked on both Queens of the Stone Age and Nickel Creek records, which represented a breadth of style appropriate to our project.
Eric was very enthusiastic, and Matt seemed satisfied that he could communicate with him, in as much as you ever can in nebulous conversations about what music sounds like. Eric was also Columbia's first choice, which suggests a certain shininess of outcome. It suited me because his other work suggested he would make the drums sound motherfucking.
Reaching this choice also created a deadline for recording. Allowing for sending hard drives across the Atlantic, we reckoned we had about two weeks till we sent the first instalment, which would include the potential singles, so that Eric could do 'radio mixes' and the whole filthy business of promoting this new album could begin.
Another consideration was that it was now time to commit one hundred percent to the words. All in all, a terrifying responsibility to take on on your own (and, I suspect, the real reason it had been put off for so long). Quite a lot of this album had been recorded without final words for the songs. As a lyricist, this isn't my preferred way of working. It's much easier to write words if you have a bit of flexibility in how they fit the tune. Matt gets round this by having the tune completely fixed from the moment it gets written. For him, the words should be tailored to fit exactly the tune in his head. Unfortunately, the english language is not always so accommodating. It leads to numerous wobbly areas in sets of lyrics that have to be sanded (or chiselled) into shape, in this case at the last moment.
But we begin with Vapour Trail, which has had a complete lyric for nearly a year, so we can get into that without having to sheer off too many excess syllables.
The big question has been: which mic to use? The epic 149, the steely Brauner or the familiar 103? After a few experiments it seems that the 149 delivers with the most authority. The sound is quite hard compared to the Brauner, but it seems to sit on top of the music without any effort, whereas the Brauner sometimes gets a little submerged. And it's got this sibilance..... The trusty 103, although beloved and well used for many years, can't really compete. So the 149 wins. It's good to set up all the knobs and know that's it - the vocal sound for the album is there, and we can just get on with the singing.
And in this way, by the end of the afternoon we have vocals for Vapour Trail and Pressure Suit (which did take a bit of pushing and shovingThe major problem we had with the words were the first and third lines of the chorus, and after a lot of banging our heads against it, the line really wanted to end with the word 'horizon'. Unfortunately, that word is also prominent in the chorus of Glimmer. That feels wrong, for some reason, like we're cheating. But on the other hand, it's the right word. Perhaps no one will notice if I don't point it out. This is a song, after all, that makes extensive use of the word 'respirator'.).
