19 September 2007
Eric has been concentrating on the single mixes, so we now have several versions of Pressure Suit (OK apart from the sitar moment), Outside (excellent) and Rolls So Deep (horrifically reminiscent of Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader).
Eric's suggestion is that Rolls So Deep should bang right in with the full arrangement at the beginning, but this has taken him in the direction of Spector/Motown pastiche which is what we were trying to avoid all along. However, it's hard to make a fair judgement because the vocal on the current first verse is quiet and gentle, in keeping with the quiet and gentle arrangement. So we're here to address these issues.
First is the instrumental riff thing on Pressure Suit. It makes sense that something should happen in these sections, but it's really hard to think of an alternative to what Eric has done. It has to be very simple, but not too cheesy. The best we can offer is a slightly toned-down version of Eric's part, but on the guitar, which refers more to the rest of the mandolin-y guitar part. That at least has a family connection to the rest of the song. We track it lots of times and cover it with the comedy Korg, and hope that it's acceptable, because it doesn't do a lot for me.
The edits on Pressure Suit have chopped the words in unhelpful places, so we patch them up. Matt records a version of the first verse of Rolls So Deep that has a bit more energy, and covers the edit at the end which repeats the 'Yeah!' bit for a third time. Then we do the last bits of file-trimming, and the rest of the album is put on a drive and goes off to LA.
