Not Good Enough
WeTheConspirators have made a beautiful film about Charlotte Carpenter’s new song, Not Good Enough, that I co-wrote and produced with her. I’ve got enormous admiration for Charlotte for tackling the subject matter head on, and as the song grew strong enough to carry its weight I was proud to have been the one to hold door open for it.
Connectivity by Grace Petrie
I was honoured to be given another opportunity to work with Grace, this time on an album called “Connectivity”. Grace is a very true and honest songwriter, speaking with clarity through her songs on topics of real importance. This was another project born out of and affected by the Covid lockdowns. It was at the recording of her HOME performance at Leicester Cathedral, where after playing a couple of new songs we began to talk about her next album. She had a set of songs that for the first time she hadn’t been able to road-test, a part of the process important to her, but I think this had given some time for self-reflection. She may be better known for social commentary, but has an equally deft touch with more personal writing.
The album was made at Seamus Wong Recorders in Leicester, an infamous city-centre loft space where we’d worked together before on the drums for her previous record, Queer As Folk. This time, after making demos and guide tracks at Rawson Street, we set up camp and recorded everything else at Seamus Wong. We had a couple of Grace’s touring musicians come in to play on the record, Caitlin Field on drums, and Ben Moss making magic on many things including violin, concertina, and mandolin. I particularly enjoyed recording all the acoustic instruments - vocals included - in the same space. A pair of 4038’s stayed up for every session to listen to what was going on. Grace’s music leans towards, but perhaps not all the way to, folk music. I think the room sounds we captured help give the sense of intimacy, but also community, that folk music is all about.
I mixed the album back at Rawson Street and it was mastered by Neil Ferguson.
Photos by John Helps.
ATO Live (Majestic Sessions)
I teamed up again with director Louis Lincoln for a round of Majestic Sessions, shot at Bush Hall in London. I was recording engineer on the day, and audio mixer for the post-production. This performance by ATO was an exciting one to capture and mix.
No Feeling Is Final
In the preceding years to Maybeshewill’s reformation, I spent a lot of time on the road working FOH sound. Whilst an innately musical occupation, the work keeps me firmly at the other end of the room from any instruments. Spending some long drives listening to piano music had given me a serious yearning for some time at home, and in 2020 I guess I got my wish because by March there was nothing else I could do. For better and worse, I had nothing but time and space to play and write music. I remember sharing the idea for “Tomorrow” with the rest of the band on a group call. It was the first performance of music I’d done in a long time. Across the room from my upright on a Zoom call. Later it was suggested we close the album with that song, so I thought it fitting to make the recording on the same piano in my front room.
HOME
HOME is a project organised by The Robot Needs Home Collective, born out of the 2020 Covid restrictions in which the arts and public spaces in particular were affected. Funded by ACE, HOME is a weekly series of ten live performances by a selection of East-Midlands artists and musicians recorded in well-known public spaces in Leicester. My role in the project was recording engineer - on location for each of the performances, and mixing engineer - mixing the recordings for video release each week.
A key aspect of the project was to showcase the space as much as the artists performance itself, in consideration of the audio recording as much as the filming. Careful choice of which artists performed where made sure the recordings were captured in a way that the musicians could work with the room and use it to enhance their performance. One of the pleasures of mixing audio to video is the process of achieving a match in character of sound to visual, with a view to enhancing the audience experience without distracting from it. No surprise then that the room mics were essential to the sound of the session.
With help from the RNHC, we put together a recording package that though I’d be reluctant to call a “mobile recording rig”, did fit in the back of an estate car and could be set-up within an hour or so. The brain of the system was a Midas M32R, which pushed all its inputs through to a Pro Tools rig whilst taking care of performer monitoring in the room. The microphones were modest but did mainly consist of condensers - for room mics, acoustic instruments, and vocals. There was no brief as such to use discreet close miking or to lean wholly towards studio techniques, more of a needs must work with what we had. That said it was nice to tow the line between the live sound environment and studio recording. I didn’t worry too much about spill and took the opportunity to use sensitive microphones in non-intrusive ways for the performers and the cameras. This gave space both physically and sonically for the performers arrangements of their songs.
All ten performances can we watched for free, HERE.