Time for a page update I suspect - given its a year since I lasted posted anything! Its been an extremely busy year with the focus very much on recording the new Karnataka album. Weve just announced the album will be released in March 2015 - the album title is Secrets of Angels which also happens to be one of the tracks - and 21+ minutes long. Ironically this started out as a very simple idea, in fact it was meant to be a short acapella piece but grew.. and grew... There is a meaning to the title - well reveal more in the New Year! At the start of the year I was still in writing mode whilst putting together some pre-production demos for the tracks that were just about finished. It was quite a productive spell and one of my personal favourite tracks on the album came into being towards the end of this period. Hayley and myself were very focused on lyrics and by the summer we had pretty much everything finished. There are themes and threads running through the album - I wont say concept (oops, too late) but there is a cohesive feel to the whole thing... perhaps our darkest album to date. We announced our amazing new drummer Jimmy Pallagrosi in May although Jimmy had been working with us behind the scenes for quite a while. Wed been working with session drummers for some time and whilst this was convenient in the sense of having good drummers for tours we were very keen to get back to a more inclusive team spirit. In June we headed into Real World - Peter Gabriels studios in Box, Wiltshire. Aside from the fact its a great recording facility, Id be lying if I didnt admit this was also something of a personal pilgrimage having been a fan of the mans music for most of my life. The whole band felt the same. It was a great experience and we came away with some fantastic sounding drums. Hat off to Jimmy for delivering in spades! This was the turning point in the recording and from here we headed into Enricos London based Quadra Studios to continue work on the album. Aside from being a wonderful guitarist, Enrico is also extremely skilled behind the mixing desk and hes really stepped up to the plate in terms of helping us deliver the album we envisioned. Every member of the band has put their heart, soul and a lot of passion into this album - Karnataka albums, by their very nature, are major undertakings and this album is no exception - in some ways this is probably our most ambitious recording to date. Weve had some great guest musicians join us on the album - many of you will be familiar with Troy Donockley from Nightwish of course - hes sprinkled his magic on the album with some beautiful Uilleann pipes and low whistles. We also had Seána Davey, one of Irelands top harpists, contribute some wonderful harp to some tracks and Cellist Rachel van der Tang and viola player Clive Howard from the Royal Philharmonic orchestra adding additional strings and reinforcing Çağrıs great work on the albums orchestration. Recording has continued right up to December and were just about to start the mixing. Mastering will take place early in the New Year and the album will then be sent off for pressing. For the first time weve decided to do a vinyl release - quite exciting and its good to see the format undergoing a resurgence in popularity... and nice to see large format artwork! Alongside recording the album, in the summer my attention turned to designing a new website to coincide with the new album release. Its a responsive design and works across all platforms - and as we all seem to spend a lot more time staring at phone screens these days it made sense to have a site that was designed from the ground up with phones and tablets in mind. In the autumn it was time to start thinking about the artwork. A lot of band discussion on this and interesting ideas circulated. To say Ive spent a lot of time in Photoshop the last few months would be something of an understatement! Its something I enjoy doing alongside the website, although there is the risk, as is the case for most cottage industries, that you end up spending more time on the peripheral stuff rather than the thing you actually want to be doing, which in my case is the music - but its another little creative outlet so I dont mind.... too much! Thats pretty much my year rounded up! Off to Wales for a welcome Christmas break and family get together and then it will be full steam ahead with the album and tour in the New Year. Have a lovely Christmas yourselves and catch up soon. Ill try and update this page a little more often than once a year... theres my (first) New Years resolution! ;-)
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 12:31:39 +0000
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