New album progress
Some news on the new Darkroom album - it's nearly done!
The track listing is finalised (there are 9 tracks -
two sides of 4 tracks each, with an 'intermission'),
and the tracks are all named. On Thursday it's being
professionally mastered - a first for a Darkroom album
- and then we need to see about some cover art and
getting the thing made. From which you'll gather that
we're not throwing in the towel on physical delivery of
music just yet. (I still buy CDs myself, so I feel
other people must do too.) This time however we'll be
doing our best to get a vaguely simultaneous release on
iTunes etc.
What's the music like, I hear you ask. Well, it's something of a departure if you know us from recent stuff, like the podcast, or the Fallout series, but recognisably the work of the same people. Only one track on the album would class as 'ambient', which is the first word I've chosen to describe what we do for years. In a way it's back to the song-type music we explored on Seethrough, though obviously without a vocalist this time. The inclusion of a live drummer on several tracks lends it some post-rock accessibility, but I don't think anyone's going to confuse us with Tortoise. The brief for the album was "guitar under the microscope". It's not the album I thought we were going to make, but it took on a life and direction of its own, and I'm very pleased with where it ended up.
We took some new photos too, with a view to using them on the sleeve, or in related publicity material. I quite like this one - we look adequately enigmatic, without looking suicidal or homicidal.
What's the music like, I hear you ask. Well, it's something of a departure if you know us from recent stuff, like the podcast, or the Fallout series, but recognisably the work of the same people. Only one track on the album would class as 'ambient', which is the first word I've chosen to describe what we do for years. In a way it's back to the song-type music we explored on Seethrough, though obviously without a vocalist this time. The inclusion of a live drummer on several tracks lends it some post-rock accessibility, but I don't think anyone's going to confuse us with Tortoise. The brief for the album was "guitar under the microscope". It's not the album I thought we were going to make, but it took on a life and direction of its own, and I'm very pleased with where it ended up.
We took some new photos too, with a view to using them on the sleeve, or in related publicity material. I quite like this one - we look adequately enigmatic, without looking suicidal or homicidal.
os, July 2008
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Os's Last.fm profile
14/07/08 20:49 Filed in: website
Just in case anyone wants to up their cyber-stalking of
Darkroom band members, my Last.fm profile is here:
http://www.last.fm/user/expertsleepers/
Caveat: I share my iTunes library with my wife, so the charts and playlists you see will be skewed slightly. I, for example, am not a great Tori Amos fan, contrary to what Last.fm would have you believe.
os, July 2008
http://www.last.fm/user/expertsleepers/
Caveat: I share my iTunes library with my wife, so the charts and playlists you see will be skewed slightly. I, for example, am not a great Tori Amos fan, contrary to what Last.fm would have you believe.
os, July 2008
Broken Flowers and Ethiopiques
14/07/08 20:43 Filed in: other
music
The Bill Murray film Broken Flowers was on the other
day, and I was rather taken with the soundtrack. Turns
out much of it is Ethiopian jazz/funk from the series
"Ethiopiques", of which there's a rather handy "best
of" - see www.ethiopiques.info.
Highly recommended.
os, July 2008
Darkroom on iTunes after all
14/07/08 20:36 Filed in: sales
It came as something of a surprise to see that someone
(presumably 3rd Stone) has put the first two Darkroom
CDs up on iTunes. Maybe now would be a good time to
push for a royalty statement. Links:
Daylight on iTunes
Carpetworld EP on iTunes
os, July 2008
Daylight on iTunes
Carpetworld EP on iTunes
os, July 2008
Back - with a new arrival
14/07/08 20:30 Filed in: news
Cheap Chinese mics 'r' us
11/06/08 19:46 Filed in: recording
sessions |
gear
14th May 2008 - the second 'audit' session for the new
album, and time for a few overdubs. One track only
needed a little extra guitar (it must've only had,
like, 10 guitar parts at that point).
Mike had a new cheapo Chinese ribbon mic he wanted to try out - the T.BONE RM700. It's an odd looking thing - like a big metal lollipop. We stuck it in front of Mike's awesome Rivera amp and cranked it up.
The sound is - interesting. Makes things sound a bit old and knackered. Also it turns out there was a nasty resonant buzz on something - maybe the mic, maybe the cab - but fortunately we recorded a DI signal too. You should still be able to hear some of the buzz on the album, where we felt it was tasteful rather than annoying.
os, June 2008
Mike had a new cheapo Chinese ribbon mic he wanted to try out - the T.BONE RM700. It's an odd looking thing - like a big metal lollipop. We stuck it in front of Mike's awesome Rivera amp and cranked it up.
The sound is - interesting. Makes things sound a bit old and knackered. Also it turns out there was a nasty resonant buzz on something - maybe the mic, maybe the cab - but fortunately we recorded a DI signal too. You should still be able to hear some of the buzz on the album, where we felt it was tasteful rather than annoying.
os, June 2008
Forthcoming gigs
15/05/08 12:49 Filed in: gigs
Some gigs to announce, all under the Improvizone banner.
os, May 2008
- 23rd May 2008 at The Design Museum, London. Mike can't make it sadly. Playing will be myself (Os), Andrew Booker and Steve Lawson.
- 28th May 2008 at Ember, London. Ember, against all our expectations, has re-opened after the fire that cancelled our residency earlier this year. It'll be Mike & myself, plus Andrew Booker and Simon Laffy - a repeat of the line-up at our last Ember gig.
- 4th June 2008 at The Plough, Walthamstow. It'll be Mike & myself, plus Andrew Booker and Nick Cottam.
os, May 2008
Drums!
09/05/08 18:12 Filed in: recording
sessions
16th April 2008 saw an unusual (though not unique)
event in the Darkroom calendar - a drum recording
session. I'd identified a need for some proper,
acoustic drums (you know, real things that a real
person is beating hell out of, rather than something
programmed) on the new album, so we enlisted the fine
drummer that is Andrew Booker to help us out. (We've
performed with Andy many times recently, both at the
Improvizone gigs and the
Darkroom one-off at the Green Dragon
recently.)
Andy did us proud, recording some excellent
grooves for about half a dozen tracks.
For the gear-heads reading: we used four mics in total. Andy's Blue Ball was in the kick drum. The snare was covered by a dynamic mic of some sort, which I think was the rehearsal room's. Probably an SM-57. We had one half of a matched pair of Rode NT5s as a close-ish overhead, somewhere over the hi-hat. For some reason we didn't use the other one of the pair. Finally we had my trusty Rode NT2-A as an other-side-of-the-room overhead-cum-everything mic. We've been able to get a very nice sound in the mix from this, somewhat random and thrown-together, selection.
os, May 2008
For the gear-heads reading: we used four mics in total. Andy's Blue Ball was in the kick drum. The snare was covered by a dynamic mic of some sort, which I think was the rehearsal room's. Probably an SM-57. We had one half of a matched pair of Rode NT5s as a close-ish overhead, somewhere over the hi-hat. For some reason we didn't use the other one of the pair. Finally we had my trusty Rode NT2-A as an other-side-of-the-room overhead-cum-everything mic. We've been able to get a very nice sound in the mix from this, somewhat random and thrown-together, selection.
os, May 2008