March 25, 2014
Yesterday was a wonderful day in studio at AB Records with Anthony Blaine and Dave Sharow, cherished collaborator, true friend, and bass player of the late Heroincredible. He dropped by to help edit some of the tracks he laid down for me a couple of weeks ago, and to be present while I laid down backup vocals for Twenty-One Nights, which is his song as much as mine. Since the bulk of our agenda for the afternoon was editing, our valiant producer Anthony Blaine did most of the work while Dave and I ate Cherry Blasters, drank gin out of my flask, and giggled like dolphins swimming alongside the Ark.
It was a richly productive session. I am pleased and proud to announce that, of the seven songs that we have started for inclusion on Patience, one is now officially completed: Go From Hence, my bloodthirsty piratical jig in honour of Black Bart Roberts and his crew, featuring the talents of Dave Sharow on bass, Anthony Blaine on percussion, and Sonia Shklarov on violin (whom some will remember from The Dragon-Slayer, The Wrath of Achilles, It All Winds Up in the Glass and Cold-Blooded). I am overjoyed at how it has turned out!
Twenty-One Nights is also nearing completion, and we just laid down some really juicy backup vocals. It was my favourite of all the Heroincredible songs, and we never got round to recording it, so it is a very special pleasure to be doing so now. It is a love song, steeped in passion and sensuality, but if you listen carefully, about a third of the way through the song you learn that the singer is no smitten young girl at all – but the Devil, in a young, feisty female form! At that point, in the song, I chose to use an augmented fourth in the vocals, which, for those of you who aren’t consummate music theory nerds like I am, was unequivocally forbidden by the Church fathers who laid the foundation for modern music theory, because it was said to invoke the Devil. It is known as the diabolus in musica, literally “the Devil in the music”. If you’re interested in knowing what the diabolus sounds like, you can listen to Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata for a famous example. You’ll hear it for the first time at 1:56.
We also made headway on Squalling Stardust – it’s turning out completely differently from the demo version, and I am delighted to say, I have absolutely no idea what the finished product is going to sound like!
Thank you again to everyone who contributed to my Kickstarter campaign and helped make all these good times happen. Stay tuned for more.
