Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Rework - can be just the ticket

Wow! Vince has just left and Andy is upstairs in the Bathroom doing his vocal warmup exercises in preparation for this evening's vocal session. We just had a flurry of creative activity - after our A&R meeting there was one song that we all decided would warrant a major rework, and we tackled that one for the second session of the day. I fet I should tell you about it whilst I am still breathlessly excited. We massively simplified the beat, changed the bass sound, stripped back some of the sequencers, Vince wrote a whole new "string" arrangement on the middle part ( and under the end chorouses) and we put some cool electronic noises here and there on the track (I particularly like the way that the Novation SL Remote supports the MiniMonsta, the impOscar and the Oddity "out of the box" - it makes for a lot of fun). It's still the same song, but it sounds very different to my ears. In a good way! Sometimes it really is best to stop fiddling around and just retrack the song (be that with a guitar band or a electronic project) - after all there is nothing really to lose apart from a few hours time (because we don't throw the old version away) and potentially so much to gain. No fear! Long live creativity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hope you have a safe holiday as well "G" -marss

Urinemysoup said...

Hello Gareth

It is a wonderful, wonderful thing you are doing and I was almost close to sending you a suggestionto move your diary over to blogger.com since it was a free service but I see that you've already done so and I'm glad. So here we are, my bookmarked of the month and every month after for as long you're updating. I find it quite exciting to always log on the computer and find new entries about the workings of the new album. You were my first and only choice whenever I hear the name 'Erasure' and also, my preferred choice for 'Interpol' and hope you go back and produce many of their albums for as long as they exist. All my favorite Interpol songs including the absolute best 'NYC' had your name attached to it. I'm hoping this album is as atmospheric as ever and also reflects and capture the mood of fall/autumn season as best and as brilliantly possible. My concerns de-materialized after you stepped up on board to help out with the new Erasure album. Go Vince, Go Andy...and definitely GO GARETH!!