AND THE COINCIDENCES KEEP ON COMING…
Wednesday 27th January was RECORDING DAY 12 for Moorscape, and it was a really useful day of review and consolidation round at Ali’s place. We are playing catch up though, because the day jobs have been very busy, and we are juggling studio time with a number of other events at The Fuse. 1st February sees the inaugural ‘Around the World in 80 Films’ in the cinema, and we have a four hour session that morning to record one, possibly two, of the remaining three album tracks.
I think we are all amazed at how quickly we are putting Moorscape together. This is such a fun experience, and while recording can be quite intense, we still seem to have plenty of time in between to relax and talk about all kinds of stuff, watch videos, and listen to other music. Ali wanted to share a video he and Jabzz made in a mill in Ancoats, where they had stumbled across multiple bags of polystyrene balls. It is mainly the two of them immersed in these things and is so much fun to watch.
As the spectacle unfolded, I asked “which mill did you record this in?” almost knowing the answer before I opened my mouth. It was of course Hope Mill, where FC United of Manchester had their office base until they moved to Broadhurst Park in May last year. So we talked about how the ramshackle elevator in this fabulous Victorian mill was often rendered useless because the last user hadn’t closed the outer sliding door properly, and how it was actually quite fun to walk up the worn stone spiral stairs between floors.
It is because of the football connection that I know the mill owner David French. So I said to Ali “Do you know David French then?” “Know him?!!” was his reply, I’ve recorded his son Aaron’s stuff…” and so it went on. If you read previous blog posts you will find ‘A Series of Happy Accidents’ which tells a part of the journey that has led us to nearly completing our album, but we really weren’t expecting this new common ground.
Back to the day job, I had a meeting yesterday in Peterborough and because it involved driving back to Manchester via Leicester and I needed to break the journey, I arranged to meet Matt Steady who I met via Twitter @Mattstoicsteady at the tail end of last year. So we met for an hour at Leicester Forest East services, which seems to be a meeting place for weirdos, and talked through possible collaborations.
I had bought Matt’s album the previous week and listened to it on the way down the previous day, but it kind of washed over me because I was in day job mode. So after a great meeting, I listened several times as I battled my way up the M1 and across Woodhead Pass in high winds, and the more I listened the more I realized how much our music has in common, both in substance and mood. So I am glad to say that we are inviting Matt to work with us on an extension to our Moorscape project. But let’s get the album released first!
Waldeaux & Weirdos at Leicester Forest East