THE CALM AFTER THE 11 HOUR STORM

I guess we should have expected that when recording a song like BLIZZARD, the heating in the studio should fail. Ali didn’t remove his coat all afternoon and I don’t think the cittern ever properly warmed up, so if there is a different sound about the track, that will probably be why.

We have put down the building blocks now for all but three tracks on Moorscape, so that Kieran and Jad can add their contributions. So when it came to the second session on BLIZZARD this week, we needed warmth so that Jad’s table skins could settle. In meddling with the heating settings in the Live room, I soon created a sub-tropical climate from which Jad soon emerged gasping for air and begging for water. That was when I learned that 25 degrees on this particular thermometer probably meant 35 degrees, and after an hour or so we achieved a fabulous ambient temperature.

Until yesterday when Kieran and Jad got involved with BLIZZARD, I felt it was potentially a weak spot on the album, probably because of the way it is constructed, and possibly because the driving rhythm of the cittern alone was not enough to carry my vocals of limited range. Within about 90 minutes Jad had changed the entire dynamic of the track with some simple but brilliant tabla work, and I warmed to the track just about as fast as he had warmed up in the Live room!

Even with the complete turnaround that Jad brought to the track, there were still uncomfortable gaps between verses, and the chorus with no words needed a little extra attention. Kieran arrived in the studio about two hours after Jad had set off back down south. In that two hour gap, Ali and I completed 80% of CLOUDS, so there was a bit of a weather theme about the day. Kieran was messing around on his guitar while we were listening back to CLOUDS and he played a subtle guitar lick that soon afterwards we used in the song. In total we had 11 hours of studio time yesterday, and it really was a bit of a blast.

BLIZZARD is, I guess, quite a heavy song for a “Folk With Bits” album, and the simple guitar breaks that Kieran added give the song an impact that I felt it was lacking. BLIZZARD reflects our Drover’s battle against the elements and that feeling of “Phew! Bloody hell! ” when you reach the sanctuary of shelter after being battered around by high winds and maybe rain, hail, sleet or snow thrown in. If the song feels as breathless to listen to as it was to create then I believe we will have done justice to that experience.

 Waldeaux, weather or not!